Until stormy eyes appear inches away. Dray grasps my shoulders and wrenches me upward, bursting us through the surface.
“You can’t do that!” he barks, still gripping me. “You can’t just drop beneath water without telling me.”
“Why not?” I splutter, wiping the hair from my face. “I told you I was fine.”
“Because you’re not fine.” His eyes are wild. “You’re never fine in my head, Flori. You’re always a breath away from?—”
He finally lets go of me to scrub his face with two hands. Every line of his body is taut, like a string about to snap.
“From what?” I tug his hands down and find anguish written all over his face. And fear.
“From realizing you’re too good for me,” he sighs. “From not needing me.”
“I didn’t know you were alive until yesterday. I don’t understand.”
His spiked, wet lashes lower. His gaze lingers on my naked breasts, skin pebbled and dewy. Or maybe he’s looking at the golden rosebud. I fight the urge to hide myself.
“Gods, Flori,” he rasps. “You’re perfect.”
My breath hitches. “What?”
“I said you’re fucking perfect.”
“Show me.” I swallow. “Show me you mean that.”
A growl rumbles in his chest. He grips my waist, fingers digging into soft flesh. The frantic thud of his heart beats against my breast. For a moment, we’re lost—breaths mingling, wet bodies pressed against each other, trembling, and yearning. Waiting. Wanting.
Then his mouth lowers onto mine. His kiss starts slow, tentative, and awkward. It’s not the beast behind the mask. It’s the boy behind the man. The one who’s been in love with me for as long as I have been with him. It’s sweet, reverent, and careful. It’s the way he held my hand when he taught me to throw daggers. It’s how his fingers brushed my wrists insteadof catching me when he chased me. My doubt falls away, and a surge of desire sweeps in.
When our tongues touch, something snaps inside us. Our kiss grows needy, desperate. No mask between us. No barrier dulling the years of longing poured into this moment. I moan, threading my fingers through his damp hair, pulling him closer. Every ounce of me wants to feel him. His hands roam my slick body, leaving trails of heat. But he touches too close to my wound, and I flinch. More from instinct than pain.
He pulls back. “We shouldn’t.”
“We should.”
“We—”
I silence him with another kiss. He groans into my mouth when my fingers trail down the hard muscle of his abdomen.
“Be with me,” I breathe against his lips.
A shudder runs through him. His grip tightens, and then he wrenches away, leaving me bereft and dazed.
I blink as he wades to the lagoon’s edge. Water sluices down his body as he heaves himself onto the shore. His flexing, toned buttocks distract me from understanding what he’s doing until it’s too late. He tugs his leather breeches on, leaves the fastenings undone, and rifles around in the ferns. For what?
It’s the mask. That damnable barrier. My heart clenches as he stares at it, hair dripping, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
“So you’re leaving me again,” I accuse. “Right after I ask you to—never mind. Clearly, I have the wrong idea.”
He whirls to face me, eyes flashing. “I never truly left you, Flori. Not in the ways that matter.”
“Whatever.” Bitterness chokes me.
“I’ll never leave you,” he vows. “But I… I can’t be with you. Not as your king, not when it means you’ll sacrifice what you really want.”
The words pierce me, lancing deep. I watch, numb as he takes a breath, lifts the silk over his nose and mouth, then fastens the edges around his ears.
The transformation is immediate. Outwardly, he looks the same. But inwardly, something changes. I sense it in my blood. Magic flutters across the smiling teeth painted on the black. When he turns my way, the Huntsman is back, impassive and unreadable.
