Byron presses his hands over the open book that he had been reading before shaking his head and turning back to me, he stifles a yawn. “What are you doing here?”
I open my mouth to reply but perhaps guilt has eaten at me enough or maybe it’s that dratted mist on the ground confusing me because I don’t want to talk to him angrily or argue. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I didn’t think that you would be in here.”
I step closer, testing the mist to see if it will change at all if I come closer to him. All it does is disappear where my boot touches it, but it remains doggedly pointing to Byron. I perch on the end of the table next to the stacks of books he had piled up. “What were you reading?” I ask, fingering the rough edges of the pages. Byron has to lean back to look at me, which is a nice change for once. Now that there is only a foot of space between me and it, I can determine that it was not leading to any of the books on Byron’s desk.
No, it was leading to the blacksmith’s grandson himself.
Byron purses his lips. “You know, Willow, I always admired you.”
I stiffen slightly at his words.
He tilts his head. “You were always ambitious and resourceful, and you never let anyone talk down to you. I think eventually if we had stayed home, you would have caught my eye. I would have realized what a brave beautiful young woman you were.”
I arch my brow. “If you’re trying to seduce me so I’ll give up on my aspirations toward Menavillion’s patronage, I’m going to stop you right there. It will take more than a pretty face to keep me from my dreams.”
Byron slides his hand over mine, trapping it against the hard wood. “You think my face is pretty?”
I snort. “Doesn’t everyone? Well, at least when it isn’t covered in red marks it is.”
He tilts his head a small hesitant smile playing on the corner of his lips. “I’m getting off topic. The fact of the matter is that I’m a bit smitten with you.” His hand begins to slide up my arm, gliding over my shoulder and coming to a stop just at the nape of my neck. “And I think that would have happened even if we stayed home and we weren’t thrust on an adventure together.”
He pushes out of his chair so that now he is leaning over me, one hand braced on the table beside me and the other still braced against my neck. The space between our noses seems to be disappearing. “One day, I would have been walking home, and I would have spotted you on that moss covered path yelling at one of the younger boys for teasing poor little Annifred for her lisp, and I would have fallen hard for your spirit and passion just like I did yesterday. And I would have wondered why I was such a fool to never notice you all those years growing up in the same small village.”
My head is spinning. I can barely breathe, and I certainly can’t think, but I seem to be capable of realizing that the white mist has disappeared.
“I would have screwed up my courage to talk to you.” His breath washes over my lips sending the world spinning. The only secure thing here is Byron’s arms around me. “It would have been late autumn and in the middle of the harvest festival. I would have taken your hand.” His hand slides across the table until it finds mine and he gives it a squeeze. “And I would’ve led you off alone. There’s a still pool in the woods where weeping willows grow, it’s magical there at night. And there as the dragonflies dart around us, illuminated by the harvest moon, the stars, and the dim light of fireflies I would have told you how I’d come to feel.”
His eyes drop to my lips. My heart is thundering in my chest and my breath coming out in broken huffs. He is going to kiss me, and in this moment, I want nothing more than to let him do so. A hundred alarms ring in my head, but my thoughts are too clouded to hear any of them.
“And then I would have kissed you.” His eyes drift shut, and he leans forward, but he stops, his lips a hairsbreadth from my mouth. I have only to lift up my chin to close the gap. But I’m frozen as if he has spoken some sort of stone spell over me. Frozen as he jerks away, leaving me suddenly chilled by the lack of his presence. His eyes have that angry glint in them again as he looks at me, there’s something else in them that is just a little fractured. “Except that never would have happened. Because you hate me.”
He turns to leave, but suddenly I’m free from my stone spell. My hand darts out and grasps his sleeve. “Byron,” I whisper, my voice ragged.
He turns back to me, and I reach up, firmly grasping him by the sides of his head and pull his head back toward mine. My lips greedily find his, demanding the kiss they were nearly denied.
My fingertips skim the pulse on his neck as my lips move across the length of his mouth, from the quirk where they always turn up in that dragon’s blasted smirk down to his full bottom lip which I catch between my teeth.
Byron lets out a low growl as he pushes against me, kissing fervently. It almost feels as if my heart will burst. It is beating so quickly and the next thing, I’m processing my back is hitting the table. Byron is on top of me, his arms braced on either side of my head, essentially trapping me.
But I don’t feel trapped.
I want more. More of this, more him. This kiss has consumed me and left me nothing but a greedy husk that only wantshim.
And that is the thought that scares me.
White panic shoots through me, and I shove at him. Byron lifts up just enough for me to somehow slide out from under him although I have no idea how I managed to extricate myself. I stand next to the table my chest heaving as I look at Byron who is now braced on the table looking at me with equal passion and…fear.
“Willow,” he begins.
I whirl on my heel.
“Willow, wait!”
I don’t wait though; I race through the door and I don’t look back until I’m safe in the dark confines of my shared room.
Chapter Sixteen
Mymindisamess right now, but that’s nothing compared to how my emotions feel. I need to get my act together, I know this. I didn’t work this hard, hold on to my dream for so long just to let one little kiss get into my head and drive me to fail my studies.
