I press my body to his. He groans, and his body betrays him, the length of him moving, reaching for me. I take his hand and move it back to my face.
He leans in, closing the remaining distance between us. The heat of his body envelops me. The smell of him, spicy and woody, like incense. It’s heady and intoxicating. It feels like the entire world hangs in the distance between our lips, in the anticipation of a kiss that I want desperately, dangerously badly.
I know he can feel it. How can he imagine that I’m faking it? How could he believe that any of this is anything but real to me too? That I would even consider giving my body to someone I didn’t desire?
But I can’t bring myself to say it. I can’t, not while I’m still lying about other things. Even if the truth is that I want him as badly as he wants me.
Maybe worse.
“I know what you want from me,” I say as he backs away again, feeling my hesitation. “But I can’t give it to you. Not yet. Somethinghaschanged. But to be with you the way you want me to…”
I pause, looking into the distance. About this, at least, I can’t lie to him. “The wayIwant you to,” I say, looking him right in the eye. He swallows. “It’s a betrayal, Ronan. Of my people. My family. Even if I’m right about you, I can’t let go of them. Not yet. Not while I still believe there’s a chance to fix things. To make everything right.”
I realize this truth as I speak it. If everything Ronan has told me is true, it means I’ve been lied to. But it doesn’t mean thereisn’t a chance for us to find a way forward together. I have to give them that chance. Adria, but especially Larus. I have to know what Larus has to say before I can turn my back on them completely.
“I’m not asking you to let go of your people—”
“You are, Ronan.” I think for a moment of how to put it without revealing too much. “You said yourself you know how much we hate you. How muchtheyhate you.” His eyes flash at my correction. “My people would never accept us together. They would treat me as their enemy, my own family included.”
“I won’t let them,” he says, but I can tell he knows that even the God-King himself doesn’t have that power.
“That’s not the only reason,” I admit.
“No?”
My heart pounds as I look up at him. “I can’t be with you because if I do, I won’t be able to let you go. It will consume me.”
“Sylvie.” He pulls me to him again, but this time, he doesn’t lean forward. He pulls my head to his chest and holds me there, his head bending behind my back. I stand on my toes, reaching up, and he obliges me, bending down so that our heads are on each other’s shoulders, holding each other in a tight embrace.
“I should walk away from this,” he mutters, his breath in my hair, his fingertips stroking my back. “But fuck, I don’t want to.”
I feel his words deep within me as he breathes, the heat of his body pressing into my chest. I breathe with him, our bodies rising and falling together. “I’m not pretending,” I tell him. Here, in his arms, I can tell him that much. I can’t look him in the eye and say it, but I can say it with my body against his. I breathe him in—spice and cedar and smoke—and I sink my hands into his back, pulling him harder against me.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and I unfold. “I want you,” I say, my voice quiet. “I’ve wanted you for a long time.”
He sighs against my shoulder, his lips brushing it as he speaks. “I want you so fucking badly it hurts.”
So take me,I think, but I don’t say it. I can’t say it.
But I know he can feel it, and I can feel his growing desire for me between us. He lifts his head a bit until his lips hover over the bare skin where my neck meets my shoulder. Then he presses the softest, faintest kiss there. It’s tentative and full of restrained longing, full of the need that pulses within him, the need he’s trying desperately to hold back.
“Go,” he whispers. “Go, before I stop you.”
I don’t want to go. But he’s pushing me away from him, putting distance between us again, and I know he’s right. I need to go. If I don’t go, I’m going to surrender myself to him. I’m going to give him exactly what he wants. Exactly what I want. I’m going to give in to my desire. I’m going to let it consume me, let it take me over until the only thing that’s left is my primal need for him.
I take a slow, reluctant step away from him. It hurts physically to do it. The distance between us is cold and cruel, a biting chill that reaches the bone even though the night air is warm around us. I feel as though I’m being torn apart, like a part of me is being left behind.
I hear him shift behind me, hear him struggle as I hesitate.
I hear the moment he loses the war within him.
“Fuck it,” he says.
Then he grabs my arm and yanks me back to him, pushing his mouth on mine with so much force I gasp.
Chapter Twenty-Three
He kisses the gasp from my lips as he knots his hand in my hair, pulling my head to him so he can claim my mouth.
