He paused, prepared for Brela’s reaction of fear, but she just stood there. Patiently listening.
He didn’t know why he expected anything other than kindness.
“My problem is that my emotions fuel the fire, but the fire also fuels my emotions. Ifeeleverything, stronger than normal. I always have,” Cason continued. “You once told me that Dernian and Ovir trained you to detach from all of it, to dive into that fortress. When I was younger, counting worked in the same way, but then I started to see how people looked at me. I learned about their fear, I saw how they tried to provoke me to prove I was dangerous, so I shut off my feelings completely. I became the uptight, glaring man with uncontrollable fire to protect myself.”
Brela’s mouth twitched into a half grin. “I like your glare.”
Of course she did.
“That’s what I’m trying to say, Brela,” he mumbled. “I haven’t felt these things in years… until you. I know this is going to end, but I like who I am right now. I like that you look at me without fear. I like that you challenge me and do insane things to drive my emotions wild, yet still manage to keep me under control. I have no idea how you do it, but I like… I like you. All of you.”
Lie. Iloveall of those things. I loveyou.
Her jaw clenched slightly before she softened her voice. “I like you, too.”
“That’s why this is hard. Because we are still on opposite sides. You have your people to protect, and I will protect Serill as his captain and friend. That might mean I have to protect him from your people, shadow hell, or even the shadow-cursed.”
Brela flinched.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I know you think shadow magic isn’t the problem, but I can’t see that magic as anything other than what it is. Cruel, manipulative, and dark.”
She studied him for a long while before speaking. “I don’t blame you, Cason. For any of it.”
He felt his shoulders slump. “This is what I don’t know how to do. We were always on opposite ends, and there’s no bridge sturdy enough to keep it going. I don’t know how to make the problems between us go away.”
“Then why the hells are you up here?”
“What?”
“It seems to me the answer is quite clear.” She squared her shoulders. “We don’t live in a perfect world where none of our problems exist, but right now, for a little longer, there is still you, and there is still me. Not as Captain and Veil Scholar, but as Cason and Brela.” She stepped closer.Leanedcloser as she placed her hands on either side of him, her gaze darkening. “So, would you like to sit up here, alone, or would you like to kiss me and finish what you started the other night?”
* * *
She’d always knownhow he felt, but it still hurt to hear those words out loud.Shadow-cursed, cruel, manipulative, dark.Hadn’t she proven him right by being all of those things toward him at one point? That list oftricksandevilthings she’d done could have gone on for miles.
But she didn’t come up here to reiterate what she already knew. She came here for the distraction they both needed.
Brela smirked as the temperature spiked.
Cason’s response was fire and lightning unleashed. Just like the night before, one hand fisted her shirt while the other found the back of her neck as he hauled her into his kiss.
Not tentative, but a desperate rush of lips, tongue, and teeth. And then his hands wereeverywhere. On her breasts, around her backside, up and down her arms and curling into her hair. As if they could cram a million moments like this into tonight.
Four hells, she’d try. With the way his hands dug into her, Cason was desperate for the same feeling.
She shoved him back to the table, then crashed on top of him. Her hands followed the same patterns she’d traced the night before, savoring the burn of fire underneath her fingers. Shivering at the spark that his fingers left on her neck, against her chest, along her thighs.
Too much fabric. Desperate for skin, she yanked his shirt free from his pants. He lifted in response, and she hauled the shirt over his head. Then whimpered as his lips and tongue met her neck.
She scrambled to reach the laces of his pants, to get her legs on either side of him, but he had a different plan.
Cason gripped her thighs and stood, and before she knew it, her back was thrust against the wall, his mouth back on hers. Sweet, delicious hickory smoke enveloped her as she opened her mouth to his tongue, trading strokes and moans.
She ground against the leg that kept her pinned, shivering as he responded with his own hips thrusting back.
It was so easy, now. So easy to feel that unbelievably powerful tug between them. Surging through her heart, beating against her lungs, and raging against her ribcage to get closer to him. Calling, calling, calling.
Though it was only asking for trouble, she couldn’t help herself.Brela pressed a hand to his chest and he stopped immediately.
