“Whatever did I do to make you think I’m interested in libraries?” I poke him in the cheek.
“You were interested in what I gave you beneath the table that one time.” Farron crawls further onto my lap, bringing his lips to my ears. “The Great Scriptorium of Alder has plenty of hidden places.”
My body heats at the memory: his soft mouth, my fingers clenching the stone table, knowing people were browsing only stacks away. I feel my cock grow hard against his hips.
“You’re distracting me,” I growl.
He pulls back a little. “We could frame it as a diplomatic trip to my mother and your brother. A Summer embassy?”
My stomach drops because my brother would fucking love to send me there. No matter how we phrase it, he’ll see it as his plan succeeding.
I can’t go.
Not because I don’t want to spend more time with Fare. Of course I do. I fucking adore him. But going with Farron means angling myself toward something so much more than I am here.
It’s not an embassy trip.
I’d be stepping into my role as consort of the High Prince. Fuck, Damocles would love it. One day, sooner rather than later if Fare’s mother has any say, I’ll be living at Castletree, still in Damocles’s shadow.
That’s when it’ll all fall apart. All the High Princes and Princesses of Castletree will realize I’ll never be as strong as Damocles, never as smart as Farron.
Farron will see me for the fool I truly am.
I’ll never belong at Castletree.
Why can’t it always be like now? Fare and I, and the waves and the sand, and hearing him call out my name as we make love over and over again.
But that’s not the destiny the gods laid for him, a future High Prince.
“Day?” When he says my name like that, tilting his head so brown locks fall across his brow, I feel weak.
Which is the last thing I need to be.
“I’ll talk to Damocles about it,” I say.
And the smile that lights up his face is brighter than the damn sun. “Really?”
“Really.”
We kiss, falling back to the sand. His hands run down my bare chest, hips driving against mine.
“Fuck, Fare,” I moan, nipping at the tender skin below his ear. “If we start this, we’ll have to navigate home in the dark.”
“I don’t care,” he breathes, fingers reaching beneath the top of my waistband.
I brace myself on the sand, and my palm scrapes something sharp. “Ow! What the?—”
Farron’s eyes widen, and he pulls his hand back, inches away from grabbing my cock. I can’t help but let out a frustrated groan.
He gives me a playful smile and grabs the sharp thing that cut me. “I almost forgot. I was making this.”
In his hands are shells and a piece of red sea glass strung onto twine. He flushes, running his thumb over it.
“That red piece is from the treasure we found,” I murmur. “Did you find it in my room?”
“Yes, when you were sleeping, I noticed so many of the shells that washed up, and they were so beautiful. And I put them together, and it’s, uh… It’s for you.”
“For me?”
