He adjusted his hand, letting his thumb tug on her bottom lip. “I can hear you in the midnight hour when you cry yourself to sleep. And it takes all of my energy not to go to you, not to comfort you.”
“Kjeld.” All the things she wanted to say earlier evaporated, leaving her mouth parched. “I didn’t know.”
“Because I never told you.” His thumb was tracing the line of her lips now, memorizing their shape. “Just as there are many things you have never told me.”
Regret gnawed at her. “I wish I had, I wish I had told you everything.”
Determined footfalls sounded down the hall.
Kjeld was right.
Someone was coming, but now it was too late to escape. They were about to be caught in King Marius’s study and had nothing to show for it. No plausible reason or excuse. They would be sent back to Aeramere, shamed and humiliated, and she would never make it to Wenfyre to uncover the horrible truth about her mother. Or worse, what if the queen saw fit to punish them in Brackroth instead? Would they be thrown from a cliff? King Marius had tossed Creslyn from a cliff out of spite. Maybe they let the dragons incinerate criminals? What if Queen Viktoria locked them in a dungeon? What if?—
Her panicked thoughts were silenced when Kjeld hoisted her up against the shelves. His rough palms slid under her gown and cupped the globes of her ass. Scraping. Squeezing and gripping. Books toppled to the ground and her legs immediately wrapped around his waist, her fingers grasping at his leather vest for purchase. There was no time to question, no time to object, because then his mouth was trailing a series of kisses down her neck.
Carefully, she wove her arms around his neck, drawing him closer, pulling a groan from within some cavernous part of his chest. His teeth nipped as he dragged them across her flesh, as his mouth made its way to where her nipples were so aptly displayed. He sucked one into the hot confines of his mouth. A strangled gasp escaped her. But she was wound so tightly, she felt stiff and uncomfortable, unable to relax. She kept waiting for someone to barge through the study door, to haul them to the gallows, or wherever they sent nefarious delinquents.
Kjeld pulled back a breath. “Focus on me. If we want them to believe we stumbled in here by mistake, if we want them to think we’re stupidly in love, then I’m going to need you to act like you don’t want to jump out of my arms.”
“I don’t want to jump out of your arms.” If anything, she’d never felt safer in the whole of her existence.
Lines of worry deepened across his brow, and he stole a hasty glance at the door. He adjusted his hold, his hands gently massaging her bottom, angling her so his erection rubbed nicely between her legs. “Then I’m going to need you to pretend as though you want me.”
Caelian shook her head. When she spoke, she never looked away from the determination of his gaze. “I don’t have to pretend.”
“Fucking hell.” He jerked his hips forward, grinding against her, making her want to writhe and moan. “I knew you’d say that.”
His mouth crashed against hers.
Caelian froze, eyes wide as his were closed, his lips roving over hers.
“Kiss me, Starweaver.” He bit out the words.
Her eyes closed at his gruff demand and then his tongue was sliding into her mouth. It wasn’t gentle and exploratory like she’d always imagined. It was brutal and rough. A slashing oflips and a clash of tongues. Kjeld devoured her, he kissed her like she was the only air he needed to breathe, like she was his source of life. His kiss was devastating. Punishing. It left her reeling. Mind numbing. Heart pounding. He took and took and took. And she gave it all.
She was ready to live in this destructive kiss.
To die in it.
Because there was no rush of power, no explosive display of a bond snapping into place. They weren’t mates, and they certainly weren’t fated.
Because Caelian’s magic had been taken from her.
And Kjeld held no magic at all.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Kjeld knew he shouldn’t kiss her.
He knew this whole charade would end in a burst of flames, and it was partially why he refused to be soft and gentle. He kissed Caelian with a vengeance, his tongue lashing against hers, each taste a reprimand. Her erratic pulse thundered in his ears, but she was rigid, wired with apprehension. Mistrust. For so long he sought retribution against her, but every night was sleepless, riddled with images of her, of all the ways he wanted to own her. Gods, he’d dreamt of her fucking mouth. His teeth caught on her plump bottom lip, tugging until she yelped. It would be so easy to draw blood, to make her feel even a sliver of the pain he harbored in the impenetrable wall of his chest.
But then she made the sweetest sound, and the moment her body turned pliant in his arms, he ripped himself away. Kissing her was too slippery a slope, one he couldn’t afford to tread cautiously. It would lead to darker, more dangerous things. His desire for her could not be sated, could not be contained. It was an untamed beast of its own, a damning fixation only made worse by the fae blood coursing through his veins.
Kjeld stilled.
Of course.
Hisfaeblood.
