Not nearly as much as I enjoy filling my lungs with her sweetness. “I have new soap.” There is no point telling her that it belongs to Maddox since he is never getting it back.
“Well, I like it.” It could be my wishful imagination, but it feels as if she presses herself even closer. “I missed you.”
“You did?” How is that possible when she lives in such a grand place? It is a wonder she even remembers my name.
When she nods, her wild hair tickles my cheeks. “Today was an awful day.”
“Because I was not in it?”
Her laugh is a puff against my neck and an arrow to my heart. “Someone is full of humor tonight.”
I am full of many things. Humor, certainly, but mostly need for this female who wishes only for friendship. “What made your day so awful?”
Her fingers begin to trace the bones of my necklace the way they did at the outpost. Occasionally, the soft tips graze my skin, and I am set ablaze.
“I’m not sure I should tell you,” she whispers.
Nonsense. “My ears are very good at listening.”
“If only all men were like you,” she murmurs under her breath, but I hear every word.
See. Good at listening.
“I was seeing someone briefly,” she says a little louder, “and at one point, I thought the two of us might marry.”
My hands tighten into fists at my sides. Perhaps I do not wish to hear after all. Curse these ears of mine. Why must they listen so well?
Kerris’s hand falls to my chest, her palm landing on my heart. Does she feel how it beats for her?
“But it turns out,” she goes on, “he is a liar and a wretch.”
Thank the gods. If she were getting married, it would take all my self-control not to steal her away for myself.
She draws back to look me in the eye. Every time I see her face my breath flees my chest. “He pushed me into a lake.”
For thirty years my ears have never failed me, but that might have changed because I swear Kerris said some malepushed her into a fucking lake. “What is his name?”
Her brows lift. “Why do you want to know?”
So that I can murder him. “No reason.”
“You’re not a very good liar, Ever.”
“Thank you.” Who knew a tired Kerris would be so full of compliments? It is a good thing we are in her bed and not at the outpost. If Maddox heard even one compliment, he would be on his knees at her feet, begging for more.
Her head returns to the crook of my neck, and her hand that was on my chest drifts lower, to my ribs.
Silence envelops the room as I settle deeper against her pillows. There are so many, it feels as if I am leaning against clouds. On her bedside table, there is a book. What sorts of stories does Kerris like to read?
Carefully, I pick it up.
Unseelie Fae: A Scientific Study.
Kerris is reading about us? Why?
As if she can hear the question in my head, she stiffens. “You weren’t supposed to find that.”
How could I miss it? It was right on her table. “Why do you have this book?” A terribly inaccurate book if this page about contracting warts is any indication of the information within. I do not have warts and neither do any of my kinsmen. Who wrote this nonsense?
