Slowly enough that I could have changed my mind three times before he reached me.
I stayed where I was.
He stopped in front of me, and his Pull found all the places Quill’s office had left feeling empty inside. Cool stone beneath my tongue, sugar darkening at the back of my throat, the clean warmth of linen against skin.
My Mark answered so sharply my breath caught and hitched.
His darkened on his forearm.
The space between us tightened until standing apart felt like a choice both of us were incapable of making.
Caspian lifted one hand and waited.
I stepped into it.
His palm came to the side of my face.
The contact went through me so fast I forgot to be embarrassed by it.
Wrist, throat, stomach.
The Mark on his forearm brightened under my hand, and mine pulled toward it with a hunger that did not feel borrowed from anyone else.
Caspian felt it.
His eyes dropped shut for half a second.
When he opened them, careful had become costly.
His thumb touched the corner of my mouth where Marcushad cut me days ago, just a sliver of a scar remaining now, gentle enough that the memory didn’t hurt.
“Still feel it?” he asked.
“Barely.”
“I should have killed him.”
“That would have made the dining hall awkward.”
“I do not care about lunch.”
“That’s how I know you were upset.”
His lips quirked up, but before he could smile, I rose onto my toes and kissed him.
For half a second, Caspian let me lead.
Then restraint left him in a single breath.
His hand slid into my hair. The other caught my waist, and the Pull struck between us hard enough that we both stopped breathing, cool and sweet in my mouth as his Mark dragged toward mine beneath the inch of air between our wrists.
I had thought kissing Caspian would be cold because so much of him had been. I had been wrong.
He kissed like a man who had spent years learning control and had just discovered control could be spent.
I made a sound into his mouth.
He stopped at once.
