Chapter Twenty-Two #2
I didn’t know it until I came here, having never spent much time thinking of anything but my duty, but I don’t want an ordinary life, war or not. Not now that I know that something better is possible.
All the danger, all the intrigue of the palace. It should terrify me, but it’s the first time I’ve felt alive. How can I be content with the ordinary when the extraordinary exists?
I can’t be with Titus. And not just now because it jeopardizes the plan. Not ever.
Because of me.
Because I can’t stop feeling Ronan’s eyes on me as I move. When I dance, it’s for him. When I laugh at Titus’s words, it’s Ronan that I look to, wishing he could share in the joke.
I don’t know what I’m going to do about the plan or Adria or Larus. I don’t know how I feel about what I came here to do or what it will mean for my people if I fail to do it.
But I know one thing: I’m done pretending. I don’t need to pretend anymore. Maybe I was never pretending at all.
I want Ronan.
He arrives at my side the moment after I think it.
“Excuse me,” I say, curtsying to Titus, who bows to Ronan, understanding without explanation.
“I was wondering if you had forgotten me,” I say, moving off the dance floor.
His jaw twitches as he leans in closer so we’re not overheard. “Me? When you’ve spent the entire evening with someone else?” There’s heat in Ronan’s words, more than I had expected.
I haven’t been with Titus for long, really. Four dances, maybe five, all of them fast with minimal contact. I’m reminded of his reaction to me thinking of Taran in his sitting room. “Are you always this jealous?” I ask. I hate to admit that it thrills me a little if he is.
He rubs his thumb over his mouth as he thinks of a response, and I find that I’m jealous of it. I want to be the one touching his lips. “Not always. Just when—”
“Ronan, you know what I’m feeling.”
“But not what you’re thinking.”
“The only thing that matters is what I’m feeling.” The music slows, and I take his hand. He takes a moment before he follows, but eventually, he lets me lead him back to the dance floor.
Gods, he’s beautiful, even when he’s angry. Even when he’s being ridiculous. The tightness of his jaw. The darkening of his eyes. He’s so gorgeous it’s difficult to look at him. Difficult to breathe around him.
I wonder how I could ever have felt differently.
He takes my hand, his fingers straining against the urge to hold it tightly, and places the other one on the small of my back, his touch agonizingly light.
I think of the bruise he healed a few weeks ago, the way his fingers slipped into the fabric of my dress.
He’s keeping me at a distance now as we begin to step to the music, and I hate it. I want to be in his arms, pressed to his chest. Safe.
“I flirted with Titus because I wanted to see if I could feel anything for him,” I say to him. He looks at me but doesn’t meet my eye.
“And did you?”
“No.” It’s the truth. As much as I enjoyed spending time with Titus, it wasn’t the same. I stroke Ronan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t think it would upset you. I thought it would be obvious what I was truly feeling. And who was making me feel that way.”
“Don’t,” he whispers. His hand clutches at the back of my gown.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t do that.” He presses his other hand over mine to still it.
Is he this angry with me? Over a little flirting?
He sighs. “Come on.” He leads me from the dance floor, through a door, and onto a balcony. He drops my hand and leans against the stone railing, facing out to Faros.
“Is this about Titus?” I ask. “Really, it meant nothing—”
“No, it’s not about Titus.” His shoulders tense. He won’t even look at me. “I can’t do it, Sylvie. I can’t take it anymore.”
“I can’t do it, Sylvie. I can’t take it anymore.”
I freeze, my mind reeling. What is he talking about? Fear clutches at my throat, making it hard to get the question out. “What do you mean?”
He shakes his head slowly, his hand clenching in front of him.
Then he turns suddenly, taking my face in his hand, his grip trembling.
“This. I can’t take this. I know you’ve been pretending.
I felt it when we met. I let you…I thought maybe your mind would change eventually.
But I can’t go on like this if you’re still lying to me. ”
My breath catches, guilt coiling in my chest. I am lying, at least about some things. I still haven’t told him the truth about the reason we came here. The plan we had.
But does it truly matter now? Now, when I know in my heart I can’t do it anyway?
He brushes my cheek and then my lower lip with his thumb. My lips part at his touch.
“I’m desperate for you,” he whispers.
His words burn through me, lighting me up like a candle. The heat and light travel down my neck, down my back, and settle in my core. I sigh as he wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me to him.
He leans back, closing his eyes. “I can feel it when I touch you. I can feel your body respond to me, ache for me. I can feel your desire. And I want to give you what you want. I want to give myself to you. I want to take you, body and soul. But I can’t, not if you’re pretending.
Not if it isn’t as real to you as it is to me. ”
He removes his hand from my waist and pushes me away.
I take him by his neck, and I pull him back.
I press my body to his. He groans, and his body betrays him, the length of him moving, reaching for me. I take his hand and move it back to my face.
He leans in, closing the remaining distance between us.
The heat of his body envelops me. The smell of him, spicy and woody, like incense.
It’s heady and intoxicating. It feels like the entire world hangs in the distance between our lips, in the anticipation of a kiss that I want desperately, dangerously badly.
I know he can feel it. How can he imagine that I’m faking it? How could he believe that any of this is anything but real to me too? That I would even consider giving my body to someone I didn’t desire?
But I can’t bring myself to say it. I can’t, not while I’m still lying about other things. Even if the truth is that I want him as badly as he wants me.
Maybe worse.
“I know what you want from me,” I say as he backs away again, feeling my hesitation. “But I can’t give it to you. Not yet. Something has changed. But to be with you the way you want me to…”
I pause, looking into the distance. About this, at least, I can’t lie to him.
“The way I want you to,” I say, looking him right in the eye.
He swallows. “It’s a betrayal, Ronan. Of my people.
My family. Even if I’m right about you, I can’t let go of them.
Not yet. Not while I still believe there’s a chance to fix things. To make everything right.”
I realize this truth as I speak it. If everything Ronan has told me is true, it means I’ve been lied to.
But it doesn’t mean there isn’t a chance for us to find a way forward together.
I have to give them that chance. Adria, but especially Larus.
I have to know what Larus has to say before I can turn my back on them completely.
“I’m not asking you to let go of your people—”
“You are, Ronan.” I think for a moment of how to put it without revealing too much. “You said yourself you know how much we hate you. How much they hate you.” His eyes flash at my correction. “My people would never accept us together. They would treat me as their enemy, my own family included.”
“I won’t let them,” he says, but I can tell he knows that even the God-King himself doesn’t have that power.
“That’s not the only reason,” I admit.
“No?”
My heart pounds as I look up at him. “I can’t be with you because if I do, I won’t be able to let you go. It will consume me.”
“Sylvie.” He pulls me to him again, but this time, he doesn’t lean forward.
He pulls my head to his chest and holds me there, his head bending behind my back.
I stand on my toes, reaching up, and he obliges me, bending down so that our heads are on each other’s shoulders, holding each other in a tight embrace.
“I should walk away from this,” he mutters, his breath in my hair, his fingertips stroking my back. “But fuck, I don’t want to.”
I feel his words deep within me as he breathes, the heat of his body pressing into my chest. I breathe with him, our bodies rising and falling together.
“I’m not pretending,” I tell him. Here, in his arms, I can tell him that much.
I can’t look him in the eye and say it, but I can say it with my body against his.
I breathe him in—spice and cedar and smoke—and I sink my hands into his back, pulling him harder against me.
He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and I unfold. “I want you,” I say, my voice quiet. “I’ve wanted you for a long time.”
He sighs against my shoulder, his lips brushing it as he speaks. “I want you so fucking badly it hurts.”
So take me, I think, but I don’t say it. I can’t say it.
But I know he can feel it, and I can feel his growing desire for me between us.
He lifts his head a bit until his lips hover over the bare skin where my neck meets my shoulder.
Then he presses the softest, faintest kiss there.
It’s tentative and full of restrained longing, full of the need that pulses within him, the need he’s trying desperately to hold back.
“Go,” he whispers. “Go, before I stop you.”
I don’t want to go. But he’s pushing me away from him, putting distance between us again, and I know he’s right.
I need to go. If I don’t go, I’m going to surrender myself to him.
I’m going to give him exactly what he wants.
Exactly what I want. I’m going to give in to my desire.
I’m going to let it consume me, let it take me over until the only thing that’s left is my primal need for him.
I take a slow, reluctant step away from him. It hurts physically to do it. The distance between us is cold and cruel, a biting chill that reaches the bone even though the night air is warm around us. I feel as though I’m being torn apart, like a part of me is being left behind.
I hear him shift behind me, hear him struggle as I hesitate.
I hear the moment he loses the war within him.
“Fuck it,” he says.
Then he grabs my arm and yanks me back to him, pushing his mouth on mine with so much force I gasp.