Chapter Eighteen. In Which the Girl Must Do Something She Totally Doesn’t Want to Do
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In Which the Girl Must Do Something She Totally Doesn’t Want to Do
Risa went rigid. Javi sucked in a breath. The woman stared between the pair, suspicion forcing the sharp V of her brows to turn sharper.
“Do you know her?” the Sanguine asked.
Risa didn’t wait for a hidden sword to suddenly materialize from beneath the bowels of the woman’s large hat. She leaped forward, clamped a hand around Javi’s wrist, and pulled him down the alley, barreling past the small crowd that had gathered.
“She’s one of them,” she hissed through her teeth, dragging the prince in what she hoped was the direction of the river market.
The streets were practically bursting with people out to enjoy the pleasant evening, the day’s sticky heat dissipating with the promise of a cool night.
While the locals leisurely strolled along the cobbled streets, sleeves and skirts trailing behind them, Risa was convinced that her bad luck was going to have them trip over some stupid Monpiran’s ruffled sleeve.
“Yes,” Javi spat back. He heaved. “I know. That’s why I followed her.”
“You should have told me!” She resisted the urge to shriek and, instead, pulled him sharply around a corner.
“I told you through my eyes!”
“I don’t understand idiot.”
They reached the stone ledge overlooking the esplanade, though it took them some time to find the stairs that led back to the overcrowded market.
She spared no apology to the people she and Javi bumped into as they rejoined the throng of shoppers.
When they passed a vendor selling colorful scarves, she plucked one right off a hanger, his shouts following them down the walkway.
If they survived, she would repay the man. After she murdered Javi.
Somewhere on the ledge behind them was a series of screams, followed by a stampede down the same staircase they’d come down.
Ahead, a crowd had gathered to watch a play being put on in a plaza cleared of vendors. Children ran amok; people shouted as the cast performed. It seemed like the perfect place to get lost until the Sanguines left.
Risa ignored the guffaws and yelps from complainants as she pressed on toward the middle of the gathering.
She turned; wrapped her hands around the collar of Javi’s sweaty, rumpled tunic; and pulled him down an inch until they were eye level and his large, pompous head couldn’t be spotted over the crowd.
“I was trying to get information out of her.” He placed his hands over hers, holding her steady. He must have feared she was going to strangle him. “I was being stealthy.”
Risa rolled her eyes, and somewhere in the distance, a clock tower chimed seven times.
Amina was probably waiting by the small-cake vendor, anxious.
More interruptions to the play forced an actor to shout out of character, “We are performing a masterpiece!” Past the crowd, she could make out the Sanguine woman’s wide-brimmed hat, and beside her, the chipped-jade eyes of El Gib.
“Don’t say another word. They’re here,” she whispered.
Javi strained his neck to peer over his shoulder. He mouthed, “Where?”
Risa shook off his hands and draped the scarf over both of their heads. The gauzy strip of fabric painted the world pink and silver. It was a pitiful attempt at subterfuge, and she didn’t think it would be enough to fool the Sanguines, but it was all she had.
Risa glanced at Javi. Freckles were spattered across his nose and cheeks like a constellation. Beads of perspiration lined his temple, and one trailed down the side of his face and along his jaw. His pillowy lips parted—in surprise or anticipation, Risa didn’t know.
These were dangerous waters to wade through. The heat beneath the scarf simmered. Sweat trickled down her neck. Magic licked across her skin, trailing invisible fingers along her arms and down her spine. Fingers that she imagined belonged to the prince.
And then Javi’s gaze dipped, settling on her mouth. She watched, transfixed, as his throat bobbed and he opened his mouth to speak.
She planted her mouth on his.
Horrible mistake. Stupid idea. No one engaged in passionate kissing in the middle of a shitty market play. Besides, she was obviously unskilled in this area. And it was possibly illegal in several kingdoms, especially when he was betrothed and she was sweating on his royal person.
He remained unmoving against her lips. A beautiful, perfect statue.
Until he kissed her back.
Javi’s lips parted with a sigh, as if he’d been waiting forever for this moment and finally, finally, it was here.
Risa loosened her grip on one end of the scarf and traced a hand up his jaw and into his hair.
His slender fingers mimicked her imagination, trailing along one of her arms, following the curve of her spine, forcing her closer until their bodies were pressed together.
The world could open up beneath them and swallow her whole, a thousand flaming arrows could pierce through her skin, her heart could break into pieces with no chance of being put together again, but she did not think any of those things could stop her in that moment.
Suddenly, Javi removed the hand from her waist and pushed her back. He gasped, and the sound snapped her out of the moment enough to make her open her eyes. She found him looking at her, terrified.
She couldn’t bear the sight of him all horrified. She decided she had to kill him. It was the only way she could live with herself after such an embarrassment.
But that would have to wait. There was the more pressing matter of the Sanguines searching for them in the crowd.
“Just follow me,” she ordered. Then she ducked out from beneath the scarf, wrapped it around half his face, and pulled him down until they were both hunched lower than the crowd.
She scanned the plaza between heads and spotted some crates stacked behind the makeshift stage, piled high enough to keep nosy pedestrians from peering over.
Taking a deep breath, Risa started for them, dragging Javi along the winding walk. Once they reached the crates, they collapsed behind them, gulping for air.
Sweat soaked the back of her dusty blouse, making it cling to her skin.
During the kiss, Javi had mussed her hair further, and now it was a halo of frizz she could feel growing with each passing humid second.
Her cheeks were on fire, her mouth felt swollen and foreign, and never before had she been so thankful that her coloring made it difficult to tell that she was flushed to the roots of her hair.
“Good thinking.”
She whipped her head at neck-breaking speed to look at him, his gold eyes framed by unnaturally long lashes, his flustered face too dark to reveal the blush she hoped was staining his cheeks.
The sight of his slick, pouting mouth made hers tingle at the memory of their kiss.
The way his hands had raked through her hair.
The taste of his lips. The heat of his warm skin beneath the pads of her fingers.
“Escaping here,” he said in a rush. “Good thinking.”
“Ah, yes.” She cleared her throat. Wiped her hands on her lap. “Thank you.”
Silence. He fidgeted with the laces of his boots, untying and retying them.
This was absolute torture.
Risa hadn’t bothered to consider the repercussions of her actions.
She hadn’t thought much at all, her movements urged by necessity.
Causing a distraction, shutting him up—whatever it took to keep Javi from talking and catching the attention of the Sanguines.
There were probably a number of ways to accomplish this that didn’t involve kissing an unavailable prince, but the scarf had been in her hands one minute and wrapped around his neck the next. And he was so stupidly handsome.
She’d never kissed anyone before. What if she was terrible at it? Her lips were chapped, her face slick with sweat. When was the last time she had bathed? It felt like a lifetime ago. Curses, she must smell awful, and Javi looked like he’d barely worked up a bead of sweat.
“About—” he started, just as she blurted, “I’m sorry.”
He interrupted her with a violent shake of his head, black curls flopping. “No, it’s quite all right, I understand.”
“I should still apologize.” Clammy hands in her lap, twisting the end of her blouse. She wiped them on her thighs, but that didn’t help. “I didn’t know what else to do. I could hear them, and you’re so tall…”
More unbearable silence. If he didn’t say something, she was going to say something, and she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t going to be a more terrible revelation than the truth about her curse.
He cleared his throat and licked his lips to speak. “About my pulling away—”
“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head. She didn’t want to hear it. “You don’t need to explain.”
Javi gave a humorless laugh. “Oh, I think I do.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
He huffed a sigh of exasperation and scrubbed a hand down his face. “Do you really not see it?”
Risa narrowed her eyes. “I do not.”
“Then let me explain.”
She shook her head again with enough force to whip her hair. “I am begging you.”
Javi clamped his mouth shut, ground his teeth, and glared for a moment. Then he breathed out slowly, and the tension fell from his face, telltale smirk slotted back in place.
“I know I’m difficult to resist.”
She inhaled sharply through her nose. “As if.”
“Your lips said otherwise.”
“That was out of necessity.”
“Sure, sure. If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”
“I wouldn’t kiss you if you were the last man alive.”
“And yet you just did.”
She scowled and turned away. “Let’s pretend it never happened, okay?”
There was a punctuating moment of silence. He shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”
It was. She didn’t want to think about her lapse in judgment. A kiss was simply a kiss, even if it was her first, even if it had made her heart want to climb up her throat.
Curses. She’d forgotten about her bad luck for one glorious moment.