Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“ W eston!” I dart forward. He lifts his head at my approach, and even in the dimness, I can tell he’s drenched, his hair plastered to his forehead, water streaming in rivulets down his face. He’s shivering. Violently.
Even so, some tangled knot inside me loosens at the sight of him.
“B-Birdie?” His teeth chatter around the word. “What’re you d-doing out here?”
“Looking for you.” I drop to my knees beside him, heedless of the mud and bracken. My hands flutter like pale moths in the darkness, but I don’t touch him. Not for lack of wanting to, but because he isn’t wearing his gloves, and his black sleeves have ridden up well past his wrists.
I glance around. A sodden sleeping pallet lies nearby, along with a few scattered clothes, no more than wet, dark puddles amid other wet, dark puddles. A collection of pine boughs creates a lean-to against the tree trunk, but the branches slump, their integrity clearly having given way at some point in the last few hours .
Just his luck.
I turn back to him. “You can’t stay out here. You’re freezing.”
“I’m f-f-fine.” Tremors wrack his frame.
Fortuna’s blessings. This stubborn ass.
“You’re definitely not.” I crawl over to the pallet and hunt around until I come up with his gloves. They’re sopping wet, the cotton lining so waterlogged I can barely jam my fingers in, but I manage. I grab his arm and haul him upright with a strength borne of determination. “You need to come warm up by the fire.”
He resists. “I c-can’t.... The duke’s m-m-men...”
“Won’t be out in this storm. And I won’t let you catch your death out here.”
He hesitates, but another full-body shudder saps him of the will to protest. I haul on his arm, and we stagger through the downpour together, back to the welcoming light of the cabin.
Inside, I steer him to the armchair by the now-roaring fire. He collapses into it, dripping everywhere, quaking with cold.
“Take off your clothes,” I order.
That snaps him out of his hypothermic daze. Gold sparks fly in his eyes, though he refuses to look at me. “What? N-no.”
“Yes. You’re never going to warm up with all that wet fabric sticking to you.”
His brows snap low, and the sight of his familiar indignation swims through my veins like warm syrup. He’s going to be okay. I just have to get him out of those damn clothes.
“It’s not like I haven’t seen a naked man before,” I say. “Or have you forgotten? ”
He leans away, his nostrils flaring. “Forgotten? No. I’ve t-tried. And tried. It d-doesn’t seem to have worked.”
I pause, already regretting bringing up Theodore. Then again... “Well, I don’t exactly love knowing you’ve been with a whole bunch of women, either, but we’ll both survive. If we can get you dry.”
His jaw hardens, muting the clatter of his teeth. “There weren’t that many. W-women. And they all looked like you. Every single one.”
Whatever response I might have given to that lodges in my throat. I’m not sure I wanted to know that, backhanded compliment that it is.
“Sorry.” His voice is still unsteady, but gaining strength as warmth seeps into him. “I didn’t need to share that.”
“No. You didn’t. Now take your clothes off.”
Thank the goddess, he doesn’t argue this time. He curls forward and works his sodden shirt over his head before throwing it aside. It hits the floorboards with a wet squish. Then he’s rising from the chair, unbuttoning his breeches with stiff fingers and stepping free. He tosses those away, too.
He straightens. He’s left his underwear on, but I barely register that fact, because my whole body has been reduced to a hungry ache.
Fortuna help me. He’s excruciatingly, glaringly beautiful. Even stippled in goosebumps, he makes my eyes hurt and my mouth go dry.
The funny thing is, I’ve seen it all before. I’ve memorized the exact curve of his triceps, how the muscle flexes and contracts when he lashes out with a right hook. I know the precise breadth of his shoulders, the angle at which they join his neck. I’m familiar with the rise of his collarbones and the serrated grooves overlying his ribcage, the vee of muscle that leads downward into his sodden shorts. Even the corded length of his thighs ceased to be a mystery to me long ago.
But I’ve only ever seen those things in flashes before, and in the company of a crowd. Not laid out in cohesive splendor like this. Not lit by private firelight, in a room that suddenly feels much too small, nestled within a forest that now feels much too large.
I look. And look. A low, liquid flutter beats in my belly.
Weston glares at the floor, apparently ignorant to the silent, irreparable toppling of every daydream I’ve ever entertained. Because I’ve thought about him so many times, at night in my bedroom. I’ve reconstructed what I’ve seen in the ring so endlessly, inside the privacy of my own head.
But this... This is better.
He finally glances up. His hair curves over his forehead, a perfect crescent.
A hiss staggers in through his lips. “Birdie, you’re...” The rest is garbled, but it sounds like a curse.
He abruptly lifts his eyes to the ceiling and presses a fist to his mouth. The other cups his groin, which looks...larger than it did a moment ago.
I furrow my brow, then glance down at myself and?—
Oh.
The rain has transformed the thin silk of my nightgown to diaphanous gauze. The soaked fabric does nothing to hide the hard pink peaks of my nipples, or the dark patch nestled at the juncture of my thighs. The gown molds to my every curve while my hair trails over my shoulders in snaking rivers.
Weston wedges a curled forefinger between his teeth. He bites down and studies the ceiling like it holds the secrets to all existence. “You need to put something on. Something that’s...not that.”
I sweep my gaze down the length of him, lingering on the swell in his shorts. I can’t tell if he’s shielding or gripping himself, but whatever he’s doing, it drives the potent throb in my belly deeper.
That reaction is for me. Because of me .
Bold as brass .
“No,” I say.
He jerks his gaze down to mine. Once there, he can’t seem to help himself. His eyes drift lower, then lower still, lingering on every dip and swell.
It’s like being painted with fire. I let my hands hang loose at my sides, my fingers flexing inside his saturated gloves. I’m so cold, yet I’m burning up. Being incinerated from the inside out by the heated weight of his stare.
“This is warfare,” he says through a dry, cracked throat. “You have to put clothes on.”
I raise my chin. “No. I...like you looking at me.”
Shadows pile into his eyes. “Fortuna, you’re going to keep at this, aren’t you? Until you win. Until you break me.”
Agreement flies to the tip of my tongue, but I bite down. This isn’t fair. I know that. And I promised myself that if we ever did this—truly did this—it would be his choice.
Which I’ll hold myself to. I will .
But that doesn’t mean I can ignore the ravenous throb between my thighs.
“I won’t ask you to touch me again,” I say, feeling my way through what I’m trying to communicate. “I’ll promise you, even. If you can promise me something in return.”
A swallow grinds down his throat. I can feel the difficulty he has keeping his eyes on mine. His struggle boils in the air. “What’s that?”
“Stop walking away from me,” I say. “Stop leaving. I hate it, and I don’t want you to do it ever again. I don’t care if we fight. If we...disagree. But from now on, I want you to stay and talk to me about it. I’ll stop asking you to touch me, if you’ll just stop leaving.”
A muscle ticks in his jaw. The fire’s crackle swells to fill the silence. I can practically hear the gears turning in his head as he grapples with himself.
But Helena was right. He’s teetering, I can see it. Part of him wants to give in. Another part still believes he’s no good for me. That I’m better off without him.
He just needs a push. Or maybe a good, hard shove.
“Please.” I pour every ounce of myself into the word, until it’s more than merely heartful. It’s a confession. “I’ve hated being away from you these past weeks. I’m no good at it. At not having you in my life.”
His face is unreadable, but his dangling hand clenches at his side. After a long moment, he says, “It’s not exactly my forte, either. I almost came back. So many times, I almost came back.”
Something bright and sweet flickers in my chest. It takes me a moment to place it, but when I do, I yield to a shaky smile. Hope. “Then do. For the love of Fortuna, stop staying away from me.”
Long moments crawl by, the tension thickening with each passing second. Just when I think he’s going to bolt again, he expels a shuddering breath. “I can only do that if you stop asking me to touch you. To kiss you. Because it’s torture, Birdie. You don’t understand what it does to me. How cruel you’re being when you ask.”
My breath catches. I…hadn’t thought of it that way. “I won’t, then. Not ever again.”
A beat passes. “Is that a promise?”
I swallow and force a nod. It’s easier than making the vow out loud.
After a long moment, he says, “Okay. Okay, then. I’ll stay.”
A slow breath leaks out of me. Thank the goddess. “Okay. All right. Thank you. Now will you sit down?”
His face pulls into a frown. “What? Why?”
“Because. I want to see you. I want to look at you. I want...” Something heady and dazzling slides into my mind. “I want to try something.”
Wariness hardens his features. “What kind of something?”
“You’ll see.”
The sharply etched lines of his body all tighten in synchrony, but after long seconds of contemplation, he does as I ask. He lowers himself into the armchair, one hand still shielding his groin. He’s almost too large for the seat, his size rendering the thing ridiculous.
But the chair is probably sturdier than it looks. Sturdy enough to take the both of us.
I hope.
“Put your hands on the arms,” I say.
His eyes darken. “Birdie,” he says, a warning.
I wave the word away, though I can scarcely say where all this assertiveness is coming from. Probably the same place that hoards the words he spoke to me the other night. I love you so much, and want you so badly, that I can’t see anything else, sometimes .
“I’m not going to touch you,” I say. “Not directly, at least.”
“Just…indirectly?”
“Yes. But nothing that risks our Marks. I swear it.”
He chews on that, then grudgingly spreads his arms and clamps his fingers around the armrests. He splays his knees, putting himself on full display. And...
My tongue thickens, growing heavy in my mouth. He’s beautiful everywhere. Thick and lovely where he strains against his sodden shorts.
When he catches me staring, something new kindles in his eyes. It almost looks like a challenge, and I realize how right he was—this is warfare. Flat out. But hopefully the kind where we both can win.
I step closer. I end up standing between his spread legs, my silk-clad knees bumping against the cushion. I stare down into honeyed, half-lidded eyes.
For a moment, neither of us moves. The air threatens to combust. Weston’s gaze wanders, carving a blazing path down my body.
I shiver and reach for his wrist, closing my gloved fingers around it. I lift his hand and set it against the curve of my waist.
He stems an inhale. So do I.
“See?” I manage, once I recover from the shock. “We’re not touching.”
He stares at where his hand molds to the swell of my hip. His palm is broad and rough, and gives off heat as if the drenched silk separating us isn’t even there.
I release his wrist, but his hand stays in place. After a breathless moment, he lifts the other to collar my waist in his grip .
He hesitates. Then tugs.
I pitch forward, ending up with my hands braced against the chairback, my forearms inches from his ears. He tips his face up and searches mine. My wet hair drapes around him.
He shapes a velvety curse. “This is what you wanted to show me?”
“Yes.”
“Touching without touching?”
“Yes.”
“This is dangerous,” he says. “This is crazy.” But I have him, because in the next moment, his hands start to roam.
Fire curls and coils around the base of my spine. Goddess, Weston is touching me. Weston Wildes is touching me , and it’s every bit as heady and inebriating as I thought it would be.
He traces my curves through my nightgown, running his thumbs over my stomach, exploring the outside of my thighs, brushing the backs of his fingers up along my front.
“More,” I whimper. “Everywhere you can.”
His eyes flash, and he palms my breasts, testing their weight.
A needy whine slips out of me. He responds with a guttural sound and pinches each nipple, rolling them through his fingers. Sensation zaps into me, a lightning bolt that touches down between my legs.
And I can’t help myself. I climb into a straddle atop him.
He stiffens as my knees settle beside his hips. But my nightgown sheathes me from ankle to collar. The only part of me left bare is my arms, which I keep angled away.
“Still not touching,” I whisper.
He mutters a curse and gathers me closer, apparently emboldened by the protective layer between us. “We shouldn’t be doing this,” he says, but his hands are everywhere now, dragging worshipful strokes down my flanks, tracing shivers up my spine, settling around my ass and squeezing. He gazes up at me, eyes glinting, and says a very filthy word. Then his grip settles at my hips. He yanks me close, pulling my most intimate places flush against his.
My eyes widen at the contact. He tilts my pelvis, coaxing it into a roll, and I gasp. Pleasure spirals through me, silver-tipped and sparkling.
I squeeze out a few desperate words. “Oh. Oh, my goddess.”
He searches my eyes. “Do you feel me?”
“Yes,” I gasp. No way could I not. “But I think you should take off your shorts.”
I don’t want a single layer between us that doesn’t need to be there.
I know how far gone he is now because he doesn’t even argue. I raise my body just enough that he can wedge his hands between us and shimmy his underwear off, and then he’s settling me against him again, notching the hard ridge of his desire into the exact right place. He guides my hips into another undulation, gifting me with delicious friction.
Then another.
A moan flutters up my throat as my head falls back and my eyes close. I want to look at him, want to map the taut lines of him, how they move beneath me, but I can’t manage. I can only squeeze the chairback tighter as a thrum of pleasure builds in my solar plexus. I arch and flex, arch and flex, steered by his capable hands.
“Bria.” He rasps my name on a broken exhale. “Goddess, I missed you. I missed you so much I could barely breathe. ”
I shudder. This time, I love that he didn’t call me Birdie. This time, it feels like he’s giving me my name as a gift.
“Me, too,” I say, and roll my pelvis, grinding against him, the silk between us so thin as to be meaningless. He guides me in a way that must please him as much as it does me, because his breathing whittles down to short, hard gasps.
I’m wet. Slippery. I’m falling and flying, both at once. I buck against him, beholden to the press of him between my legs, to the way he fits against me so perfectly. My belly pulls taut. Bliss gathers everything tight, tight, tight, and goddess, I could come like this.
I’m going to.
I pry my lashes apart and gaze down my cheeks at him. His lips are parted, his eyes reflecting the firelight, his beauty stark and violent and humbling.
“Can you...” I gasp out, “...finish like this?”
“Yes.” The word sounds so raw and unarmored it’s like he’s reached down and pulled it up from some borderless place within himself. “Easily. Can you?”
I choke out an affirmative. My hips churn faster. Euphoria uncages itself in my core and rockets outward along every nerve. Close. I’m so close. Fortuna, I wish I could touch him. Kiss him.
Then I remember I’m still wearing his gloves. I force my grip from the chairback and resettle my hands atop the rounded musculature of his shoulders.
He lifts his chin, baring his throat. “Squeeze.”
Surprise flickers, but the roar building inside me drowns it out. I slide my fingers around his neck and do as he asks.
His eyes roll up in his head. He pulls me harder against him, and suddenly I’m cresting the pinnacle, needy noises flying from my throat as my eyes slam closed and my body detonates inward.
Sensation pours through me in glittering waterfalls. They swell and ebb and swell again.
I fly apart into beautiful pieces. And Weston is clearly doing the same, because he’s all hoarse cries and straining muscle as he wraps his arms around my waist and hangs on. His hips flex up off the chair as he surges against me, finding his release.
When the tidal crash of pleasure finally relaxes its grip, I go limp. My hands fall from his throat. I catch my breath in silence, my fingers trailing downward to frame his triquetra.
His Mark regards me like a triple eye. Squinting. Suspicious.
I stare at where my bare wrists hover an inch from his skin. An inch. Just one. That’s all it would take. It would be so easy.
But I cast the thought aside and force my eyes upward.
Weston’s head lolls back against the cushion. He looks...dazed. Drunk. “That was...”
I brace for something I don’t want to hear. Good enough , maybe . Or, nice, but not completely satisfying.
“...the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he finishes. “That was the highest point of my entire life.”
I blink. “Really? Even though it’s not as much as you’ve done with?—”
“Birdie.” He lifts his head, shaking some of the haze from his eyes. “They were nothing. Just stand-ins for you. And poor ones, at that.”
Something tender awakens at the base of my throat—some fragile, featherless emotion I want so fiercely to protect .
“And I always had to rush through,” he adds. “I’ve never just...enjoyed it.”
I hold his eyes. He holds mine.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
And there they are again, those two words, in all their simplistic glory.
“Thank you ,” I say, after a beat. “That was the highest point of my life, too.”
A ghost of a smile touches his mouth before he suppresses it. I almost get lost in the way he’s looking at me, because I want to exist here forever, in this tenuous peace we’ve forged with our bodies. I want this moment to stretch and stretch and never end.
Eventually, though, it does. It has to. I climb off him, acutely aware that my nightgown is sticky and even wetter than before. He sprawls bonelessly in the chair, his release glistening on his skin, and I squash the desire to kneel before him. I want to drag my tongue across the ridges of his abdomen, find out what he tastes like.
I hate that I never will. That I promised I wouldn’t.
But that , what we just did... I’d do that a thousand times over again, if he’d let me.
“It could be like this every night, you know,” I say softly. “You and me. Together but apart. We could make it work. And you’d never have to rush, with me. You wouldn’t have to worry.”
He blinks once, long and—I dare to think—considering. It’s clear that what we just shared has torn away some of his shields, because there’s no guardedness in his voice when he says, “I love you. So much that I don’t know what to do with myself sometimes. And… Fortuna, I can’t believe I’m saying th is, but I’d love nothing more than to marry you and have you swan around this cabin wearing a soaked nightgown all the time.”
I hold my breath, sensing there’s more. “But?”
He grinds his molars together. “But… But …even if you agreed to do it my way, even if you promised to keep your Mark forever, Brendan would never allow it. I knew that when I proposed. I’ve always known. As long as you have your triquetra, you’re destined for someone richer and more influential than I’ll ever be.”
The air cools, even though the flames haven’t lessened. “So that’s...what? That’s it? That’s okay with you?”
“No,” he says, with a trace of his usual fire. “Of course not. I hate it. But that doesn’t mean I can change the rules.”
“But you know Brendan’s only marrying me to Alverton for his own sake.”
He chews on that for a moment. “Yes. And part of me hates him for that. Even though he’s my best friend.”
“But why?” The shrillness of my tone surprises me. “Why do you still think of him that way when he denied you? When he’s so...selfish? Greedy?”
Weston sighs, but doesn’t break from my gaze, like he usually does. That simple fact tells me we’ve surpassed some barrier. A new trust expands between us, soft and fresh, like the newly unfurled wings of a butterfly, poised to harden in the sun.
“Because there’ve been three people in my life,” he says, “who’ve treated me like I matter. One of them is you.”
He props his elbow on the armrest and ticks off names on his fingers. “The second is Helena. Your brother’s the third. So, yes, Brendan may be selfish. And greedy. But he wasn’t always that way. And he’s one of the only people I’ve ever been able to just exist with. Everyone else stays away, and it’s better like that, but him...he was always different. Maybe because he had a Charm for a sister, and could afford to spend time with a Null without suffering for it, but he was my friend when friends were a luxury I couldn’t afford. And that means something to me. More than I can put into words.”
Whatever retort I had planned deserts me. I can’t argue with that. I would never presume to deny him what he considers his sole true friendship.
“Okay. I think I get it.” And I do. “But...that doesn’t mean we have to listen to him. We could get married on our own and tell him afterward. He’d have no choice but to deal with it, then. My parents, too, if they ever come home. And that’s the only way the duke’s men will stop coming for me. The only way out of this that doesn’t involve me marrying Alverton.”
His mouth flattens to a thoughtful line, and my heart lifts. Fortuna’s blessings, he’s actually thinking about it.
“Is that really what you want?” he finally says. “To marry someone who can never fully please you?”
“You pleased me just now.” The words tumble out. “That was...” Everything Theodore couldn’t manage , I almost say.
Weston’s lips twist, as if I’ve made the declaration out loud.
I swallow and change tacks. “Incredible. Even better than I’d hoped. And trust me, I’d hoped. Endlessly. And also, I love you. In the permanent, branded-on-my-soul kind of way. I love you so much that I’d gladly take just half of you over the entirety of any other man.”
His eyes widen, and then he closes them, as if basking in that. When he refocuses on me, he looks faintly awestruck. “I never dreamed I’d actually hear you say that to me.”
I make a soft, plaintive sound. “I’ve been wanting to say it for ten years. It’s been true, all that time.”
A wealth of emotion passes over his face—nearly every feeling I can put a name to, except anger.
His fingers tap rhythmically against the chair. “If we did this...”
Every muscle in my body winds tight. He’s actually talking about this. Considering this. I can scarcely believe it.
“...it would solve some problems. Problems I don’t have any other solution to.”
My heart takes a flying leap into my throat.
“I’d be able to protect you,” he says. “From the duke, at least. And from Brendan’s bad decision-making.”
“Yes.” The word comes out as a cry, so freighted with joy I’m surprised it doesn’t break in half. “You could.”
“But...” He searches my face. “You couldn’t ever touch me. You understand that, right? You’d have to keep your promise. Because I’m only so strong. It’s taken everything I had just to stay away from you these past weeks.”
That tender thing in my throat swells and hums. “Yes. Okay. I could do that. If it meant being your wife.”
Hope and hesitation mingle in his eyes. “Maybe I should’ve considered the upsides of wet nightgowns earlier. It just…didn’t occur to me that it would ever be an option.”
My laugh comes out half-sob. Something is happening. A future is coming to life around us, like spring blooms pushing through the snow after a long, lean winter. The room lightens and brightens and wraps me in warmth .
“You know, when I built this place,” he says quietly, “I didn’t actually plan to wall these rooms off.”
I suck down an inhale. He looks taken aback, like he’s already shocked by what he’s about to say.
I hold still. I don’t dare interrupt.
“I...meant to build an open archway,” he says haltingly. “But on the day I went to do it, I just kept mortaring. Stone after stone. A whole wall. Solid. And when I stepped back to look, I felt like an idiot. Because I knew exactly what I’d done, and why. Deep down, I dreamed of having you here. You on your side, me on mine. Together but apart. Like you said.”
My throat tightens. The fact that he’s imagined a life with me, even if we can never join in the way we both crave, sets my soul ablaze.
“Together but apart,” I whisper.
His brow creases. “Would that really be enough for you? Can it be?”
“Yes.” It’s absolutely enough. It’s everything.
“You’d have to be sure. Completely.”
“I am.” No hesitation.
He chews on his lip. Silence presses in from all sides, and I hold my breath. Whatever he says next will decide everything.
“Then...” He pauses, as if trying his answer out in his head before giving it. “I guess I should propose. Again.”
I take a second to process the words. When their meaning settles, joy floods me, preserving the moment in perfect diamond clarity. This time, there’s no coercion, no desperation. Just Weston and I choosing each other, of our own free will.
“Yes.” I can barely get the word out, it’s so loaded with wonder. “That’s your answer. Yes. Forever yes. You don’t even have to ask.”
A telltale glint rises in his eyes. But he clears his throat and pulls himself to standing. He comes close and peers down, and he’s so...pure right now. Unadorned. More himself than he’s ever allowed me to see before.
“I’d choose half of you, too,” he says. “I’d choose your little toe, even. Over any other woman.”
Emotion rushes up my throat. I long to rise on tiptoes and feather my mouth against his. It would be safe, probably, if it only lasted a moment. But I crush the urge in a ruthless fist, because I made a promise. One I won’t break. Besides, this will be my life, now—resisting him. At least until the day he changes his mind.
If he ever does.
“We’ll go tomorrow?” he says. “And put an end to this idea of you marrying Alverton?”
“Tomorrow,” I agree, my heart bursting into song. “Where?”
“One town over. Ravenfell. No one will know us there. As long as we cover our Marks.”
“Yes. Anywhere.” My gaze falls to his mouth. It’s a beautiful mouth, as sharply defined as the rest of him. “I can’t wait.”
He smiles. It’s small but genuine, and I can’t believe that this whole time, all I had to do was promise never to touch him.
“Get some rest,” he says. “All right?”
Words fail me. I nod.
He looks like he wants to reach for me, but he doesn’t, of course. “I wish we didn’t need a wall between us. But I don’t trust myself without one. I’d probably find my way from my bed to yours in my sleep. Do something that can’t be undone, without even meaning to.”
I manage another nod.
“So I’ll see you in the morning, Birdie. All right?”
“All right.”
A moment later, he’s tugging on his underwear and gathering his clothes. He slips out the door, closing it softly behind him, and I stand in the flickering firelight, my arms wrapped around myself. On the far side of the wall, Weston bustles around. The sounds fill my ears like a symphony.
Together but apart . And tomorrow, I’ll be his wife. We’ll pledge our lives to one another, even if we can never touch.
It might be less than I wanted, and it’ll mean keeping my luck for the rest of my life, but it’s more than I’ve ever had before. And as long as we’re together, nullifying each other’s magic, maybe I can save him from an early end. He’ll even be able to sleep at night, safe on the other side of that wall.
He’ll be mine, as much as he can be.
Gratitude soaks into me, so complete it eclipses any shred of doubt. I fall into bed with a smile on my face.
My dreams that night are spun from sunbeams, glowing and golden.