Chapter Six #3
“An excuse for what?” I didn’t turn. My voice may have been steady, but I knew my face was flaming as though my magic had pooled there. “I need an excuse to finish my work so I can go to bed?”
“Maybe you need an excuse not to meet my eye.”
I stopped with my hand on the closet door, fingers flexing tightly around the handle.
Then I held my breath, turned, and forced my gaze up, holding his as firmly as I dared.
The moment our eyes locked, my Flame glowed, warmth rapidly unspooling through my chest. I fought to reel it in again, the tightness in my lungs reinforcing my leash on the fighting, flickering fire.
“Is that supposed to convince me?” He laughed, though it didn’t light the usual glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “You look as though you’ve run five laps around the market.”
I crossed my arms, another reinforcement around the cage of my chest. “What do you want from me, exactly? If there’s something you need to say –”
“I’ve said it. I think you’re afraid of me.”
“Why would I be afraid of you?”
He shrugged. “I’m a Captain and a Kingsman. Most people are at least a little bit afraid of me.”
“Well, I’m not most people.”
My lungs were in danger of collapsing and the words came out a little hoarse.
I made myself hold his eye for another excruciating moment – then grabbed for the door, only allowing a full breath when I finally stumbled into the cool darkness of the closet.
The shadows engulfed me, a balm to the fiery battle in my chest. It was a relief for all of a heartbeat; until I realised he had followed me, again.
But when he spoke, his usual lilt was flat and defeated.
“Rosie, look, I don’t want to force the point.” He sighed, and I felt him step further into the room. “I just wanted you to know–”
The light shifted across the shelves, narrowing into a slim beam, and I turned with my heart in my throat.
“No, don’t close the–”
The door clicked shut, plunging us into full darkness.
“The door,” I whined. “The fucking door.”
“What about the fucking door?”
In the dark, he was soft and amused, his lilt returning even smoother than usual. It did nothing to soothe my panic.
“The lock is broken. It only opens from the outside.”
Replacing it had been on my mental list of tasks but the priorities were ever-shifting, and with it being Yule I’d opted to spend the money on Sorcha’s gloves.
I lunged for the handle and yanked at it, despite knowing full well that it wasn’t going to budge.
I pulled and pulled, and pulled again for good measure, grinding a frustrated shriek through my teeth.
“Ah.”
I huffed. “Ah, he says.”
An unexpected warmth at my wrist had me leaping back, snatching my hand away – but the Captain just rattled at the door handle. Gods, I was so on edge already. There could not be a worse time for me to be trapped in a cupboard with a temperamental Flame and a highly observant Kingsman.
The rattling continued, woven with a chorus of low grunts as he tried to force the rusty old lock. It did not give.
“Move over.”
I felt my way along the walls to the door again, stepping on something solid, which was met with a pained hiss and the sound of the Captain stumbling back.
“Careful.”
I ignored him and pounded my fist on the door.
“Sorcha?”
Nothing. I pounded again, voice rising with an edge of panic.
“Sorcha!”
I yelled myself hoarse for Sorcha, for anyone, and no one came.
My cousin’s room was in the attic, and the Kingmen were likely passed out in a festive stupor.
I slumped back against the shelves of cleaning supplies on one wall and caught my breath.
The one silver lining was that my efforts seemed to have drained reserves from my Flame.
It now lay curled around my heart, comforted by the exerted rhythm of my pulse.
With my magic safely dormant, I indulged myself in a simmering glare through the dark.
“Happy now?”
“Maybe.”
I adjusted my glare in the direction of his voice, scowling harder. Perhaps his eyesight was better than my own, for he seemed to read my expression in the dark and huffed a dry laugh.
“Well, maybe I am. At least I can count on your undivided attention. On five minutes without you running off to dress a bed or serve a pint, or —”
“Gods, are you that unfamiliar with an honest day’s work?”
“Ah yes, working,” he laughed. “You’ve said that. Working. Personally, I think you’re hiding.”
“I’ve already told you I’m not afraid of you. Why would I need to hide?”
A pause.
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
The soft way he spoke the words didn’t sound accusatory, but I fought to keep my breath even.
In, out; shallow and steady, no air to stir the fire.
My eyes had adjusted slightly to the dark, enough that I could make out the faint outline of him as he moved closer.
In the crack of light filtering weakly through the doorframe, I swore his throat bobbed; swore I heard the pained swallow.
“Why do I need to be locked in a cupboard with you before you’ll speak to me, Rosie?”
An odd sensation spilled throughout my chest, a warm unspooling, as though my magic were rousing and sleepily stretching its fiery limbs. Not now. I massaged my sternum absently, then quickly dropped my hand just in case he really could see better than I did.
“Maybe it’s because you keep calling me Rosie,” I said. My voice did not come out nearly as firm, nor as sharp, as I would have liked.
“What’s wrong with Rosie? It suits you. Pretty as a flower, just waiting to be –”
“If you say ‘plucked’, Captain, you can expect a knee to the balls.”
He chuckled.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Rosie.”
“Rosaleen.”
He laughed again, and the sound was bright and unguarded. I made myself scowl into the shadows, even as my magic stirred like leaves on a sunlit breeze.
“What?”
“That is precisely why I do it. I call you Rosie because it’s just about the only thing guaranteed to get a reaction.”
I stared at his dim outline, the edge of his cheek curved inward and hinting at a smug smile I couldn’t see.
“You’ve been going out of your way to irritate me because, what – you want my attention? Gods alive, why not just yank on my pigtails next time?”
A soft, amused breath, paired with the steady scuff of his boots drawing closer. I curled my fingers around the shelf behind me as my breath caught, desperately needing an anchor, something stable. Especially when he spoke, and his voice had suddenly dropped several octaves.
“If you want me to pull your hair, you need only ask.”
The image flashed unbidden at the fore of my mind, all the more vibrant in the dark. The Captain behind me, my hair wound like a golden cuff around his wrist, his fingers splayed at my waist—
My stomach flipped, then turned molten. Why was I entertaining the thought for even a moment? This absolutely could not happen.
“Not a hope.” My breath was a tremor.
“Is that so?”
I didn’t answer. Too soft, too close; his voice resonated in my chest, stirring my Flame, teasing at it with each lovely lilt.
By the slight stutter in the light slitting through the door, I thought he might have nodded to himself, something confirmed.
Or perhaps he’d moved closer. Both, I realised, when warmth spread through my chest, not just from within my own ribs but from the wall of his body before mine.
The instinct to lean away spiked through me then fell away just as abruptly – either way the shelf already dug into my spine.
I couldn’t back up any further and my Flame was slipping free, seeping through the cracks like smoke through my fingers.
I splayed my hand across my chest in some vain hope of containing it.
It didn’t matter if he could see me now; if I didn’t do something, I was going to burn this room to cinders before anyone even realised we were trapped.
Breathe. Calm.
My Flame was not listening. It was leaking into my bloodstream, fire coursing through me with every frantic thud of my heart. He can hear it. The wild thought came to me half-formed; that he could hear the fire in my veins, that he was stirring it deliberately.
I needed to do something; say something. I managed to force out another less than convincing scoff.
“You certainly think a lot of yourself, Captain. You’re terrifying, you’re irresistible. So which is it, then? Do you want me trembling or swooning?”
He considered for one long, excruciating moment, the silence so taut I could feel it splintering between us. Deep down I knew what I wanted his answer to be, and what I truly believed it was. And somehow, I wasn’t prepared for the answer he finally gave.
“I want you any way I can have you.”
Gods forgive me, I was only human.
I rose up on my toes and kissed him.