Chapter 14 #2
He caught my moans with his mouth as well as he could and continued to play with my breast, grabbing my nipple and twisting it between his fingers until my eyes rolled in my skull.
He couldn’t move as well because of my clothes, though, and I was this close to begging him to take them off, but he had other plans.
Letting go of my lips, he planted kisses on my jaw and down my neck, then pulled the collar of my tunic down hard.
Fabric tore. I cried out again. His tongue was on my skin, searching. He pushed down my bra and closed his lips around my nipple.
I saw the Everstill with my eyes closed.
Then came the knock on the door.
We froze, March with my breast in his mouth, and me with both hands on his hair, keeping his head down.
“Miss Reese, may I come in?” Lida.
“No! No-no-no-no—don’t come in!” I screamed so hard, March closed his eyes and shook with laughter, still over me on the bed.
“Move!” I hissed at him, too, the panic suddenly clearing my head.
I pushed him off me and I made to stand up, but before I could, his arm wrapped around my waist, and he pushed me back down on the bed with ease.
Time’s Teeth, he was smiling. His eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks flushed and his hair a mess by my own hands (perfect-perfect-perfect) and he was smiling instead of freaking out.
“It’s the maid! Let go—she could see you!” And I didn’t understand why he wasn’t panicking with me, trying to hide, but…
“And?”
I stopped.
“So what?”
“What…what do you mean, so what?” It was absurd, wasn’t it? A perfectly absurd question.
“Are you trying to hide me, Spade? Are you planning to keep me a secret?” He was grinning ear to ear.
“No, I-I…I…” What in the world was I supposed to say to that?!
“Because I refuse. The whole world will know—there’s no other way,” he said, and he was leaning in closer and closer, watching my lips like he was hypnotized by them.
“Know what?” I breathed, and I completely forgot about Lida as I waited…
“That you’re going to be mine.”
He said it simply, like it was just another statement, the most natural thing in the world.
My mouth opened. Aren’t I already?
No-no-no—Ora, it was just a kiss!
“Miss Reese, I’m waiting!”
I jumped. Pushed his arm off and practically ran to the door, flustered. Behind me March chuckled, I heard him just fine. And I pulled the door open just a bit so Lida could see at least one of my eyes.
“Miss Reese, I—”
“Lida, I will get to the eating hall myself. Please leave.”
She looked confused. “But I—”
“Please, Lida. I’m going alone. Go away. Thank you.” I pushed the door closed again.
March laughed from the bed like he really didn’t care that someone could see him in my room.
I mean, it was…bad, wasn’t it? Someone would have something to say about it, wouldn’t they?
Even so, even through the panic, I was smiling when I leaned back against the door and sighed.
My tunic was most likely ripped, and I had a boy sitting there at the edge of my bed, grinning at me like I was his sun, and I’d just gone through some of the most intense feelings I’d ever felt in my life—but I was smiling.
The other Hands saw us coming out of my room together—and their maids and butlers did, too.
Lida had left, thankfully, but the looks and grins and wiggling brows the others gave us were enough to keep me flushed all throughout lunch and workout with Asha and Hector.
It’s not like they were surprised after Reggie had told everyone we’d made out that night at the junkyard, but I still felt like I wanted to disappear into thin air every time I caught them staring.
March, on the other hand, could not care less. If anything, he was glowing.
I kind of adored him for it even more.
Of course, I’d never say it. Too shy still.
Calren stayed with us through it all. He never left our side at the arena or at dinner.
We didn’t want to rest before we ate, even though we were exhausted.
Asha had really upped her game. She no longer required us to run laps.
Instead, they put us in these tunnels with very low oxygen to see how long we could hold our breaths.
And then they had these labyrinths underground in the outer part of the arena, which shifted all the time, to test our orientation skills.
We had to balance on moving platforms for minutes at a time, and climb ropes within a specific timeframe now, too.
Still, we wanted to save time so that we could meet up to go to the junkyard earlier. We still had a lot to talk about.
The situation with Calren had improved somewhat, I thought.
He even spoke semi-normally during dinner, made jokes, asked questions.
It still wasn’t the same. We were hesitant to answer, hesitant to even look him in the eye for longer than a tick.
Whatever it was that had changed so much after the first trial, I was still hopeful that things would eventually go back to normal.
But in the back of my mind the dread remained, its source a thought I didn’t want to acknowledge at all for the moment: how much worse was this going to get after the second trial?