Chapter 30 #3
The rest of the world fell away. There were only his eyes, dark with want, and the warmth flooding through me that had nothing to do with the dancing or drinks. I arched toward him as his head lowered slowly, oh so slowly, toward mine.
The door clattered open behind me, and we sprang apart.
“Am I interrupting?” Freya asked brightly.
“Yes,” Griff growled out, never looking away from me. I fought the urge to lean back into him.
“Griff, did you apologize for whatever you did wrong?”
He finally tore his eyes from mine to glare at her. “What the fuck are you talking about, Tagalong?”
She smiled, her whole face lighting up. “Clearly Lexie would never do anything wrong, so whatever she was angry about must be your fault. But you need to get back. Finn has decided to match drink for drink with one of the stable hands, and as well as Finn can hold his liquor, that guy is twice his size.”
With a long, final, piercing stare at me, Griff strode away to go rescue his brother.
Freya’s shrewd gaze landed on me. “What was that about?”
I didn’t answer, just stared at where his back had disappeared. Had that actually just happened?
“I’ve never seen Griff like this before.” Freya’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure there isn’t anything you want to tell me?”
I tried to hide my blush, but I was certain it gave me away as I shook my head. There was so much I wanted to talk through with someone, but as close as Freya and I were becoming, I wasn’t sure she could keep a secret from the twins.
“Nothing,” I muttered, pissed at her for interrupting.
“Could ‘nothing’ have to do with Aine humping Griff in the middle of the revel upstairs and you being jealous about it?” She swished her dress playfully.
I flushed an even brighter red as her laugh echoed down the hall.
We ended up making an appearance upstairs.
I steeled myself for princess duty, grateful to have the other three backing me up.
We stayed as a foursome, Griff somehow making polite conversation with them as though we hadn’t just had an intense conversation about our feelings that changed everything.
As if he hadn’t almost kissed me. But I knew I hadn’t imagined it—when the other two were distracted, he kept looking at me with that unreadable expression that I now knew masked his hunger.
He stayed close, his body brushing up against mine whenever we shifted, too often to be accidental.
The tingling in my stomach flared with every touch.
Once, his hand found mine, hidden by my skirts.
He wove our fingers together, his thumb caressing my palm, before releasing it.
I was going to be a puddle before the night was over.
The night dragged on. When I decided I’d done my princessly duty for long enough, I excused myself. I felt his eyes burning into my back as I eased out of the Great Hall, and I might have added a little extra swish to my walk for him.
The empty hallways echoed my footsteps. I half expected him to appear behind me at any moment.
When he didn’t, I held out hope that when he showed up in my room, we could pick up where we’d left off.
Now that I knew he felt the same, I could admit to myself that I had been drawn to him the first time I saw him, and everything that had happened since that day six months ago had simply deepened it.
There was a rightness to the world when he was present, as if everything had slotted into the correct spot. And an aching hole when he was gone.
I changed out of the beautiful and wrinkled dress into nightclothes, took down my hair, and braided it back. Still no sign of him.
Where the hell was he?
I crawled into bed alone, thoughts racing over everything that had happened that evening. Had I misinterpreted something? I didn’t see how; he’d admitted there was something between us.
Finally, just as I started to drift off, the bed creaked.
My drowsy brain wasn’t alarmed; it had sensed his presence when he entered the room.
He crawled under the covers and took up his usual position—his front to my back, arm loosely circling my waist. To hell with restraint.
I scooted back into him, one of my hands threading with his.
His arm tightened, gently brushing under my breasts as he curved his legs behind mine, our bodies touching everywhere.
I could feel him thicken as I pressed back against him.
I took my first deep breath in hours as I felt the ghost of a kiss on the top of my head. I could have sworn I heard, “You looked beautiful tonight,” as I drifted off to sleep, surrounded by his warmth.
The next morning, he was gone before I woke up.
Guess we were back to not talking about what was, or wasn’t, happening between us.
I reached for Violet’s journal where it now lived on my nightstand. Flipping through it aimlessly, my fingers caught on a page, thicker than the rest, as though two pages were glued together. I pried at it until one of the pages ripped and a piece of paper fluttered out to land on the bedspread.
My eyes went wide as I saw the words written there.
Hey, kiddo.