Chapter Twenty Blood and Whiskey #2
She hummed. This was what she needed tonight: to rage and forget and lose herself in the fire of those ridiculous eyes.
She could allow herself this one night with him.
It would be so easy. In the morning, she could chalk it up to the alcohol, or the stress of the past few weeks, or how long it had been since she’d been touched with care, or this thing that had been building between them for weeks.
For now, all she could think about was what it would feel like to finally run her fingers through his hair or feel his calluses on her skin.
On the one hand, he looked furious, and on the other he looked like he was dying, and she was the air that would save him. This was a terrible idea, but right now, she didn’t particularly care. Reya taunted him with the barest brush of her lips. “If you don’t do it, I will.”
“Damn you, thief.” The moment his mouth crashed into hers, the world around them came to a standstill.
As one hand gripped her jaw and the other curled into the strands of her hair, her back hit the wall hard, and he swallowed the moan she gave up like a prayer.
He opened her mouth with his own, as methodical with his tongue as he was with everything else.
She gripped his forearms, digging in her nails in encouragement.
Without pausing his conquest of her mouth, his hands moved her waist, thumbs tracing the muscles of her stomach as he lifted her in invitation.
She took it, wrapping her legs around his hips, hands curling into his hair, unable to get him close enough.
But he captured her wrists, dragging them over her head as he drove into the space between their bodies.
Reya whimpered at the feel of him, and he pulled back, watching her with a question in his eyes.
When she mewled in protest, wanting to communicate what she wanted but unable to find the right words, he rumbled, “Keep them there.” She nodded, fingers clawing at the stones above her head as he slid his own down to cup her face.
He nipped at her lips once, twice, before angling her just enough to drag his teeth along her jaw.
“Yes.” As his tongue and teeth carved a path down her neck, Reya inhaled sharply—in pleasure, in the relief of being known, understood.
“Pleas—”Caelan had retaken her mouth before the sound could fully escape her lips.
Reya decided that she’d never in her life been properly kissed.
Honestly, it was an outrage. How could she have gone her entire existence without this, and how dare Caelan have taken so damn long?
With her hands right where he’d left them, she used her hips, clutching him to her center as he moved like he’d already been inside her.
She was starved for this, for touch. For the feeling of his hands on her, rough and gentle all at once, hands that roamed her skin like she was something precious.
Something to keep for longer than one night, even if it was all he would give her.
All she would accept. All they would be allowed in the time he had left.
She tried to ignore the voice that screamed that this was right.
That they fit. That she had to find a way to save him.
It was madness. It was torture. It was everything.
And then it was over. As if tripping out of a fever dream, he dragged his forehead across hers with a groan so agonized she thought she might have hurt him and gently set her on her feet, his barked curse echoing down the alley as he pulled away, one hand gripping his jaw like he could still feel her.
It happened so quickly she could do nothing but stand there, leaning back against the wall to try and stay upright.
The hunger in his eyes cleared on a pained look.
She knew that look. Regret. It was more than enough to cool the heat pooling in her core.
“I shouldn’t—That was not how I wanted to do that.”
Reya had no idea what to say. Was she truly that intoxicated?
Enough to have imagined it, the rightness?
She searched his face for the want that was consuming her, but found him hard as stone.
No. She knew when a man was attracted to her…
and Caelan was. But that didn’t mean he wanted to act on it.
There was a difference. Hot shame warred with lingering desire on her cheeks, her chest.
He blew out another curse. “That look on your face right now is exactly why.” His knuckles paled as he clenched his fists, like it took all his strength not to reach out and touch her. “You’re more, thief. And I don’t do more.”
The world spun, and she winced before she could stop it. Because the words burned and she didn’t know what else to do, she twisted out of reach, but he blocked her path with an arm.
“That’s not—” he tried. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Run. Not from me.”
“I’m not running. I’m leaving. I’m hot everywhere, and as you started something you don’t seem inclined to finish, I’ll have to find someone else.”
Empires ended in his now amber eyes as he backed her once again against the wall in a blink, every word sharper than steel. “If you lay hands on another man tonight, that man will bleed.” He looked ready to light the world on fire.
“You are such a hypocritical bastard. Move, Caelan. Go find someone else to spend whatever time you have left with—someone who actually wants whatever the rotting hell this is.” She hated the words. Hated herself.
He shook his head, waging war on all the words he wanted to say. “You are running. You’ve been running your whole life. And you know what I think? I think Lennox Raulin taught you to feel small, and you let him, because it’s easier to be what he made you than who you really are.”
That those were the words that won out hurt. Badly. “Lennox Raulin is the reason I’m still alive.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
“You don’t understand what he’s capable of.”
“Which is he, Reya—your protector or your villain?”
She sputtered, “I—Both! I don’t know!”
“You can’t have it both ways.”
“What would you have me do, Caelan?”
“I would have you get off your ass!” Caelan boomed. A few people entering a nearby tavern stopped to stare, but one look from Caelan and they hurried inside.
She slammed her fists into his chest, and he let her. When she did it again, he grabbed her forearms and held them immobile. Helpless. She was so tired of feeling helpless.
He leaned in, so close their breaths curled together, and she hated how she wanted him even now.
“That night in Edris, when I saw you in the alley, holding your sword against a legion of Silver Guardsmen even as poison spread through your veins and your blood pooled around you…” He winced, as if trying to shake the memory.
“I thought, that is an Alethian warrior. You may not have had the training, but you had the nerve, and more importantly, the heart. But apparently, I was wrong. You’re a coward running from your nightmares. ”
Where before she couldn’t meet his gaze, now she found she couldn’t look away.
It was like she was back in the ocean, struggling to keep her head above the cresting waves of the Heart Sea.
She searched his face for something that might keep her from drowning, but found nothing.
The reverence with which he’d touched her just moments ago was gone.
Seeing he’d hit his target, he finally let her go.
She wiped away the tear that had escaped down her cheek with the back of her wrist and forced a dead laugh from her lips. But there was no bite in her voice as she said, “Then stop pretending like you give a damn,” and pushed past him in the direction of the Sea Breeze.
This time, he didn’t stop her.
Her vision blurred, and she didn’t know if it was because she was crying or because of how inebriated she was. She couldn’t have described how she got back to Dockside, only that the winding cobblestone road eventually spat her out there. How much had she drunk?
Just keep walking. One foot in front of the other.
Waves broke against the quay, and oil lanterns flickered in the sea winds along the road.
She could just see the inn’s pale blue shutters and whitewashed stucco in the distance when she heard the heavy footfalls behind her.
She had a pretty good idea who it was, but they were downwind, so all she could smell was rotting driftwood on the briny harbor air.
“Go away, Caelan,” she said, smearing the tears she could taste now. Her words slurred. “I mean it!”
Then the world went dark.