Chapter Twenty-Three
I wake with my lips against smooth, damp skin.
I’m draped against a warm, slick chest, though I feel myself trembling. And my head is spinning, ricocheting—
I try to move, pull away, but arms come around me. They hold me tight, a hand reaching to massage the base of my neck. “It’s a fever, Vasalie,” says a voice. The sound rumbles, a vibration along the stomach and chest I’m pressed against. “But it’s—”
I don’t make out the rest. It’s as if my ears are clogged; I hear only the sound of my own breath. But it doesn’t matter, because dimly, I recognize who I’m with.
I try to look at him, but delirium pulls my vision into a blue-gray swirl.
Instead I focus on the rhythm of his heart, the rise and fall of it as I move with his breath.
My arms slide around his neck, then I burrow into the crevice of his shoulder, pressing into him harder as if I could leach the warmth from him.
His scent is everywhere. Citrus, bergamot. Salted skin. Intoxicating, the way I feel. I don’t even know where we are, how we got here. Water laps softly against my back. A pool, I think? And he is leaning against the edge, but murk clouds my thoughts until there is nothing else but him.
All I know is that he is holding me, and that I will be all right because of it.
My breath is steam.
The air is fogged.
This is the most pleasant of dreams. For it must be such; it is far too comforting, too seductive, to be anything but. Or perhaps I succumbed to my fever, like Illian said, and now my mind is offering me a last delirious reprieve before I take my last breath.
I would be foolish not to make the most if it.
I tilt my head, nudging his jaw with my nose. I run a finger down the smooth, sharp line of it, then trail it down the column of his throat, following the curvature of his collarbone. I then press into the dip underneath before flattening my palm against the thud of his heart.
“Come back to me, just once,” I breathe, but no sound escapes. Then I do what I know deep in my soul I would regret not doing just before death.
My lips seek his—one last time.
At first, they don’t move. But I nudge into their softness, not caring if I get a response. It can’t be real anyway, so I let myself have what I want: his closeness, his comfort. And here, I find it. I feel him all over me—a gentle, all-encompassing aura.
If I must die, in his arms is where I want to be.
Between his lips is where I want to exhale my last breath.
Then he gathers me closer, his arms coming under my rear as his lips part under mine. Shifting so that we’re chest-to-chest, I lay my hand on his cheek, trace it with my fingers, down to where it dimples. His own hand crawls up the slick fabric plastered to my back.
I think he tells me that the fever is breaking. But I’m hot now, so irrevocably hot, that I find myself begging.
“Please,” I breathe, as his knuckles glide against my spine. “I feel like I’m on fire. Take it off.”
Fabric twists against a knob on my spine. Then I feel it loosen, a button undone. Again, this time lower, my dress parting down the back. The air, humid as it is, is like a caress, setting my every nerve alight. Yes, I could die happy here.
I kiss him more urgently, sweeping my tongue against the liquored taste of his, and he, in turn, draws me so near I feel as if I might suffocate in this bliss. I squeeze my legs around his waist, my hand finding the nape of his neck, the thick loop of hair that I seek to unravel.
There is nothing beyond the visceral, and my heart beats a wild sort of triumph. My mind is slow, fever-addled, but I take pleasure in not being able to think.
I want him to remove this sodden gown in its entirety, but I can barely slip a word between our lips with the way we’re sharing breath, the way his tongue sweeps in a rhythm over mine.
But then he jerks, nearly drops me, his mouth pulling away.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Fates—I’m sorry.”
I don’t want him to be sorry. I touch my forefinger to the indent in his bottom lip, try to nudge him back to me by grabbing his chin, but he curls his hand around the crown of my head and settles my forehead against his shoulder. “Rest, Vasalie. You need to rest. I won’t go anywhere. I promise.”
But you already did, I think.