Chapter Thirty-Five
The kiss is a shock.
I feel it down to the tips of my toes.
His arm comes up underneath the small of my back, arching me into him. So that we’re flush, and all the while his lips are locked on mine, both of us struggling to remember to breathe.
So deeply he kisses me, it’s like being swept off a ship.
Like clinging to the anchor as it falls beneath the sea line—a dizzying plunge.
His tongue sweeps in, his free hand splayed along the curve of my jaw and neck.
My own hands move to the smooth skin of his shoulders, then his biceps.
I wrap my fingers around them until I can feel the pulse underneath.
I wonder if he notices the way tears still escape, slipping down past my temples to further wet my hair.
I’m so wrought with emotion. We haven’t finished our fight. Nothing is resolved, and yet he clings to me with an intent I am trying to make sense of—
I gasp for breath.
He allows me one moment of it, then he’s dragging his mouth along my cheek, my jaw, my neck, but he never strays long, as if he’s addicted. And Fates, I am, too. I find my fingers gliding once more, curling around his nape, the silk of his dampen locks.
This—
It feels like it did on Anell. When I found him on his balcony, reading, and he set down his book, his glasses, before coming to me. Collecting me. Poising me on his dresser. The way he’s kissing me…It is like that.
Like this was inevitable, and we fought it for far too long.
Like this is a breaking point.
Now he twists me so that my back is pressed against his chest, my knees against the plane of rock. I feel his hands run along my back, then curl around my abdomen, hugging me close.
His breath is hot on my neck.
His weight grows heavier on mine, and all the while he trails his lips along my ear, the back of my neck, between my shoulder blades—a kiss for every button he pops loose, until my bustier is undone.
The skirt follows, the remaining chemise all that’s left.
I twist back around, leaning on my elbows and failing to collect my breath, my sanity, and yet as I drink in the jade of his gaze, I see it.
That same look. The one from Anell, except amplified.
I need to make you understand what I feel for you.
I don’t know what’s changed since Ansa. Can’t put a pin in what’s different. A change of heart, even as he’s weighed by indecision? But it seems to be more than that.
He doesn’t remember; I know that. He wouldn’t hide it.
But it’s like I have him back all the same.
I brush a thumb across his lips. He leans into my palm, kissing a promise there—one I don’t understand, but the surety of it…
I let go, drop the rest of my barriers.
Angling so that I’m sitting up more, I loosen the ties of my chemise, let it fall down my shoulder. Because I trust him, despite everything. I trust his heart. I trust him with mine.
His expression, the heat there, makes me melt all over again.
He brushes away the gathered curls, damp as they are, and presses a kiss to the bud of my shoulder.
I clamp my hands around his neck, and his mouth chases mine. This time, the pace is different, frantic. Like a ticking clock. Like this is the only moment we have, and perhaps it is. I refuse to waste it.
The fervor becomes overwhelming.
I am his, fully and completely. No matter what happens.
Perhaps I will fall to pieces tomorrow, but I have this moment to tell him, to prove without words, that I love him.
I love all the broken pieces. They mirror my own.
Those who should have loved us did not, and we had to find our own way. Survive, against all the odds.
His arms are warm as he holds me, but that isn’t enough.
I love you, I convince him with my touch. I say it with the press of my palm, there on his chest, and again with the bow of my lips, set over the wild beat of his heart. His skin is smooth, velvet-soft. And here, in the shelter of his body, I feel like silk. Delicate and malleable.
And despite the desire I see in him, he is controlled. So I take the initiative, as nervous as I am. My trembling fingers work my chemise the rest of the way off.
I find I can’t look at him when I do.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, with someone as experienced as him. I am more innocent in this regard, though I imagine he probably assumes otherwise. My breathing picks up at the thought, anxiety trickling in. I love him so much—but what if I’m not what he imagined?
As if sensing my worry, he cups my face, looking into my eyes. “If this is too much, at any point, we can stop.” A sheen of mist coats the both of us, and it’s as if we’re sparkling against the low light.
My heartbeat is frenetic, yet so is his.
I’ve only ever done something like this once, with a boy from the theater.
The first one to ever show interest in me.
He had been kind to me for months, assisted me with my workload, and I’d liked his company.
Then one day, at the end of a show, he’d come into my dressing room, and I… I had felt obligated.
“I’m only afraid of disappointing you,” I admit.
He grins against my lips. “Vasalie, you have altered my very existence. My world is made brighter from your presence. I am fortunate to so much as hold you. Disappointment is not a word in my vocabulary—not with you.” He pulls a few of my curls forward, tousling them lovingly.
“It’s just that I want it to be good for you, too.”
Smiling, he leans in to kiss the pulse point on my throat. “This is already everything. You are everything.”
My eyes burn at that.
“I want this,” I breathe, pulling one of his hands from my cheek. I press my lips to his fingers. “All of it.”
His eyes shutter closed as if that sensation alone is enough to do him in.
And indeed, he takes care with me, reading my signals, as attentive as a workman to his craft. Like I am art he is forming with his hands, like glass spun and shaped carefully atop a flame.
He cares about every sensation I feel, and there are no expectations beyond that. Gently, he lays me down again, making sure my neck is comfortable, and then his hands and lips chart the rest of me with so much tenderness I want to weep.
I will wake up, and this will have been a dream, I think.
The softness of his mouth finds the space between my breasts, my sternum, my navel, and lower still.
The rush is unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
There is nothing but the roar of the waterfall and the sensation of him, a sensation that nearly does me in.
My nerves are alight, and I can take it no longer. I feel antsy, squirming and itching with the need to lavish my own affection, and that, he allows—barely. I make it only a few minutes, attempting to return his devotion, before he’s reaching, dragging me up the length of him.
I could die like this and not feel regret.
And when he moves between my thighs, the world tilts.
I cling to him, my hands gripping his shoulders, squeezing as if I could pull him closer. Finally, when I’m about to beg, he guides himself to me. Then he’s over me, moving with me, and I am so warm, so consumed, so impassioned, my heart will surely burst.
Every ounce of what I feel for him is magnified tenfold—because I feel it in response.
That alone brings me to shattering, both my body and soul coming undone beneath him. And when he follows me a moment later, his breath shaping my name into my ear…the tears come once more.
I think it might have been worth it to drown.
I wake some hours later.
The aurora gilds the top of the mountains, the skyline a soft, pale lavender. Early morning, before most deign to rise. In fact, I wonder if I’m dreaming—if last night was a dream. Yet I can feel the reality of what happened all over me, my sleep-addled body exhausted after hours of—
Being with him.
In all the ways I wanted to, and more. In the cave, in the lift when we returned to his room. Then between his sheets, and he held me after, his heartbeat a lullaby that put me to sleep. But now I find his side of the bed empty, and a frisson of fear spurs me to rise, bleary-eyed as I am.
It calms a beat, though, when I find him on his balcony, a book in hand. Just as I did that one night in Anell.
His green eyes track a final line before he glances up at me, his throat working down a swallow. Is that tears in his eyes?
I blink, though, and it’s gone.
“You should sleep more,” he says. “You look like you can barely stand.”
“I was afraid you left.” I’m leaning against the doorframe, fatigue running deep.
He eases upward, treading toward me.
I am in his arms before I can blink.
Then he’s laying me down into his bed, the sheets silk-soft and cool. I shiver, but when he tries to move away, I wrap my arms around his neck. I feel him smile onto my shoulder, laugh softly, and he pulls us both under the sheets.
This time is different. It isn’t the slow, artful devotion we showed each other earlier, each touch intentional, but rather a deep, heated plunder. We are needy and sloppy and artless. Sleep-hazed and careless.
“Please,” I finally beg, my voice still raspy with sleep. But I cannot wait. He, in turn, meets me with equal fervor. Then he’s pulling my leg over one shoulder, testing angles to see which ones make my eyes roll back into my head.
My fists grip the sheets, twisting, before I’m running my hands down his back.
When it’s over, I can barely catch my breath. He pulls me in close, cradling me in his arms, until a sleepy fog whisks over me. After a few minutes, I feel him move.
Idly, my hand reaches out, grasping his.
Softly, he smiles down at me. “Vasalie, I think I will keep you forever. Would that be all right with you?”
Groggily, I nod, because…Fates, I want nothing more. Nothing at all in this world. Please.
“Go back to sleep,” he whispers, running a thumb over my mouth. “In a few hours, we will talk. And we will fix everything.”
Fix everything.
The Syndicate…
Today’s meeting…
I latch on to it as much as I can, but my mind is slick, unable to get real purchase. My vision blinkers, too, snuffing out the moment he pulls the duvet back over my shoulders.
I feel him plant a kiss on the apple of my cheek, and then on my lips.
So quick I am to fall back asleep that I think I dream his next words.
“I love you, Minnow.”