Chapter 31 #2
This close, she could see the light stubble along his jaw. The glowing flecks of molten silver in his eyes. The faint grey shade of his veins as his magic continued to pulse and seek and writhe.
Until there was a muttered, “Fuck it,” and he was pitching forward. His mouth crashed onto hers, and oh.
This was nothing like what she had imagined a kiss would be.
Even though she was rigid and stiff, her lips were not.
His were soft and plush against hers, and in the back of her mind she knew she should be stabbing him because she suddenly felt like the prey.
But she wasn’t stabbing him. No, she was too caught up in the hot mouth pulling a hard and sucking kiss from her lips.
She’d always imagined a kiss to be gentle and kind and intimate. That was what she’d observed anyway.
This was not gentle nor kind. This was intimate in a desperate way.
As if she were something he’d been craving for days and months and years.
This somehow sent her thoughts scattering, but also had her entirely focused on where their mouths met.
This was a different kind of hunter and prey, and she wasn’t sure which one she wanted to be. The huntress. The hunted. Or both.
It was only their mouths touching, a brush of their noses here and there. No hands or fingers. Hers were still pressed to her sides, too frozen to do anything, but that was the strange thing. Usually an unexpected touch had her soul screaming and her body reacting on instinct.
His tongue brushed against the seam of her lips, and without thought, she parted them.
Then, his tongue was inside her mouth. He was groaning, a deep and guttural sound that she was swallowing down as she tentatively licked against his tongue.
The groan became a growl, and a strangled sound of her own crawled up her throat.
If this was kissing—this struggle and fighting and chasing—then she thought she might like this very much. Because fighting and hunting and seeking was something she understood, unlike all the other things she’d been navigating lately.
He shifted, and she felt rather than heard his hands come up, bracing himself against the wall on either side of her head. So careful not to touch her.
But his magic did.
His magic brushed along her skin while he pressed his mouth to hers even harder.
More earnest. While his tongue danced against hers, she marveled at how this touch—the press of mouths and lips, tongues and teeth—was so, so different from bruising fingers and harsh fists, from burning palms and unyielding holds.
This kind of touch was intoxicating and exciting and—
Dangerous.
The thought coursed through her like the flames and embers that used to torture her, and before she realized what she was doing, her dagger was out and at Cethin’s throat. Her husband blinked back at her, lust and desire still clouding his gaze as he clearly tried to form coherent thoughts.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice so low and gravelly it made her thighs clench, and wasn’t that an odd reaction to a voice? “I didn’t mean to—”
“Kiss me?” she demanded.
“No, I definitely meant to do that,” he answered, not a flicker of apology or regret on his elegant features. “But I didn’t intend to lose that much control. Not right away. Not with it being your—”
He pressed his lips together, searching her face.
“My what?” she asked, trying to control the small tremor in her hand that held the dagger. Her shield. Her reminder to herself that she was in control, not him.
But he noticed the tremor too, and when he took a measured step back, he moved as if it physically pained him to do so.
It pained her too, and she didn’t… None of this made sense.
How could one crave closeness and want to shove someone as far away as possible at the same time?
How could one person make her feel so many emotions in the same moment?
And why did she want to stab him but also kiss him again?
He ran his thumb along his bottom lip as he watched her. “That was foolish,” he said. “That was why I was trying to keep my distance. You…distract me.”
“How can I possibly distract you when we are never around each other?” she asked, her arm now at her side, but her dagger still clenched tightly in her fist.
“Your mere existence distracts me,” he answered, agony and wonder merging in those few words. “Knowing you’re out there at any given time. Wondering what you are doing. Who you’re with. Life was easier when I didn’t know you existed.”
In an odd way, she understood exactly what he meant.
Silver eyes met hers once more, desperate and wanting and defeated. “You are a distraction I cannot afford, but one I am finding myself so utterly obsessed with, I keep forgetting why it’s a terrible thing.”
And she understood that too.
Dinner was a tense performance that kept her on edge.
Every time Cethin moved, she had to remind herself to relax.
Whenever he leaned in to speak softly to her, playing the perfect doting husband like he did every single night, all she could think about was his lips on hers.
Her eyes would dip to his mouth, and his lips would curl up the smallest amount at the corners.
She was sure to everyone else it appeared they were sharing an inside secret—and in a sense they were—but she was left wondering if everything from their rooms had been an act too. Which parts of him were real?
Now, she was watching him move silently about the sitting room, gathering various items. She had no doubt he was about to slip away to his study in the catacombs. But the Union Celebration was next week, and she needed…direction? Reassurance?
Answers.
She needed answers.
There was too much happening outside of her control in this moment, and she needed to turn the tables back in her favor.
“Can we speak now?” she asked, stepping from the dark corner she’d been watching from.
He didn’t even jump, just confirming to her he always seemed to know where she was.
“Were you going to attempt to follow me tonight, tiny fiend?” he asked, straightening and slipping a hand into his pocket. The other rubbed along his jaw as his eyes ran over her, and there was no mistaking he was thinking about earlier.
And now so was she.
Dammit.
“Stop that,” she said, coming closer. Each step was careful, making sure she kept her defenses up. Forcing herself to concentrate and remember her training. “You Travel wherever it is you go,” she continued. “How could I possibly follow you?”
“I believe you’d find it easier than you think,” he answered, his other hand going into his pocket now. He rocked back on his heels, watching her as much as she was watching him. “What would you like to speak about?”
“What would I…” She trailed off incredulously. “Cethin, what do you think I want to speak about?”
“There are a number of topics with you, wife,” he replied conversationally. “But I’m hoping you want to discuss the way my lips felt on yours, because then I would want to discuss how you tasted with your tongue in my mouth.”
“I…” She felt her cheeks warm, and she hated it. Clearing her throat, she said, “I do not wish to discuss that.”
“That’s disappointing,” he said, and her eyes narrowed as she watched him fight a smile.
“Cethin,” she deadpanned.
He sighed, all mirth leaving his face. “I’m not going to apologize for earlier today, Kailia.”
“Which part?”
His brows knitted, and it took a long minute before he said, “After going over all my interactions with you today, I find there are none I feel the need to apologize for.”
She scoffed. “Why were you upset about the dance studio?”
“Why was I upset that you went to learn something that involved a male—whom I cannot stand—touching you? You need clarification about that?”
“No, I need clarification on what I should have done differently since I cannot ask you for these things.”
“I’m the only one you should be asking for anything you need.”
“Then in that case, I need clarification on how I am to do that when you are never around.”
They stared at each other, back in this place they so often found themselves. An impasse of wills and stubbornness. A place of push and pull and a struggle for dominance that each of them was trying to pretend didn’t exist.
“Maybe we should stop pretending,” she blurted.
His head tipped to the side. “And what are we pretending, wife?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Perhaps that this is ever going to work? You should stop pretending I was the right choice for this, and I should stop pretending I can be what you need.”
“You know very little of what I need,” he said in the same voice that had rumbled from him after the kiss.
“I’m not disagreeing with you.”
He’d drifted closer at some point. Not close enough to touch, but close enough that she could see the fine threading details on his tunic.
“And what do you feel you need to make this work?” Cethin asked,
“I need you to help me know what I should be doing, and to do that, you need to spend more than mealtimes with me,” she answered, tensing as he moved closer still.
“Are you going to admit you miss me yet?”
“It has nothing to do with that.”
He hummed, slowly lifting a hand. His magic came first, as it always did, brushing along her jaw before his fingertip followed. That single point of contact an icy balm to her heated skin. It skated down until it slipped under her chin, tipping her face up even more.
“I need you to stop going places and doing things with a male who is my rival in every way,” he said.
“He’s my guard, Cethin.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
Her eyes widened in understanding. “You are jealous.” His lips pressed into a thin line, and for once, it was all she needed for confirmation. “I thought it was clear you are my husband, not him.”
“By Arius, Kailia, that doesn’t always stop someone, and I wouldn’t put it past Razik to… He knows what he’s doing,” he said, removing his touch and moving to the sofa.