Chapter 33
Chapter
Thirty-Three
ARA
Being back home is strange, and even worse is knowing Tate sleeps only a few doors down from me. Originally, I planned to visit Tynan and Lyla right away, but with Tate around, I’m hard-pressed to find a convincing excuse to head out, and he can't come.
Sloan is quiet. She hardly spoke during the whole flight, and then shut herself in her room as soon as we arrived. She eats with us, but even then, she only pokes around in her food. Every time someone comes too close, she flinches, so I give her room.
As long as she doesn’t talk to me, I can only imagine what she went through. I have a hundred questions, also concerning the man Tate called Silence, but I try to be patient.
I’m edgy. Nervous energy crawls through my veins, making it impossible to fall asleep. After turning and tossing for what has to be more than an hour, I get up and decide to bake.
It’s been a long time since I had time for something as simple as that, and it calms me. I started it out of necessity. The only way to get sweet baked goods around here is to make them myself or walk down to the village. So I learned to bake.
We eat most of our meals with everyone else in the Big Hall and don’t usually use the small kitchen in the main house. Rustling through the cupboards, I’m pleasantly surprised when I find all the ingredients for chocolate cake.
It seems fitting that I should indulge in the cake I compared Tate to all those weeks ago, when it’s him I’m craving.
Don't go there, I tell myself.
I set up, and the rhythmic clatter, the easy process of mixing ingredients, is relaxing.
Slowly, the muscles in my shoulders loosen, and I lean against the counter, cradling the bowl with one arm while I whisk the batter, keeping up a steady rhythm.
My thoughts wander, and I nearly drop the bowl when someone clears his throat.
“Jumpy?” Tate asks from the doorway.
“I nearly dropped the bowl.” I scowl at him.
“What are you making?” He steps through the door, and the room suddenly feels so much smaller. I look at the dark batter in the bowl and then up at him.
“Chocolate cake.” It’s like I threw a spark into a puddle of alcohol. The tension, the heat, it’s just … there. I avoid his eyes by looking back down at the bowl in my arms.
“You had a craving for chocolate cake in the middle of the night?” Tate asks, his voice lower, huskier now.
I swallow. Dammit, why didn't I make something else … anything else?
“It relaxes me, okay?” I say defensively, and as soon as the word relax comes over my lips, I want to swallow it back down. My gaze flicks to his, and the expression on his face makes my mouth go dry.
Suddenly, I'm too aware of my nightdress, too aware of my bare legs and feet.
Don’t be ridiculous , I chide myself. He has seen more skin than that before, even during training.
I put the mixing bowl down, turning my back on him, then reach up to get the form for the cake. The dress slides up, the whisper of fabric sliding along the back of my thighs torturously soft, when it’s his fingers, his lips I crave. His gaze runs over me like a caress and sets my skin on fire.
Keeping my back to him, I mentally list all the reasons giving in would be a bad idea, but somehow, they are not enough. The air is thick with tension. It’s like I’m trying to breathe water instead of air.
Transferring the batter into the form, scraping the bowl clean with a spoon—I have to concentrate on the simple tasks like never before. Then I help the rest of the batter slide off the spoon with my finger, and it’s done. I exhale.
The finger comes to my mouth unconsciously, but a firm hand wraps around my wrist, stopping me. Sparks shoot out from where he touches me, heating my blood, and my eyes fly up to meet his.
He is so close. When has he come so close?
“May I?” Tate asks in a low rumble, and my mouth is too dry to speak, so I nod. I pick up the spoon to hand it to him and nearly drop it when his mouth circles my finger instead, sucking it clean.
I can't help the moan falling from my lips, and it vibrates between us, echoed by his groan. His tongue glides over my finger again, and I melt. That’s the only way to describe it. My bones liquefy at his touch.
The spoon clatters to the counter, and my hand moves into his hair. The warning bells in my head play a whole concert, but my body gives a resounding fuck you.
I shouldn't.
I should.
I...
Gods be damned. I pull his head down and devour his lips like a starving woman. Our tongues wage a war, the kiss filled with hurt, frustration, and anger—both of us fighting for control.
I only dimly register Tate hoisting me up on the counter, or my legs wrapping around him, pulling him closer. What I do notice is him.
He still tastes of the batter he sucked off my finger.
The way his body fits against mine, the heat of his skin through the thin fabric of his shirt.
The arm that is wrapped around me possessively and the light rasp of his fingers on my jaw, in my hair.
How his lips, his mouth are so achingly familiar. I tighten my hold on him.
This will end in disaster. It will make everything worse… There surely are a lot of reasons this is all wrong, but somehow, they slipped my mind.
“Why?” he whispers against my lips. I pull him closer, silencing him with another kiss. But he stays persistent. “Why are you pushing me away?”
I look pointedly down at the missing space between us. “I’m not.”
His patience unravels right in front of my eyes, but that is not the only emotion on his face, and the hurt cuts deeper than anything else.
“Why don’t you talk to me?”
“Because there is nothing left to say,” I whisper and push against his chest.
“Why are you lying to me, Ara?”
And damn that sentence hits its mark. I’m lying to him on so many levels that hoping it will somehow work out is delusional.
“Let me go. I’m clearly too tired to think straight.”
“Oh really? And what about the cave?”
“My brain was frozen.”
“You know what?” he leans in, whispering in my ear. “That sounds like a lot of excuses to me.”
I shrug. “They are still my excuses, and they are holding up so far.”
“Don't be so sure of that,” he tells me, and the promise in his voice sends a shudder up my spine. He steps back, both our chests heaving.
“I will finish this cake now.” I hop down in the space he created and duck out from the delicious cage of his arms. “You are welcome to stay.”
I expect him to leave, to be angry, to demand answers, but he doesn’t do any of that.
Instead, he sits down at the kitchen table and we talk.
He tells me about growing up at the palace and the trouble he and Jared got into.
And I tell him about my family and me. We even talk about my curse and my father.
I grin at his surprised face when he tries the still warm cake.
“What? Did you think I’d make you wait for it, and then it wouldn’t be edible?”
“Maybe,” he answers, and his soft laughter when I swat at him makes my stomach flip-flop.
“I’m great at baking cakes and cookies,” I huff in mock indignation.
“Are you sure you didn’t mean you’re great at devouring them?” he teases, and I nearly swallow my tongue.
I missed him. I missed this light version of him so much that my chest aches with it. He is beautiful on any given day, but like this, with his lips curled into a smile and his eyes sparkling, he is breathtaking.
“A midnight party?” Ian’s voice from the doorway breaks the spell I’m under.
“I was just in the mood for baking.” Popping the last piece of my cake into my mouth, I rise, very aware of Tate’s gaze, when I nibble a few stray crumbs off my fingers.
I want it to be his lips. I want to kiss him again.
“I’ll head off to bed. Good night, Tate,” I say, my brother’s eyes jumping from me to Tate and back.
“Good night, Ara,” Tate murmurs.
I press a kiss to my brother’s cheek while brushing past him.
What am I doing? There's no way to undo my promise to Frederick. Letting Tate close again is madness. And still, I want to.
I head off to bed, but I don’t get any sleep. The only advantage of that is I'm awake before the sun rises. I dress quietly and sneak out before anyone wakes.
Or so I thought.