“Why not?” he challenges.
“Because you want me to spill the truth for the wrong reasons.” There’s a sadness seeping through my skin, a disappointment that’s settled over my shoulders like a cloak. “You want me to stop hiding so that I ruin Midas.”
His silence, his inability to deny it, says everything.
First Midas, now him. I want to run far away from every damn king in Orea and hide where none of them can find me ever again. How much more can I take?
It’s getting harder and harder to stand here, to look at his face and feel such crushing disappointment stabbing all the way through my heart.
“I want you to leave, Rip,” I say again, hoping this time he’ll listen.
“I told you, you can call me Slade.”
“No, thanks,” I reply curtly, enjoying the flash of frustration that goes through his eyes. “But I’ll curtsy for you instead, Your Moldering Majesty.”
He glowers at me. “Fine. I’ll leave. If you tell me one thing.”
“What?” I ask impatiently.
Rip leans in so our faces are right in front of each other, so close that I can feel the heat of his body. “Why were you screaming?”
I blink, caught off guard at his question. “I...I wasn’t screaming.”
The look on his face is wholly unconvinced, and my unprepared stammer didn’t help. “Hmm. Maybe I should be the one to retrieve the paper and quill to keep track of the lies between us.”
Bastard.
“You’re mistaken. You didn’t hear me scream,” I lie, though my heart is pounding in my chest so hard that I hope he doesn’t hear it.
In truth, I was like some caged animal, ready to tear down the door with my nails while the guards kept me locked in this room with no way out, but I’m not about to admit that now. Not to him.
Rip arches a condescending brow. “Really? So I imagined you shouting, begging to be let out?”
Shit.
It takes a lot of conscious effort not to reveal anything on my expression, especially with him so close. “Maybe you don’t hear as well with that ugly branch crown around your head.”
Much to my irritation, he smirks. I hate that the sight makes my stomach leap.
Even though there’s barely a foot between us, Rip leans forward, making me suck in a breath. He steals all the air in the room, yanking the pulse in my veins like a dog on a leash.
Nearly chest to chest, he tilts his head down while I tip mine up. We look at each other with too many mixed emotions written in our locked eyes, with no hope of ever translating them.
What are the words in the silent, churning eyes of this male? Why is it that I feel like I’m being crushed from the inside out? He has a power over me that has nothing to do with his aura, and everything to do with the way my gaze strays down to his lips when he sucks in a breath.
He gives me that maddening smirk of his. “Mmm. I like your anger, Goldfinch. If only it weren’t always directed at me.”
I open my mouth to yell at him, but before I can get a word out, he reaches down and takes hold of one of my ribbons, freezing me in place as my heart stutters.
We both look down as he holds it, and when he gently rubs the satiny gold length, I forget how to breathe.
As if it’s purring, my ribbon vibrates slightly between the pads of his finger and thumb. A shudder travels through the rest of them, each one going languid in relief as if they can feel it too. Chills scatter over my arms as he continues to stroke, easing it in a way I’ve never felt before.
I should yank it away. I should back up. I should do anything to put space between us.
But I don’t. I don’t, and I can’t even admit why.
His nearness, his gaze, it makes it too hard to think. I can’t function properly with the feel of his exhale against my face, with his barely-there touch.