House of Shadows (Royal Houses 2)

“Is that why you wouldn’t answer your challenge question?”

His eyes found hers across the moonlit spring. “You believe that I loved her?”

“You wouldn’t talk about her. You just said you were to marry her.”

“I thought that I loved her,” he confessed. “I believed it at the time. But how could I love someone that I didn’t know?”

“Then, why?”

“Can’t you see why?”

She tilted her head in confusion. She’d been certain that she knew why he hadn’t answered. Now, as his mask finally fell away, she wondered if she had been perfectly, horribly wrong.

“I…”

“It was you, Kerrigan,” he said, closing the distance between them. “It was always you.”

“Me?” she could barely get out.

“I know you. All of you.” He stroked one of her red curls out of her face and tucked a wet strand behind her ear. Her heart thrummed wild in her chest. “I have tried to resist wanting you and failed time and time again. I did not answer the question because I was not prepared to tell you that I loved you for the first time in front of an audience.”

Her gasp was nearly silent. She reached out with trembling hands and cupped his cheek. “You… love me?”

“With all of my heart.”

He drew in a step closer until their bodies were nearly touching. His lips hovered over hers. She could barely breathe as his hand slipped from her slightly pointed ear down to the hollow of her throat and across her collarbone. He continued his descent along her arm, to her waist, and landed on her hip. Then, he dragged her that last step forward, skin to skin. She hitched a breath, in shock at the feel of all of him pressed hard against her stomach. Her eyes widened as her hands came to brace against his chest.

It had been one thing the game they had played in the greenhouse. It had gotten too far. They had been drunk on faerie punch. It had been amazing, but not enough. Never enough. This was so so much more than that.

“I want this,” he told her. “And I’m terrified I’ll lose you.”

“You won’t lose me.”

“You don’t know that. You’re engaged to someone else. We’re both in mortal danger quite frequently.”

“I’m breaking off the engagement tomorrow,” she assured him. “And if we’re already going to be in danger, then we should enjoy what we have while we have it.”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t say that. I never want to rush with you. To take what we can in scraps of moments.”

She took his finger from her lips, pressing a soft kiss to the tip. “If we don’t take our moments, someone else will take them from us. You love me, Fordham. I love you. You want this. I want this.” She drew his head down to hers, just a breath between their lips. “Please.”

A growl erupted from deep within him at that one word, the ounce of begging in her voice. She knew that they should wait until everything was settled. Until there was no March between them. Until they were finished with Society training. Until the world no longer burned. But if they waited, they’d never have time. She was done waiting.

His mouth collided with hers with a ferocity born from primal longing. As if he’d spent all of his energy staying away from her, and now, he could no longer contain himself.

They crashed backward in the hot spring. Her exposed back hammered against the rock wall, cutting into her skin. He bit down on her lip at the same time. Blood welled in her mouth, but the pain was nothing compared to his hands on her skin and his mouth on hers and the feel of him pressing hard against her body. She had waited for this too. Waited in agony for him to see what was right in front of him.

“Gods, I love you,” he said, kissing down her neck.

She dragged her nails along his back, just wanting more, more, more. “Please,” she repeated.

His teeth dragged along her neck, and she shuddered all over. This was what she had been waiting for. The stolen kisses and moments would never be enough. Not from him. His hands slicked under the water across her bare skin. They caressed her hips, angled over her backside, and then slipped under her thighs. He lifted her effortlessly and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Her eyes rounded at the first feel of him pressed so achingly hard against her.

“Ford,” she ground out.

But he was already moving, carrying her across the spring. She could have come apart at any moment. He was her undoing. He always had been. She had given herself up before, but it had been childish obsession. Not what they had. Not what was happening today. Fordham was her one and only. She had learned that the hard way. She refused to surrender this moment.