His grip tightened, and the noise that came from my mouth was something I would never be proud of.
“—that,” he finished, sounding unbearably smug. “Now, I remember it.”
He laughed as I turned around and shoved him away, but he grabbed on to my hand and wouldn’t let me go.
“You’re an ass,” I said.
He shrugged. “Probably. But then, you are too. It’s why we go so well together.”
“I’ve obviously made a very big mistake. You should go and see if Justin will take you back and I will find someone who isn’t a cock tease and who is also vascular and has nicer nipples.”
He rolled his eyes as he tugged me forward. “Because that’s going to happen. You’re stuck with me and my average nipples. I mean, who else is going to be my own personal Foxy Lady?”
He kissed me, and I bit his lip just this side of too hard. He didn’t seem to mind, if his tongue had anything to say about it. I let him mack on my face (because I was a nice person) for a little bit, before he pulled away, eyes crinkling in the corners. Somehow, my hands had found their way to his chest and were curled into the leather jerkin he wore. He smelled like sun and sweat and grass. He had a smudge of dirt on his cheek and a thin, clotted cut on his bicep that I’d have to look at to make sure it didn’t need stitching.
“Training went well, then?” I asked.
He nodded. “For the most part.”
“Still getting shit?”
“Daily.” Which, really, I should have felt bad about, what with the Castle Guard firmly planted in my corner and their rah-rah Go Sam mentality. They hadn’t been too happy with him for waiting until the last (and worst) possible second to finally own up to his feelings for me. Don’t get me wrong, knights were strong and hardworking and some of the fiercest people I had ever known. But they could also be the bitchiest, especially when they or someone they cared about had been wronged. How I’d come to foster that level of devotion, I had no idea, but I wasn’t going to question it.
Honestly, though, I felt bad. I really did. I grinned at him. “Shouldn’t have fucked up, then, huh?”
“Or maybe,” he said, arching an eyebrow, “you could go and tell them they no longer need to defend your honor, given that I realized the error of my ways over a year ago.”
“Nah,” I said, poking him in the chest. “You chose not to jerk me off. I choose to let them jerk you around.”
“I don’t know that the punishment fits the crime,” he said.
“You’re welcome. Not that I mind, but what’re you doing here? I thought we were supposed to meet for dinner.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We were. About an hour ago.”
I winced. “Shit. My bad, dude. I got caught up in… uh. Working. On stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Magic stuff. You wouldn’t understand.”
“That’s odd, because I already got stopped by Morgan on my way down here,” he said, looking smug again. “He said something entirely different. And he wouldn’t stop looking at my crotch with a rather fearful expression on his face.”
“Godsdammit,” I muttered.
“You couldn’t have gotten to fifty stanzas?”
I laughed and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Bastard.”
He leaned forward, lips trailing along my cheek until he reached my ear. “Bring it with you,” he whispered. “You can read it to me later.”
Hell fucking yeah I was going to do that. I was going to read it the fuck all over him.
WE WERE up the stairs, laughing quietly to ourselves, shoulders bumping, hands clasped between us. It was easy, this thing between us, easier than it had any right to be given all the shit we’d gone through to get to this point. It’d hurt when I thought I could never have it. When we’d danced the night he was promoted to Knight Commander and became engaged to the Prince, I’d told myself that that was all I was going to have. That was all I was going to let myself have. It’d been too much to pine away in silent misery wanting something that I could never call my own. I wallowed, sure, but I knew the difference between the fantasy in my head and the reality in front of me.
But it’s a funny thing, life is. No matter what you have planned, there’s always going to be that one thing that comes along and says, ha ha, fuck you, this is what’s going to happen now.
I could admit to being worried that, after all was said and done, if it’d be the same between us. That without being chased by Darks or cults or rabid fangirls, if we could just be Ryan and Sam without any of the bullshit.