“The sort where I kiss you.”
Chapter 12
Fire and chills burned through Cassia’s body, as if she were no longer made of flesh, but air and flame. There was a strange slowing down of time, and through it, their eyes never left each others.
“Kiss me?” she whispered.
“Aye,” he said in his slow way, as if there was nothing to hurry for. Nothing to worry on. That he had the entire matter in hand. “And touch you.”
Her body glowed. The tent seemed to be illuminated with the incandescent heat of her desire.
Where? How? Please.
“Y-you must think me a fool.”
His eyes never left hers. “I think you reckless. And bored. And untried. And I think you know tonight is your last chance.”
Her skin prickled in long, ribbony waves. “For what?”
“The forbidden.”
How had he known?
She delicately cleared her throat. “How do I know a kiss from you would meet those conditions, outlaw?”
“Stop calling me outlaw,” he said quietly.
“What should I call you instead? Rogue, harborer of evil—”
“Máel.”
“Máel.” She repeated it slowly. “Well, Máel, how do I know a kiss from you would be worthwhile?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “We could test the matter.”
“How?”
“You kiss me. Then I…kiss you.”
Fire through her blood, fissures of heat breaking open, revealin
g roiling down below. Something essential to him, his carelessness of the rules and propriety, pulled at her the way fresh air pulls at a flame.
Madness, to do such a thing with this man.
Madness more, the way her body moved toward him.
She wished to believe what happened next was because of the whisky. Because she was wholly out of her senses.
But it was because she was wholly in them. The world had slowed down and everything slipped away.
There was no more coin or hunger or fear. There was no propriety or impropriety. There was no disapproval or desperate maneuvering or silent hoping and fruitless waiting. There was only now.
Nothing but now, with this man’s gaze on her, wanting her.
Nothing but her.
She pushed up and across the table, knocking chess pieces over as if winning did not matter, and she didn't stop until her mouth was directly before his, until she felt the heat of his breath wafting over her lips.