“Mostly.” Not really. Sad thoughts. I never wanted this to become my life. I knew my chances of happiness were always slim. It’s just the reality of being born a princess. There was a time when I fought that fate, for all the good it did me. “Trying to think of ways I could please you.”
Preferably without letting him see me too much. Or having another panic attack.
Lorcan combed my hair away from my temple with gentle fingers. His breath against the shell of my ear sent a shudder through me.
“You vastly overestimate the extent of my experience, and you underestimate my determination to find every single way I can make you moan my name.”
He sucked my earlobe between his lips and applied his teeth. Everything inside me turned liquid. Blindly, my hips ground down over his, seeking. Finding him rigid. Two layers of fabric separating me from what I want.
“The old you wouldn’t have used a line like that,” I managed to gasp in between panting breaths.
“It’s not a line.” He worked his way down my throat, sucking, grazing my skin with his teeth, incinerating me from the inside out. “Completely sincere.”
I wonder what it would take to make him moan my name. More than I have to offer, certainly. Despair clutched at me. I mentally slapped it away but it barely subsided. I want to get this over with.
“Fuck me,” I whispered. “Please.”
Lorcan’s arm tightened around my waist. He nuzzled my neck, pressing open-mouthed kisses along my throat, his hand flat against my lower back. And then, with one devastating word, the monsterruins it.
“No.”
All I can see from this angle is his jaw and one ear. The oil lamp flickered.
“No?”
“Not yet.”
“Excuse me?” This is ridiculous. He’s been seducing me for weeks. Now, he refuses to follow through? Infuriating man. At least one thing remains unchanged despite the passage of time and a war: Lorcan can always be counted upon to drive me insane.
“I said, we’re not doing this tonight.”
I rolled off him and sat up, tugging my shirt back down. Again, that searing sense of shame. This is too similar to that night in River Bend.
“Why?”
I can’t keep the brokenness out of my voice.
He propped his head on one hand, laying on his side, wearing nothing more than his ridiculous leather shorts that shouldn’t be sexy, but somehow are, and an unbearably smug expression.
“I’m not ready.”
Hurt explodes in my chest. He’ll sleep with half of Auralia, but not with me? What about me is so repulsive to him? I don’t understand.
What am I going to do about it, though? I can be upset later, when I understand his thinking. I bet I’ll still want to strangle him once he explains himself, but for now, I swallowed my pride long enough to listen.
“Not ready,” I echoed blankly. “If not tonight, when?”
“When we’re married. Not before.”
He’s got to be joking.
Crinkles at the corners of his eyes. Conniving man. He planned this. Did he guess my plans to have his baby? Probably. Lorcan is one wily piece of shit. I’m so angry, I could smack the pleased smile off his face.
“We discussed this. We pretend to be together until the fall. Then we part ways.”
“Things have changed since June.”
I caught the tiniest bit of hesitation:Haven’t they?
