“Because!” he roared. “Because. Because I know no other way?—”
Lunelle rasped, “Because you know no other way or because youlikeit this way?”
Arcas glared, his eyes flashing even in the dark.
She stepped closer once again. “Power is an addictive substance, Arcas, but it is also corrosive. Things do not have to stay this way simply because you like the way it tastes.”
A chill settled between them, charged with spilled ink and smoke.
“And what about you, Princess? Does your mother know she’s raised such a progressive thinker?” he whispered.
“She had her chance to disappoint her mother. I look forward to having mine.”
She slowly inhaled, her chest tightening as she leaned closer to him, casting a heated stare into his.
“You mystify me,” Arcas mumbled.
Lunelle tilted her head, narrowing her eyes.
“If only you’d mystifyme.I can predict you as well as I can predict the phases of the?—”
Before she could finish her insult, Arcas closed the gap between them, pressing his lips to hers and stealing her breath in a way that she didn’t find entirely unpleasant.
Lunelle pulled herself away from him, lost on how to breathe, how to see straight. And for a moment, she didn’t feel a sick pooling in her chest.
For a moment, she wasn’t thinking about… well… a godsdamned thing.
Lunelle thrust herself forward again, tangling herself with Arcas and forgetting everything about everyone except the way he tasted like certain dark things. There was only him. She melted into his touch as his long fingers tore at the back of her dress, digging into the silk ribbons at her waist. He twisted her, backing her into the ancient bark of the tree.
Peeling wood clawed at her hair, but even that felt good in his haze.
His fingers crawled over her, hesitating at her breast before she pushed his hand upward, letting him hold onto her in all the ways she’d secretly craved since she left his bed the last time.
It was senseless—it wascruel—to let him give her even a fraction of what she so desperately wanted. To take anything from him at all.
His mouth dropped from hers to her neck, his hips crashing into hers. It was the whisper of her name that sent a despairing wave of reality over her.
“Arcas,” she sputtered back, pushing him away.
His breath caught, a whimpered plea escaping in the passion before he grabbed hold of his senses. His chest heaved as he ran his hand over his face, disheveled in a way he was not keen to let go of.
They both gasped for breath in the silence.
There, in the heft of the air between them, there was something else. Something so wildly uncontrollable to her, the urge to unfold herself before him and let him see pieces of her no one else had access to.
It was beyond maddening.
She stepped forward again, holding either side of his face as she examined him, his eyes boring into hers.
“What are you?—”
“Shh,” she whispered. “I’m trying to convince myself not to fuck some sense into you.”
“I’m afraid you’ve only ever had the opposite effect, Princess,” he returned, pulling her into a darker, more tender kiss that twisted spaces within her she had not felt before. His tongue parted her lips, poisoning her slowly, the haze of him spreading through her veins. His hand wandered over her, giving her more space to breathe between touches, to feel the full arc of his movements as he dragged his fingertips across the neckline of her gown.
His fingers slipped below, pinching at her breast, eliciting a soft gasp from her throat that he was quick to replicate.
He traced his lips over her jaw, grasping at her neck. She was lost to him, fully given up on trying to stop this. Sheneededit.
