And Briar couldn’t deny him. Didn’t want to.
Big hands wrapped around Briar’s calves and slid up to the hinge of his knee, tugging him until he sat on the very edge of the breakfast bar. Then the rest of the way off it. Briar let himself fall, weight sinking into Rowan’s lap. He glimpsed ruddy cheeks and the huffed breath of impatient yearning before Rowan kissed him again. Tongue parting Briar’s lips to taste him. Shyness seeping away to leave room for bold hands grasping Briar’s hips. Rowan only stopped kissing him for the brief seconds it took to drag in a lungful of air. Breathless, starving, hot-blooded.
And that did things to Briar. Turned his limbs soft and his cock hard at once. Not just the kiss, but the way Rowan held him like he and all his baggage weighed nothing. His thoughts spiraled, but he latched on to one.
“We shouldn’t.” The words broke the kiss, spoken into Rowan’s lips.
Rowan’s eyelashes fluttered. “Shouldn’t?”
His thumbs, hiked under the hem of Briar’s shirt, stamped two burning marks into Briar’s hips. Quotation marks bracketing the scream of his growing arousal. With the pulse of those thumbs pounding through Briar’s skin, it was difficult to say what he had to.
“No.” Awkwardly, he slid out of Rowan’s lap. It was only a kiss, but at the same time…
No kiss was like that one.
Rowan looked just as flustered, blinking to catch up with Briar. “Did I—?”
“No, that was—good. Great. I just can’t because—” Magic bound his tongue. It choked him, robbed his voice of words. It had all happened so quickly. Vatii had said nothing, but she now fixed him with a chastising look. How was he meant to explain? The prophecy couldn’t be spoken out loud.
“I’m only here for a year,” Briar settled on. “Then I’m going to Pentawynn. To be a fashion designer. It’s been my dream since I was little, and my mum wanted it for me, and I don’t want to string you along or—”
“It’s all right, Briar.” Rowan’s tongue traced his lower lip. “I understand.”
And it sounded like he did.
But he also sounded stung.
CHAPTER 11
Vatii launched her interrogation the moment they got through his flat’s front door.
“What was that?”
“Are you trying to sabotage your future?”
“Do youeveruse theotherhead when you make decisions?”
On and on.
Briar collapsed face down into his bed and moaned. Vatii landed on his head. He had no defense. She was right. But Rowan… there was something about him Briar struggled to resist. For the brief duration of that kiss, he’d felt cozy, supported—safe?
Somehow, he wanted that and feared it in equal measure.
Vatii hopped across the duvet, regarding him with less scorn. “You like him.”
“Of course I like him, Vatii. Look at him. He’s dreamy.”
“Have you considered that perhaps the prophecy is about him and not Linden?”
Briar sat up, his hair a fluffy mess from where he’d been tugging on it. “I’d considered it.”
“And?”
“And it seems like wishful thinking. ‘Known by all but known to none.’ The town avoids Rowan even though he’s their alderman, Linden’s a celebrity, but no one really knows him beyond his public face. Could be either of them. But Rowan isn’t masked or stone-hearted at all, and how is a relationship with him meant to make me famous? I’m not having a dig, he’s bloody—”
Vatii gave him an arch look.
“He’s a bloody good kisser,” Briar finished. “But Linden’s the fashion designer, the one whose aura I can’t even read. Don’t you think it fits him better?”
