“And I’m to believe thatyoutrustme?”
“Of course I don’t trust you, Kai. I can’t, as much as I want to. You’re a King. You said it yourself, remember?”
She gestured into the gaping space between them, alarmed to find that her hand was shaking. “This isn’t without caveats. It can’t be.”
“I don’t know what more I can do.” He spoke roughly, every word pained, pulled from him reluctantly. “You’re angry that I put you in an impossible position, so I uprooted what’s left of my people to put you at ease. Now you don’t want me to leave, but you couldn’t trust me if I stayed.”
She threw her hands up, no longer caring how they shook.
“You’re right, there’s nothing you can do. How could I ever trust that you won’t watch Eisalaan drown to save the Laune?”
“I wouldn’t do that to you.” He ground out. “Not now.”
“Whynotnow? You planned to in the first place, you even knowhowto do it now, so why on all of Adhlas should I believe –”
“Because I’m in love with you.”
It burst from him all at once. He yelled it at her, each word hot and angry, each word given the weight and volume to knock her back. “Does that really need explaining? I’m keeping my people from their home, from any real chance of ever finding their way back becauseI’m in love with youand I don’t want you to lose what I lost.”
Adeline hadn’t felt the breath leave her lungs, but now her chest ached with its absence. He was too loud, his words tumbling heavy as rocks in the strange, dark stillness of the library. He didn’t seem to care. He didn’t stop. While she couldn’t breathe, he was breathing hard enough for them both.
“I choseyou. Over dozens of my own people. That is how very fucking selfish I’ve become, and it’s because I love you.”
The distance between them had narrowed and Adeline couldn’t say which of them had moved.
He was alight, wild and agitated, but as the silence finally sank and settled around them, Kai seemed to realise what he’d said. He blinked a few slow, dazed blinks and began to stumble back from her, but before the charge in his eyes could flicker and fade, Adeline reached for him, on impulse. Instinct.
Love.
Helovedher.
And he was leaving.
Kai looked down at her fingers circling his wrist, then slowly back up at her. His eyes were hard, hot as burning coals.
Something passed between them, a current in the silent air.
Then, with unspoken coordination they fell against each other, lips slanting together, his hands in her hair, then at her waist, hauling her up and against him. Her back hit the edge of a shelf and a few books tumbled to the ground.
“Don’t go,” she gasped against his lips, barely aware of what she was saying, let alone what she truly meant by it.
“I’m here,” was all he said.
Then he buried his face in the crook of her neck, the harsh bristle of his jaw and the soft brush of his lips sending shivers down her spine. Adeline clung to him as his tongue drew clumsy, desperate lines up the length of her throat, as his teeth closed around her earlobe and his hand found the collar of her simple day dress, yanking it off one shoulder. He was rough and frenzied, like he couldn’t touch enough of her at once.
His palm curved around her bare breast and she arched beneath him with a soft cry, more books toppling from the shelf, and more again when he dipped his head and caught her nipple between his teeth and tongue, sucking hard. The hollow thud of the books echoed in the empty silence around them, drowning out her breathy moans and Kai’s answering growl as he tugged at the front of her skirt and pulled it up, pushed it back over her hips.
“Hold,” he demanded, low and urgent, pressing her skirts into her hands. “And don’t make a sound.”
Then he dropped to his knees, and Adeline caught her breath between her teeth and held it there as he hooked his thumbs into the band of her undergarments and rolled them with forced, trembling gentleness down her thighs and over each ankle.
She watched him slide his shoulder beneath her knee, and when he looked up at her with that burning, impatient reverence, she had to catch at the shelf behind her to keep from swaying where she stood.
“Not a sound,” he said again, the words so rough in his throat she just about heard him. And though she was certain their raised voices and the cascade of books hitting the floor would have alerted any late night dwellers to their presence by now, she nodded breathlessly. She could not deny him anything, not when he was like this. She didn’t want to.
Kai’s eyes softened, urgency giving way to a lazy smile. He leaned in and brushed a kiss to her hip bone and for a moment there was only the warm caress of his fractured breath over her too-sensitive skin. Then his tongue. His tongue, torturous and soft and slow as he parted her with one long, languid stroke right up her centre. She nearly broke her promise right then and there, clapping a hand over her own mouth to stifle a sobbing moan.
“Good,” he murmured, then nipped at her inner thigh, making her twitch. “Very good.”
