The smile took root this time, but he said nothing, still waiting.
Adeline bit her lip. She was losing her nerve, and her voice came out too small. “Do I really have to say it?”
“You really have to say it.”
She couldn’t bring herself to scowl at him. Her voice was so strained she wasn’t sure he would even hear her.
“It was you, Kai. I saw you.”
Kai’s face split in an unfamiliar grin, broad and cocky, and in that moment she thought she glimpsed the man that Alun described. She wished it didn’t suit him so well. And then he took a step toward her and she wished nothing of the sort. He could grace her with all the cocky smiles he wanted; she wouldn’t complain.
“Why would you lie about something like that, Adeline?” He said quietly. Teasingly.
She raised an eyebrow - or tried to. Honestly it was an effort to spare her attention to such gestures, all while steadying her voice against the quake in her throat, and restraining herself from grabbing Kai by the shirtfront. Which, she now realised, he’d half unbuttoned at some point in the night, by the heat of the fire. The Mid-Winter breeze tugged at his shirt, revealing the hard and elegant lines of his pale collarbone.
She quickly averted her eyes, though it wasn’t much easier looking up at him. What was his question?
Why would she lie?
She forced a breath of laughter.
“We did read the same book, didn’t we? Do you think I needed Izzy to know what I was seeing, with an illustration of us kissing on every second page?”
Kai blinked, some of the warm haze of the cider clearing from his eyes. “I suppose I wasn’t paying as much attention as I thought. Was there really that much kissing?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. She was too hot again, Kai’s long cloak trapping the heat of the blush creeping along her neck and colouring her cheeks.
“Well. I’m sorry to have put you through all that. It must have been disconcerting.”
She rolled her eyes, another forced gesture. “I think you know it wasn’t.”
“Do I?” He took another half step forward and her breath caught mid-sentence.
“It was in-intriguing.”
“Intriguing,” he murmured, eyes on hers.
Goddess, why hadn’t he kissed her yet?
“Kai.” It was barely a whisper, but he heard the reprimand and smiled, triumphant. Playing with her, like a bored cat pinning a mouse.
“Ask me then.” That cocky smile again.
“Ask you what?”
“You know what.”
No.
She couldn’t say the words. Could not physically force them up past her tongue. Adeline squirmed at the idea of begging him like that, and almost began to laugh -
But Kai bent his head to hers and gently kissed the very edge of her lips, the curve of her smile, and her breath seemed to evaporate into the cold night air; she couldn’t laugh, couldn’t sigh, couldn’tthink. Her arms came up around his neck unbidden, crushing their chests closer together as though that would help her sudden breathlessness.
“Ask me,” he said against her jaw, half-groan half-whisper.
She turned her head to fully catch his lips, but he pulled back, just a bit. His hand came up to frame her face, thumb brushing warmth over her lower lip.
“Ask me to kiss you, Adeline.”
