The instinct to lean away spiked through me then fell away just as abruptly – either way the shelf already dug into my spine. I couldn’t back up any further and my Flame was slipping free, seeping through the cracks like smoke through my fingers. I splayed my hand across my chest in some vain hope of containing it. It didn’t matter if he could see me now; if I didn’t do something, I was going to burn this room to cinders before anyone even realised we were trapped.
Breathe. Calm.
My Flame was not listening. It was leaking into my bloodstream, fire coursing through me with every frantic thud of my heart.He can hear it. The wild thought came to me half-formed; that he could hear the fire in my veins, that he was stirring it deliberately.
I needed to do something; say something. I managed to force out another less than convincing scoff.
“You certainly think a lot of yourself, Captain. You’reterrifying, you’reirresistible. So which is it, then? Do you want me trembling or swooning?”
He considered for one long, excruciating moment, the silence so taut I could feel it splintering between us. Deep down I knew what I wanted his answer to be, and what I truly believed it was. And somehow, I wasn’t prepared for the answer he finally gave.
“I want you any way I can have you.”
Gods forgive me, I was only human.
I rose up on my toes and kissed him.
Chapter Seven
Set Alight
It was stupid.
So stupid.
I was lonely and reckless andstupid, and the impulse moved through me before I had a hope of quelling it. He didn’t give me the chance to take it back. One moment my mouth had brushed his, and the next thing I knew, I’d been hoisted onto the shelf’s edge, lips parting on a gasp only for the Captain to swallow the sound like he could live off it. It was easy to forget that I’d started this; he claimed the kiss with a ferocity that caught me off guard and I melted against him, alarmingly soft and pliant for his barest touch. One hand flattened on the small of my back, the other threading through my hair and tugging, tilting my head so he could part my lips and slide his tongue between my teeth.
And just like that, I didn’t feel stupid at all, or afraid. I felt electric, alive, the magic in my blood singing in my veins and heating my skin even as goosebumps prickled my arms. My Flame seemed to sigh as it moved, and for the first time I realisedthatthisis what it had wanted all along. His skin on mine, for reasons I could neither understand nor even hazard a guess at. In this moment, I didn’t care.
Because the Captain made a rough, satisfied noise, so low in his chest it was more vibration than sound, and when he drew closer my knees parted all too eagerly at just the slightest nudge of his hips, skirt riding up around my thighs as he moved.
I leaned into him and caught his bottom lip between my teeth, sucking, relishing the sound he made and the heat of his hand smoothing down my back, down the curve of my waist, squeezing at my hip.
“Rosie,” he groaned.
For once, I didn’t correct him. Iwantedmy name rolling off his tongue just like that — wanted to hear it again. I nipped at his lip once more, but this time all it got me was another bone melting groan. He shifted me closer, using his grip on my hips to roll my core against him andgodshe was so hard,the frictionbetween our bodies so exquisitely rough I could hardly stand it.
Heat was spiralling from my chest, building at the base of my spine, and I knew I needed to stop this now, stop while I still had a shred of control to spare.
I am going to stop.
I’m going to push him away.
I am not going to fuck this dangerous man, in my cleaning cupboard, in the middle of my family’s tavern.
But then he buried his face in my neck and one by one, the thoughts went up in smoke at the delicious groans that spilled out of him. His tongue traced my throat, beard scraping my skin, lips and teeth sucking hard enough that when my head fell back and hit the shelf above me, the pain barely registered. I just clung harder to him, urged him closer, met the pressure of his hips with my own until we were both panting.
His hand had found its way beneath my skirt, curling around my thigh, his callouses catching on my stocking, fingers on the back of my knee making me shiver despite the blaze that consumed me from the inside out.
Wait.
It took me a beat to realise I hadn’t said it aloud; couldn’t, with my brain so fractured, my tongue so heavy in my mouth. Every word I tried to speak came out in a broken, panting moan.
“I– Caelan –”
His lips were melded to the slope of my throat, tongue laving at a pulse point so that his wordless groan of response vibrated right through me into my blood. It was too much, the hum from his lips racing along my veins with my pulse, the song of my magic swelling until there was no room for it all, until something had to give and I–
“Oh gods,stop.”
