Incendiary.
Chapter Six
Castien
All I could think of after I returned to my cabin was that kiss by the river.
Oleander’s lips against mine had ignited something within me that barely ever struck a spark. How was I to help him find a spouse? How was I to keep up my part of the bargain when I knew the way his lips felt against mine and the way his tongue tasted? I knew how his slim waist felt under my hand and the little gasp he made when we pulled apart. Even under the cover of darkness, I could see the blush to his cheeks and ears. I wanted to see it by daylight.
I wanted to know what other gasps and sounds he made.
I so rarely wanted this. Acantha teased me about being like my machines or perhaps of just liking my machines more than I liked other people. The latter had always been true. It was rare that I found anyone that I wished to spend an extended amount of time with. Even my own family grew irritating and loud after a few hours in their company. My closest friends were elves in Gearwick that I saw maybe once a month, when they dragged me from my home and insisted I join them at a pub or the library. I liked my solitude, but I found myself craving Oleander’s company.
Maybe it was the fact that he was content to sit in silence. He never became overwhelming.
I thought of him all night. I was grateful that I did not share a cabin with my sibling, because Acantha would have taken one look at me and known that something had changed.
They also would have mocked the care in which I put into choosing my outfit the following morning. I only owned simple garments, nothing like the brightly colored ones Oleander preferred. They would have mocked the scented oils I put on my pressure points, oils Acantha had purchased for me for various Naming Days and holidays. They claimed I smelled too much like a forge, and no one would ever want to bed me if I kept on like that.
Until that kiss with Oleander, I did not care.
Acantha gave me a look as we walked to market, but for once, they said nothing. But I could feel their eyes on me as Oleander and I slipped away from the stall and into the crowd.
“Where today?” Oleander questioned. The exuberance of our first outing was gone. He sounded as if the question was little more than an obligation.
I thought for a moment. We had visited the Pavilion, and I did not want to watch people realize how beautiful he was again. I did not want to risk someone seeing him and deciding that theywished to get to know him. It was a dangerous thought, and I knew that it was a sign. It was a sign that I should tell him that he had this, let him wander away on his own. He had gained confidence over the past few days, and if he had to find a spouse, I had full faith that he could do it on his own.
The idea turned my stomach, formed into a knot that threatened to displace that morning’s porridge.
“Lover’s Lane,” I suggested. It was one area in the market we’d not yet ventured, and from my understanding, it was mostly couples that ventured there. It was unlikely that anyone would approach him and attempt a proposal.
His face flushed, but he nodded. We started toward the direction. Once we got there, I knew I’d made the right suggestion. There were couples walking the path, hand in hand. There were other couples sitting at tables or on benches, talking with their heads together, planning the future they hoped to share. Other couples emerged from a copse of trees looking ruffled with kiss-swollen lips.
My mind flashed to the wet sheen of Oleander’s lips after we’d kissed. If we’d kissed longer, would they have swelled the same way? Would his skin redden from the scratch of my stubble? I wanted to pull him beyond the tree line and discover it. I had always been a scholar, and there was nothing I wanted to learn more than the way his body reacted to mine.
“Are you okay?” Oleander’s voice broke through the lust filled haze in my brain.
I swallowed. Had I looked distant? “I’m—I’m fine,” I croaked out. He raised a pale eyebrow at me, and I sighed. “I was thinking about our kiss last night.”
“It is all I have been able to think about,” he admitted, his words rushed and slurred together.
That beautiful color flooded his face again. There was something about the pink on his creamy skin that made hisviolet eyes more vibrant, made him more handsome. My hands balled into fists at my side to keep from reaching out and pulling him in for another kiss. “Should I bow out of helping you to find a spouse?”
“No.” His answer was as immediate as the one I’d given yesterday when he’d asked if I wanted him to leave. There had been no hesitation. Hope grew in place of that uncomfortable knot that had taken up residence in my stomach. He reached out, taking my hand in his. “I do not think I’ll find a spouse at the market. There is no one that has captured my attention.”
No one.
The knot started to form again.
“No one but you.”
I pulled him closer to me and stood on the tips of my toes to capture his lips. His lips moved against mine from first contact. Our fingers laced together, and my other hand wrapped around his waist, dragging him closer to me. Every part of my body that he touched came alive. It was like the sparks of energy I’d studied in my youth. I’d learned to capture them then, use them to power my inventions.
I wanted to study this electricity just as thoroughly. I wanted to learn what ignited it, how to replicate it. Every touch was another data point. I did not know that knees were conductors, but they were.
He was the first to pull away. His face was bright red, and the smile on his lips seemed brighter than the sun in the sky. I wanted to kiss that smile, discover if it could grow brighter, but Oleander stepped back. He touched his lips with his fingertips. He looked toward the copse of trees and back toward me, a question in his eyes.
There was no other answer to give him. I led him into the trees. The deeper we ventured, the more we encountered people who had sneaked away with the same intention we had. It feltentirely too public. I wanted to kiss him uninterrupted. I wanted to explore his body, find what it was that set him aflame. I did not want to do that in the company of others.
