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It’s all right to want him,she told herself.It’s all right to have him. Sex is just sex. Perhaps it’ll go away if you give in. If you let go, just this once…
But his kisses were like drops of alcohol on the tongue of an addict, like rain after a drought, like a river breaking down a dam. Impossible to resist. Impossible not to be dragged under.
You will destroy me,she realised,and I will let you.
Her skin quivered beneath his touch as they slid beneath her tunic, his soft palms brushing her scars, her bruises, examining them like artwork, lowering his lips to her middle like the shrine of a saint.
“Jules,” he breathed. “Tell me what to do, and I will do it.”
“Lie to me,” she whispered. “Tell me that you hate me, too.”
“You know I cannot.” His tongue found her mouth, slowly teasing at her lips, nibbling softly. “I hate you as much as I detest the sun, as much as I loathe velvet, as much as I adore the worst of all the shadows.”
“That’s not hate.”
“Worse than hate,” he whispered against her breath. “Intolerable. Insufferable.”
“What would you say to me, if you could lie?”
He kissed down her throat. “If I could lie, I’d tell you I despise you, that I never think of you, that I have no need of your kindness, that there is nothing I want from you. That you could never make me beg or plead or grovel. I would lie to you until I believed the lies myself.”
His kisses trailed down her collar bones as his hands moved to part her clothes. He let out a hard, tight breath as his palm graced her breast, shivering under her warmth. It lingered there, unmoving, as if he didn’t quite dare claim it.
“Give me your truths,” he begged. “Tell me anything real.”
“I want you,” she murmured. “I’ve wanted you for so long—and I hate it, but it’s true.”
His lips hovered at her hips, brushing the scars he found there. “And in what ways do you want me, Jules?”
Too many, all of them—but it was too much, too much like lying down on a bed of knives. If she balanced, she’d be fine, but one weight in the wrong place—
She peeled off his shirt. “This is a good place to start.”
She craved more than his flesh. She craved the scent of him inside her, his honeyed words against her heart. She wanted to bottle him, have him, consume him, be consumed by him. She wanted the courage to turn misshapen feelings into words, to craft him sweet, soft phrases, promises she could be held to.
It was foolish and stupid to want to make him happy, this person she’d spent so long hating.
And yet, she wanted it.
More than honour and glory and riches and freedom.
She wanted him to be happy.
They fell back against the floor, fumbling once more for their clothes.
“It’s a bit strange, not being able to feel anything but you,” Juliana breathed, and then found the thought vanishing. “But I don’t think I need to.”
Hawthorn moaned into her mouth, as if her words were honey after a feast. He arched her back against the floor, kisses descending down her neck, across her collarbones, chest, the flat, scarred panes of her stomach… “It’s just as well we can’t touch anything,” he told her. “I think I’d break the hut.”
Juliana hooked her legs around his waist and flipped him underneath her in one fluid motion, pinning him to the floor. “Or I would.” Her hands glided up his chest, hard, firm, claiming. “Or perhaps I’d break you…” Her mouth fell to his throat, nipping and teasing.
Hawthorn’s hands braced against her hips. “You have already broken me,” he whispered in her ear, “and I give you full permission to do so again…”
Juliana kissed him again, hard, rough, claiming. She thought about biting him. She wanted him, wanted more, more,moreof him than she had ever wanted anything else and she needed to kiss him, to devour him, to press their bodies together until there was not a fragment of space between them.
She shoved him back against the floor and scrambled upright, hauling off what remained of her clothes. She opened her mouth to command he do the same, but before she could, he came towards her, braced on his knees, eyes wide.
For a second, the room fell silent.
