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A last time before the wedding, he means. The flutter I feel seems more absurd while I’m in this dress that I very much wore for him, as if my heart is exposed in that bare dip of my chest. If anyone were spying now, they’d say there’s little reason for the prince and Seer to be observing each other so closely and there’s nothing innocent in the way he’s looking at me.
But there is no one.
So I follow him to his study.
Two steps into his study and a click of the lock later, my back is against the wall and Cyrus’s mouth is on mine.
They don’t tell you this part in the storybooks. They go on and on about true love, even though no one can explain what it is. They don’t tell you where your hands go when Prince Charming just wants to fool around. They don’t tell you that his red, wet, wanting mouth is the ruby fruit, nor whether it’s poison or bliss—or both. You have to nibble to find out.
And I’m not supposed to be in his arms at all. I’m the wrong girl, the witch, the one he should never give in to—
Yet I’m the only one he wants.
I force Cyrus backward, nearly tripping over the fur rug in the center of the room. He fumbles for the sash around my waist. My mind is racing, but if we don’t go too fast, we’ll stop, and I don’t want to stop. We have no promises. No future I can fathom. Once I leave his study, none of this will have happened.
My dress slips from one shoulder as he kisses along itsneckline. Try as I might to stay impassive, I laugh. “You’re so easy to read.” I let my robe fall and pool at my feet.
“Then enlighten me”—Cyrus nudges me onto his desk, hands sliding up my legs—“as to what it is I want to do.”
I don’t trust anyone in this world, least of all him, but I know bargains, and this touch is a trade. There’s a time for softer emotions, but not when the challenge licked upon his grin makes me want him to inconvenience me as much as possible. Nosed against me, he wears not the charming mask that I scorn, but something more roguish and secret. I like this side of him. I like that it’smine.
Pushing him onto his knees, I give him an order as much as an answer. “Humble me.”
Throned on his desk, I learn what compromise means: a prince kneeling before me with a mouth free to roam. He pushes my skirts up to my waist, gaze turned upward like a question and smile crooked against my thigh, a smile that’s also mine. I flush at that look, at how little I can hide, at how he delights in that very revelation.
When his lips finally press against me, I grip his hair gasping, the reaction so immediate I turn away. He kisses me until my legs shake, until I no longer care how I’m reacting at all.
I grope at the lump of fabric where his shirt has ridden up, pushing it over his head. Cyrus rakes off my dress. We tumble onto the floor.
I’ve been drinking draughts made from the herbs Camilla gave me, but I’m suddenly worried it won’t be enough; I’ve had time since our previous encounter to worry about allthe stupid things we almost did. When his body settles over me, I lurch upward.
“I don’t—we shouldn’t risk it,” I gasp.
“Okay,” Cyrus pants, salt on his tongue, his next kiss gentle. “Okay.” And only in this reprieve do I realize I might even be afraid of how we always go too fast, too far when it comes to each other.
But boundaries can be fun, too; we’ve always skirted them. He slides a thumb, then his mouth, over the blushing parts of my body, and my knuckles turn white grasping the rug. It doesn’t matter what he’s doing; it’shimI want—him wanting me. Both of us choosing the same carelessness. The tales are a lie: destiny isn’t anything but the volatile beat of a prince’s heart, and it’s pounding out of his chest against mine.
When he looks too smug, I twist my hips and roll Cyrus over. He taunts me with his lip between his teeth, but I’m better at playing wicked, and I think I’ll like it more, too. If there’s any kind of trust in a feud as long as ours, it’s the assurance that neither of us will hold back.
One hand around his throat, the other around the part of him that aches for me, I relish my victory as he utters my name in delirious prayer.
If I don’t already haunt his dreams, I will now.
We lie sprawled on the rug, half-dressed, gazing up at the starburst-patterned ceiling of his study. Our bare arms radiate heat, not quite touching.
“This is a bad idea,” Cyrus murmurs.
“Was,” I say. Thiswasa bad idea. It all already happened, which is also the only reason we’re clearheaded now. The gnawing under my skin has abated and I no longer think about his lips every time he so much as inhales. Bad ideas are either repulsive or very tempting; the pendulum had swung far to the latter side, but now it’s swinging back.
Lolling my head toward him, I find him looking at me. People trample each other just to touch that face. He has more freckles than I remember. I think about his lips anyway, buried in the crook of my neck not ten minutes ago.
Even I have to laugh—so I do.
“What’s so funny?” Cyrus asks.
Us. Everything.“This.” I splay my hands in the air. “Prince Charming fooling around with the local witch. We’re a diplomatic nightmare.”
“That’s not funny.”
