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Thea stood rigid where he’d left her against the wall, her skin still singing with the echo of his touch. She flexed her fingers at her sides to try and rid herself of the strange sensation. But it remained; she could still feel the imprint of his fingertips on her scar.
He was watching her, his expression unreadable.
Thea folded her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling exposed. ‘You hit Vernich,’ she said, studying Hawthorne just as intently as he studied her.
‘Several times,’ he replied, that dark expression still revealing nothing.
‘Why?’
‘He’s a bastard.’
‘Is that all?’
A loaded silence followed.
‘Is that all?’ Thea repeated.
‘He deserved it,’ Hawthorne said at last. ‘For what he did to your friend, to you.’
Thea forced herself to remain still, though her instincts screamed at her to fidget beneath his scrutiny, or go to him – she didn’t know which was more powerful. She sifted through her mind for something to say, but nothing came and she silently cursed him for tangling her thoughts so thoroughly.
That was when her gaze landed on the table beneath the window, and the chain of flowers lying atop. Her breath caught in her throat again. It was the one she’d made on their journey back from Harenth. The one she’d thrown at him… He’d kept it.
Thea gathered her courage as the tension became too much to bear. ‘What is this? This thing between us?’ she asked at last. All she wanted to do was cross the room and lay her hands, her body, her mouth on him.
‘There is nothing between us,’ he said.
‘Liar.’
That muscle twitched in his jaw but he didn’t deny it asheclosed the gap between them. ‘I find you endlessly infuriating,’ he ground out. ‘And yet…’
‘Yet?’
‘And yet I can’t seem to stay away.’ He stood before her once more, mere inches away.
‘So don’t,’ she said boldly. It was the second time she’d taken the risk for him, the second time she’d told him what she wanted. Heart hammering, she reached for him, daring to dip her fingertips between the open folds of his shirt, trailing them across the muscular expanse of his chest, his skin blazing hot beneath her touch.
He didn’t move.
‘Hawthorne?’ her voice trembled, the longing to press her mouth to his, her body to his, was overwhelming.
His hands came up, and she braced herself for that first touch, the touch that would be her undoing.
His fingers brushed a stray strand from her face, tucking it gently behind her ear. ‘You changed your hair…’
The whisper of a caress trailed down her tresses, where he twined the ends around his hand and drew her to him. His lips, softer than she imagined, grazed hers, hot and restrained, with the promise of something much deeper, much more intense.
At that alone, Thea nearly moaned, every nerve in her body was alight, every desire she’d ever felt was flooding to the surface. Furies, she wanted him. She wanted to finish whatthey’d started the moment she’d woken pressed against him in the fields.
And then, his mouth closed over hers in earnest, and he kissed her fiercely.
Thea’s lips parted, and his tongue brushed hers, his hand closing around the nape of her neck, drawing her close.
He groaned, the carnal sound vibrating and unfurling the coil of desire within her as she kissed him back, matching his intensity.
It robbed her of breath, and told her that every kiss she’d experienced before had been a lie, a shadow of what it was meant to be. She could only imagine what that said about everything else.
Heart pounding, Thea kissed him harder, losing herself in him, her hands sliding down his torso, revelling in the power there.
