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His eyes flash at me. “Of course I do!” His hands fling into the air. “He saved my father’s life. And my father can no longer serve, so I’m serving in his stead.”
“There are other ways to serve your country than being stuck in a life you don’t want.”
“I told you—I’m content.”
“Are you, though?” I finally step off the ledge and head straight toward him as rain begins to fall more steadily. If this was a paranormal book, I’d be the girl who could control the weather because right now, it’s reflecting the storm inside of me as my heart beats wildly. “All of your excuses are melting away, Frederick. When are you going to admit that you don’t want this life? That you don’t want to be lonely, stuck inside the palace walls instead of being free to have whatever it is youdowant?”
Now my breath is coming quickly. I stand in front of him, rain dripping down my face as I take hold of his shirt. The water pelts the copse of trees behind Frederick, and the path is quickly becoming mud beneath our feet.
“Come on,” he urges. “Let’s take some cover.”
But I stand my ground. “Not until you answer me.”
“Chloe.” He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them to me again. “It would do absolutely no good to admit what I want, because it would only hurt the people I love most.”
“I thought we already determined that you weren’t the one who hurt Topher.” A shiver wracks my body, but I ignore the chill. “You told me last night that the world needed me to do what made me come alive, that it would be better for it. Isn’t that true of you too? How would the world be different if you did what you truly wanted?”
His gaze flashes to my lips, and my legs turn to jelly at the heat in his eyes. I take a step closer, so my hands are both flat on his hard stomach, and I lift my head upward. We’re making progress—I can feel it. But I’m not kissing him first, not until he admits that it’smehe wants.
Water rivulets run down the tracks of his face—his nose, the corner of his lips, his jaw, his chin—and I want to trace every single one. But I hold still. “What do you want, Frederick?”
“Sakes, Chloe.” He sets his forehead against mine. “Isn’t it obvious? Hasn’t it been obvious for the last twelve years?”
Twelve years? My mind does the math.
My eighteenth birthday party. Could what he told the group at the bar that night be real?“I just knew. She was it for me.”
“Say it.” I move my hands up his shirt, which is plastered to his well-formed chest, until they hitch high enough to feel his heart thundering against his ribcage.
Lightning flashes somewhere overhead, and the wind blows against us, but we are anchored here in the mud, in the details, in the most pivotal moment that’s ever existed.
“I can’t.” His own voice is raised, because the rain has become sheets around us. Water coats my lashes, making it difficult to see him, but I blink furiously because I don’t want to miss a moment.
“Why?” And I swear I won’t cry, but frustration makes my voice as battered as a raging sea tossed against the hull of a boat.
“Because I don’t want you to get hurt too.” There. It’s almost as good as admitting it.
I slide one hand up to his face, feel his strong jaw beneath my fingers. “The only way I get hurt is if we never admit what’s happening. If we continue to go on, doing this dance around each other, pretending like ...”
“Like we aren’t mad for each other?” His tone is questioning. Does he doubt that I’m mad for him too?
Well, I’m not going to leave him in suspense any longer. There are no prying eyes here, no reason to kiss him other than the fact that this—thathe—is what I want.
“Like we aren’t mad for each other,” I confirm before lifting on my tiptoes and pressing my mouth hard against his. I wind my hands up and around his neck, not giving him any choice in the matter.
Thankfully, it doesn’t seem he wishes to back down. At last, his arms press around me, and he kisses me in return with so much force, I’m afraid I’ll sink in this mud. Frederick must realize we’re on slippery ground, because he reaches under me and lifts me like I do indeed weigh as much as a feather.
I wrap my legs around his torso and, still kissing me, he walks us back to the grove of trees, where the leaves overhead form a pocket of protection from the elements. Some rain still filters through, but even in the heat of the moment, he’s keeping me safe.
He’s also lighting me up from the inside out.
My skin warms in all the places he’s touching me as he sets me on my feet in front of a particularly wide tree. Planting a hand on either side of my head, he stops kissing me for a moment and leans over me. Water drips down his nose. “Are you sure this is what you want, Chloe?”
I frame his face with my fingers. “This isallI want.”
And apparently that’s all he needs to hear, because he swoops in and kisses me again, as if he’s afraid I’ll change my mind. His mouth fuses with mine, becomes a part of me as we lean together and pour out all the desire that’s built for years, in all the moments of wanting and looking and not having.
That desire spills out and down as his kiss finds my neck. I gasp when his lips graze along my skin, chasing away the gooseflesh with the heat from his tongue. One of his hands moves to grip my waist, pulling our bodies flush against each other as that beautiful mouth of his explores the planes of my collarbones. Tilting my head back against the tree’s trunk, I coil my fingers through the belt loops of his shorts, holding on for dear life as Frederick takes me to a heady somewhere I’ve never been.
