He freezes, then immediately comes to my side. “Oh gods, no Arlet. I’m sorry. I meant that…”
I reach for him.
“Come here,” I say. The heat is so intense, it has gone from pleasurable to painful. My thighs rub together, and they slide with ease.
"Vann, please," I implore. I want to scream, to jump into ice water. “Help me.”
He freezes, then turns. His chest rises and falls once, and then he comes to my side.
“Firelocks, I should’ve realized there was something wrong with the wine. This isn’t you—this heat. Forgive me. I should’ve picked up on something when Theren kept going on and on about heat and fire,” he says, holding my hand to his icy cheek.
I want to cry. His eyes flutter closed when I brush my fingers along his jaw.
He smooths his thumb over my knuckles, the gesture soothing and electric at the same time. “We should never have drunk anything that wasn’t water. I won’t let this happen again.”
Another pulse of heat sweeps over me. I rock forward, desperate for a bit of friction. I trusted him so much.
He once had the power to break me, and he refused. He is safe. He has spent the last month teaching me how to trust.
I wanted to feel that connection on a deeper level. Wanted it to sizzle in the air between us. Wanted to give him pieces of me to care for.
But he is right—this isn’t normal. I’d been heated all night. Something was off.
Except, this isn’t the first time I’d been aroused by him. That he’d made my thighs slick and my lower stomach ache hollow.
But I didn’t know how to do this.
“Vann—” I start, and a part of me can’t believe I’m about to ask him, to beg him to come to me. To slide his hands up my legs and get me off. My head swims with sensation and fantasy. “I think I want the kiss now.”
“Arlet,” he growls. “No—your mind is altered. I would be taking advantage.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “But what if I ask you to come to me, to put your hands on my body?”
“The heat will pass soon, Firelocks.”
I focus on breathing and close my eyes. “It will pass soon?” I pant.
He nods. “Yes.”
“And you won’t touch me?”
“No,” he says. “But I will stay if you want me to. Or?—”
“Stay,” I choke out. Reaching for his hands, I cling to him so tightly, it must hurt. “Tell me a story.”
“I don’t like telling stories,” he says.
“Please? I need something to distract me—” a sharp burn licks at my stomach.
“Fine, I can tell you a story. I’ll make it romantic, just for you,” he says, sitting back so that he can face me on the bed.
"Once upon a stone,” Vann starts, his voice low, "there was a man with an empty chest. His heart was gone,traded away,and wasted through tragedy. So he walked through life, untouched by warmth or wonder and bound only by duty, until the day he met a woman. A beautiful woman.”
I hold my breath, my gaze locked on his face.
"He thought she was fragile," Vann continues, his eyes flicking to mine. "But he was wrong. She was fierce, and fought him when he acted like an ass. Everyone thought he hated her, even him.”
The dim light reflects in his silver eyes, soft and searching. “But, in reality, he was afraid of her. Furious at her kindness and calming demeanor. More than any war or monster, she threatened the cold future he’d built for himself. Of course, that all changed when he found out she was in danger.”