My breath catches. I remember the feel of her coming apart as if she’d been crafted for my tastes. “I just—want you to be happy.”
She smiles so brightly I can hardly stand. “I am, Vann. And I want you to be happy to.”
“I… am.”
For a moment, she stares. Unraveling my soul. It makes my blood run hot—would make me lose my mind completely, if not for the guilt nagging in my gut.
And then she moves.
One second, she’s standing there, breathless and burning, and the next, her hands are in my hair.
Her lips crash into mine, wild and feverish, like she’s trying to drink in the night, the fire, everything.
Her nails scrape against my scalp as she exhales into my mouth, half-mad.
"Gods, it’s like I can still feel the drums in my skin,” she laughs.
She bites my bottom lip, not hard, but enough to make me feel. Enough to make my whole body seize and thaw at the same time.
And then—she’s gone.
Spinning away, arms high, feet kicking up the dirt.
She laughs, throwing her head back as she moves, the rhythm consuming her, owning her. Her hair whips around and her dress sways in time with the beat she makes.
I stand there, watching, wrecked.
”What are you doing, Firelocks?” My voice is rough, unsteady.
She smiles. “Dancing.”
Then, she steps back, slowly, her fingers slipping away.
Her hips roll, the motion subtle, hypnotic, and then her hands slide up the sides of her dress, skimming her waist, her ribs, before lifting to let her fingers trail through her hair.
I stand there, utterly frozen.
She’s playing with me.
“Your hands are still stained,” I rasp, eyes flicking to the plum-colored dye on her hands.
She lifts them, flexing her fingers, watching the way the color catches the moonlight. “You don’t like it?”
I growl, ignoring the voice that tells me to put distance between the two of us until I tell her the truth.
“I like everything on you.”
She steps closer again, tilting her head. “Then you should dance with me.”
I huff out a laugh. A part of me wants to, but another part has never seen her like this.
The last month has been torture for her. She’s been so afraid, but right now, she looks unburdened. Happy.
A part of me is acutely aware that the only reason I am graced with this moment is because, somehow, by a stroke of cosmic luck,she forgave me—my rudeness and coldness—and then chose to trust me.
“I would but you look so beautiful in this light.”
She grins. “Then you should watch.”