Not as good as you, I wanted to say. But that was a dangerous path to be avoided—one she would most assuredly regret come morning. “Feckin’ hell, woman. You must’ve had a lot of wine.”
Her shoulder rubbed against my chest when she shrugged. “What took you so long?”
I didn’t want to talk about the body I’d left in the castle. I didn’t want to talk about anything. “Shhh. Go back to sleep.”
The first few doors I checked were locked. It wasn’t until I reached the fifth door on the third floor that I found an unoccupied room. Keelynn groaned when I set her on her feet, swaying like a tree in a gale. “Can you stand on your own, or do I need to bring you to the bed?”
“It would’ve been the second one if you hadn’t gone off withÁine,” she muttered, colliding with the wall.
“Yes, well, I didn’t have much of a choice.” This was the drink talking. People said all sorts of foolish things when they were drunk. “You need to get some sleep. Don’t forget to lock the door.” I paused, letting the command sink in. “Did you hear what I said? Lock the—”
“I heard you. Lock the bloody door.” She narrowed her bloodshot eyes toward the handle. “Why does it matter? It’s not like a lock could keep one of you out.”
“I’ve already told you that evanescing into a locked room breaks one of our most important laws. So, while a lock technically wouldn’t keep us out, there’d be hell to pay if anyone came in.”
Her eyes dropped to my mouth. “Who’s going to come in here?” she breathed.
The huskiness in her voice sent all my blood rushing south.
I checked she hadn’t lost the ring before glancing toward the delicate pink skin of her lips. “A terrible monster who wants to take advantage of your inebriated state.” A war raged inside me, telling me to leave, to get the hell out of this room before she made an offer I couldn’t refuse. The consequences of spending the night with Keelynn like this wouldn’t end well for either of us.
My stubborn feet refused to budge as my magic slipped free, curling about her bare ankles like phantom fingers.
“Do you think the monster would like my dress?”
I slipped a finger down the scandalous neckline to the swell of her breast, teasing just beneath the shimmering material. “He would love your dress.”On the floor.
“He wouldn’t think it was too short?”
It was too short for anyone else to see, but not for me. Not for the two of us in this bedroom, bodies meeting in all the right places. “He’d think it was just right.”
I knew I shouldn’t kiss her. But then my hand skimmed beneath the hem of her dress, finding her hip bare beneath, and I couldn’t resist. Just one kiss. Barely a kiss. A graze to torture us both.
“This can’t happen again. You said that. We don’t even like each other.” That’s what she’d said. She may not like me, but she certainly liked what I was doing with my hips.
“I lied,” she moaned, hips rising to meet mine.
What if I inched her skirt up higher, undid my belt, and let her bare flesh writhe against me until we both saw stars?No, no. Keelynn was too drunk, and I wasn’t exactly sober myself, and with lust clouding my mind, I wasn’t thinking straight.
Time to go. Beyond time. “Next time I tell you not to drink the wine, I suggest you listen.” I evanesced outside the room, my curse and my body screaming at me to go back. “Lock the damn door,” I called. If she didn’t, there was no telling what I’d do.
* * *
The only way to keep myself from returning to that chamber was to drown my darkness with more drink. If I couldn’t see straight, I couldn’t find her. If I couldn’t feel my limbs, I wouldn’t be able to move from this spot next to the dying bonfire. I drank every last rancid drop from the bottle, chucked the thing into the fire, and swiped at my cursed lips with my sleeve.
Get drunk. Pass out. Pretend there wasn’t a woman I wanted more than air sleeping so close I could still smell her. Solid plan.
Leaning back against the stone, Ruairi scratched his chin. “Yer in right trouble over that one, aren’t ye?”
I couldn’t answer without my head throbbing.
“Traveling across the country with a beautiful woman fer how long without takin’ her to bed,” he went on, giving my boot a nudge with his. “Not like ye at all, lad.”
The bonfire had burned to embers and a few glowing orange logs. Seren was curled on the ground beneath Ruairi’s dark coat. Giggles echoed from the tower, where Cormac and two other faeries had disappeared not long after I’d returned.
“She told you that?” It must’ve been the drink. There was no other explanation for Keelynn trusting Ruairi.
He smirked. “Yer human told me lots of things.”