When they finally arrive the manor's medics make quick work Giselle begin to follow after when she's interrupted by Thornwell's voice. Thornwell stood on the stone steps of Greyhaven, his silhouette sharp against the manor's great oak door. The carriage had barely halted before he descended, his expression one of controlled alarm.
"Your Grace," he said, his voice low but carrying over the clatter of the guards dismounting. "What has happened?"
The carriage door swung open before a footman could reach it. Giselle emerged, her crimson skirts a splash of defiance against the grey stone. "Alina collapsed in the village," she said, without preamble. "She is exhausted. See that she is taken to the infirmary and given proper care."
Two household servants moved forward to assist Clara, who was helping Alina from the carriage.
She addresses Thornwell, "Where is the Duke?" Her voice cuts through the ordered chaos, sharp as a blade. Thornwell's gaze shifts from the staggering figure of Alina to Giselle's resolute face.
"He is in the west wing, Your Grace," Thornwell replies, his tone measured but his eyes betraying a flicker of unease. "He has been occupied there since morning and left instructions not to be disturbed."
Giselle's jaw tightens. The forbidden wing, the place of shadows and silence. She watches as Alina is half-carried, half-dragged toward the manor's infirmary, her soot-stained apron a stark contrast against the pristine stone. Giselle nods, "Just see to her please."
The heavy oak door groans shut behind Alina and the servants, sealing the faint clatter of their steps inside the manor's stone corridors. Giselle stands motionless, the chill from the courtyard floor seeping through the soles of her boots. The air smells faintly of damp earth and the iron tang that clings to everything in Greyhaven even the wind that stirs her hair.
"She will recover," Thornwell says, but his voice lacks conviction. He shifts his weight, one hand resting against the carved balustrade. "The medics are skilled. They will do what they can."
Giselle doesn't answer. She stares past him, toward the west wing. She eyes him, "Thornwell. Please leave. I would like a moment alone."
Thornwell hesitates, his hand still resting on the balustrade. His eyes, usually so guarded, reveal a flicker of concern as he studies Giselle's face. "As you wish, Your Grace," he finally says, bowing his head slightly. He turns toward the main hall, his boots clicking against the stone floor.
As the heavy oak door swings shut behind him, Giselle stands alone in the cold courtyard. The iron tang of Greyhaven's ever-present dampness clings to the air, mingling with the sweet scent of gardenias that drift from unseen flowerbeds. She turns toward the west wing, her crimson skirts brushing against the stone steps as she ascends.
She's not sure what she's doing but an irrational anger began to swell in her chest long before in the carriage. The anger is a living thing now, a weight in her chest that makes it hard to breathe. The west wing door looms before her, its wood dark with age, the iron handle cold beneath her fingers. She doesn't knock. She turns the handle and steps inside.
The corridor stretches before her, dimly lit by sconces that cast long, flickering shadows. She can hear him before she sees him his heavy boots against the stone floor, the quiet scrape of something being dragged. She follows the sound.
He's in the last chamber on the left, the one with the barred window overlooking the training yard. The room smells of smoke and blood, with a faint metallic tang beneath it. She knows she's forbidden from the west wing but in the present moment she doesn't care. The door stands ajar, revealing a scene that steals the breath from her lungs. The Duke is not at his ledgers, not attending to any pressing matters. He stands before a wide stone hearth where a low fire smolders, his back to her. His linen shirt is unlaced at the throat, sleeves rolled to the elbows, revealing the corded strength of his forearms. But it is not his state of undress that holds her frozen it is the blood. Dark streaks of it mar his hands and the shirt's fabric, and at his feet lies the carcass of a young stag, its hide glistening wetly in the firelight.
He is dressing the kill.
Giselle nearly gags, the sound makes the Duke's head snaps up at the sound, his storm-grey eyes locking onto hers with startling intensity. He doesn't turn fully, just enough to assess her presence without breaking his rhythm. Bloodied fingers continue their work, the blade in his hand slicing through sinew with a surgeon's precision.
"You're not supposed to be here," he says, his voice carrying the rough edge of someone who hasn't spoken all day. The stag's innards steam in the cold air, the smell of fresh death thickening the space between them.
Giselle's chest tightens as she stares at the scene, her hand still gripping the doorframe. She takes a second to control herself remembering why she even bothered coming here. The stag's blood pools on the flagstones, catching the firelight in dark crimson swirls. Giselle's throat tightens as she watches the Duke's hands move with steady, relentless skill each cut precise, each motion carrying the burden of a man who has done this countless times before. The smell of death fills the room, mingling with the pine resin that clings to his skin.
"You're not supposed to be here," he repeats, slower this time, his eyes still locked on hers over his shoulder. His blade pauses momentarily, the steel glinting in the dim light before he resumes his work.
Giselle steps forward, the hem of her crimson skirts whispering against the stone floor. She winces as the blood continues to pool in the tile it was obvious the scene was pulling her focus.
"I know, but-" She pauses, "For godsake! will you stop that. I have an issue with you that needs to be addressed."
The Duke does not stop. He simply shifts his weight, his shoulders a rigid line beneath the damp linen, and continues to separate flesh from bone. The sound is wet and final. He speaks without looking at her again, his focus on the task. "Issues are best addressed at appropriate times, Lady Giselle. In appropriate places. This is neither."
"Alina collapsed in the village," Giselle says, the words sharp and clear, cutting through the rhythmic sound of his blade. "She was carrying a bundle from the smithy, a bundle meant for you. She is now in your infirmary, being tended to by your medics because she is half-starved and exhausted."
His hands still for a moment, fingers curled around the hilt of his knife. The stag's entrails glisten in the firelight, a grotesque contrast to the golden light spilling from the hearth. He exhales slowly through his nose, his shoulders rising slightly before he resumes his work with a single, sharp movement.
"That is unfortunate," he says at last. His tone is carefully measured, devoid of anything resembling concern.
Giselle's fingers tighten around her dress, her nails digging into the fabric, "Unfortunate?"
The word tastes bitter in her mouth. "She has been working herself to death for you, and all you can say is that it is unfortunate?"
His head tilts slightly, the movement almost imperceptible, but Giselle catches it. The knife continues its work, now peeling back a layer of fat from the stag's ribs. The crackling firelight throws dark shadows across his face, carving hollows beneath his cheekbones. When he speaks, it is without inflection.
"What would you have me say, Lady Giselle?" He doesn't turn to look at her. "That I feel guilty? That I am sorry? Or would you prefer a grand speech about how I shall change my ways?" There's an edge to his words now, not quite anger, but something close.
Giselle steps fully into the room, the door clicking shut behind her.
"What is wrong with you." The question hangs in the cold, bloody air, a raw accusation that seems to echo against the stone walls.
Giselle advances, her own shadow stretching long and thin across the floor until it touches the edge of the spreading crimson pool. She does not flinch from the sight of the eviscerated beast or the man who stands over it, his hands steeped in its life.
The Duke finally lays his knife aside on a worn wooden block. He turns fully to face her, his storm grey eyes as hard and unyielding as the manor's granite foundations. Blood is smeared across his forearms, soaked into the linen of his shirt, a stark testament to the kill. He does not wipe his hands. Giselle drinks in his appearance, though he looks akin to a monster she is not afraid. She sees beyond the blood and the gore to the man beneath the rigid set of his jaw, the weary lines etched around his eyes, the way he holds himself as if braced against an unseen gale. The scent of pine and iron and cold stone is a mantle he wears as deliberately as his title.
His silence is a challenge, and she meets it with her own. The only sounds are the hiss of damp wood in the hearth and the distant, fading drip of blood onto stone.
"Alina is a person," Giselle says, her voice lower now, a blade honed to a fine edge. "She lost the only man she cared about, in your name." She feels tears form in her eyes as she recalls her own pain, "Do you have no sympathy or are you just a....." Giselle lets the sentence hang, unfinished, a weapon in itself. The tears do not fall; they burn behind her eyes, a hot, private ache.
The Duke's expression does not change. He picks up a cloth, but instead of cleaning his hands, he uses it to slowly wipe the blade of his skinning knife. The gesture is meticulous, almost reverent.
"I have sympathy," he says, his voice a low rumble that seems to originate from the stones beneath their feet. "It is a finite resource. I do not spend it on theatrics."
"Theatrics?" The word is a gasp, torn from her.
She glares a him now a bitter smile forming on her full lips, "Is that the same excuse you'll give me for not showing up to our wedding ceremony?"
She watches the words land. The careful motion of his hands stills. For a moment, there is only the crackle of the fire and the thick, metallic scent of the stag between them.
"That was different," he says, the words clipped. He sets the knife and cloth down with a finality that echoes. "A political alliance does not require my presence at its pageantry to be valid. A servant collapsing from a burden she chose to carry is not a spectacle for my remorse."
"She did not choose it!" Giselle's voice rises, sharp as shattered glass. "You command. They obey. There is no choice in it." She was speaking on behalf of Alina but also deep down herself.
He watches her, a strange, almost predatory stillness settling over him.
"There is always a choice," he counters, his voice dropping to a near whisper that forces her to lean in to hear. "She chose to prove her worth. She chose to defy her dismissal. She chose to carry that burden rather than show weakness. Just as you chose to come here, to this room, to confront me instead of tending to her in the infirmary. You chose this spectacle."
His words strike a chord of uncomfortable truth. Giselle feels the heat of her anger mingle with a cold dread. He sees too much.
For a moment she is rendered speechless she glances at his still bloodied hands the scene making her uncomfortable it reminded her of death she hated thinking about it. Without much thought she grabbed his hand and cleaned it roughly with her dress Her fingers closed around his wrist, the contact jarring a sudden, searing bridge between her clean, trembling skin and the slick, drying blood that coated his knuckles and palm. She used the hem of her own crimson dress, a coarse, practical weave, to scrub at the stains. The fabric darkened instantly, absorbing the rust-brown remnants of the stag's life.
The Duke did not pull away. He watched her, his stillness now absolute, as if she were a fascinating and unpredictable creature that had wandered into his lair. Her movements were frantic, unthinking, born of a need to erase the visceral proof of the kill, to cleanse the symbol of his indifference. But the blood was stubborn.
Then she opened her mouth, "You may not care about your people, or this marriage but I do." She didn't look up continuing to harshly scrub, "I left my home, Alina lost her husband. " Her words were punctured, "If you can't force yourself to care can you at least pretend."
The last word cracked, a plea wrapped in despair. She finally looked up, her eyes searching his face, not for kindness, but for the barest hint of performance, a flicker of the lord he was supposed to be. Her hands still gripped his, her dress now ruined with the evidence of his world.
For a long moment, the only sound was the crackle of the hearth and the ragged edge of her own breath. The Duke's gaze held hers, unreadable as stone. Then, very slowly, he turned his hand within her grasp, his fingers curling to capture hers. The pressure was not cruel, but it was absolute, pinning her frantic motion. She gasped, feeling his heat fill her almost instantly her eyes locked on to his His grip was firm, unyielding, yet the contact sent an involuntary tremor through her fingers. Her pulse thundered in her throat, a traitorous awareness now present beyond the anger.
The Duke leaned closer, his breath warm against her cheek. "You mistake my silence for indifference," he murmured, his voice a low rumble. "You mistake the absence of rage for weakness."
His free hand rose to brush a strand of hair from her forehead with deliberate slowness. The touch lingered, his rough fingertips tracing the curve of her cheekbone before withdrawing. Giselle's breath caught. She should pull away. She should scream at him. Instead her eyes fluttered shut for just a moment, the ghost of his touch persisting like a brand. When she opened them again, he was watching her with that same inscrutable intensity. The distance between them had narrowed to mere inches, his face now inches from hers. The heat from the fire and his proximity made her skin prickle with awareness.
"You do not frighten me," she whispered, but her voice wavered traitorously.
The Duke's lips quirked, not quite a smile. "No," he agreed softly. "Not yet." His gaze fell to her mouth, and Giselle's stomach tightened with something that wasn't entirely fear.
The atmosphere between them had shifted, grown dense with something unspoken, something dangerous. Until she spoke, "It is you who is afraid isn't it Victor?"
She speaks his name, a challenge, a weapon, and his grip on her hand tightens imperceptibly. Victor's jaw clenches, the muscles in his neck tensing as his fingers brush against her pulse point. For a long moment, he says nothing, his eyes searching hers as if trying to decipher the truth within them. Then, in a low murmur, he says, "Afraid of what, exactly?"
His breath ghosts across her lips, the heat of his body pressing closer. The firelight dances in his eyes, casting shadows that seem to deepen the intensity of his gaze. His thumb strokes her inner wrist, a slow, deliberate caress that sends shivers up her arm.
She steps forward crowding in his space, "To feel perhaps, to desire, to love, to care....why?"
His face darkens at her words, his nostrils flaring slightly. The hand not holding hers moves to her waist, pulling her flush against him. The damp wool of his shirt clings to his chest, and she can feel the hard planes of muscle beneath.
"Care," he repeats, the word bitter on his tongue. "You want me to care?" His free hand slides up her arm, coming to rest against her shoulder. His fingers tighten almost painfully. "And what would you have me do with that care, Giselle? Pour it out like wine until it's gone? Until I have nothing left to give?"
His voice drops lower, rough with something that sounds perilously close to emotion. His other hand came up to cup her jaw, his palm rough against her skin. The scent of stag's blood and cold air clung to him, mingling with the sharper smell of his sweat and the faint, lingering trace of soap.
"You think care is a gentle thing?" he asked, his voice still low, but now edged with a raw intensity. "You think it is soft words and kind touches?" He shook his head slowly, his storm-grey eyes holding hers captive. "Care is a blade. It is a weight. It is watching someone you… it is watching someone walk into danger and being unable to stop them. It is remembering a laugh in an empty hall."
He trembles, Giselle feels his body she knows he's speaking of Elodie The admission hangs between them, unspoken yet as tangible as the blood drying on her dress. Giselle feels the tremor that runs through him, a fine vibration against her palms where they are pressed to his chest. It is not the shudder of anger, but of memory, raw and exposed.
"Elodie," she says, and it is not a question.
Victor flinches as if struck. His eyes shutter closed for a heartbeat, and when they open, the storm in them is fractured, revealing the bleak landscape beneath. His thumb still strokes her shoulder, a hypnotic rhythm at odds with the tension coiling through him.
"You would have me speak of her now?" His voice is hoarse, stripped of its earlier smoothness. The hand on her jaw tightens almost painfully, fingers pressing into the soft flesh.
Giselle doesn't flinch. She tilts her head slightly, studying the lines of his face the sharp cheekbones shadowed by the firelight, the mouth pressed into a thin line. "You speak of her knowing she is gone," she says, the words soft but steady. "Yet you wear her like armor."
Victor makes a sound deep in his throat a half-scoff, half-snarl. "And you, my wife, would have me put it aside?"
Giselle's brows furrow her own hand coming to cup his cheek, "Never. I would never ask of such a thing."
The Duke's breathing falters at the touch, his storm-grey eyes widening fractionally. The hand on her slackens momentarily, fingers loosening their grip as if the simple word has unmoored him hands drifting to cup her collar bone as if she were a life line. The firelight catches the angles of his face, deepening the hollows beneath his cheekbones, casting his eyes into shadow.
"You would have me hold onto grief?" His voice emerges quieter now, stripped of its earlier edge. The tremor in his body intensifies, Giselle does not withdraw. Instead, she steps closer, her skirts brushing against his blood-stained trousers. "No," she murmurs, her breath warm against his throat.
"I'd ask that you honor her, become the man that she always knew you to be. The man you are now...is that the man she fell in love with?"
Victor's breath hitched. He stared down at her, his face a mask of stark, unmasked pain. For a long moment, he said nothing, his gaze searching hers as if trying to find some trick, some deceit in her words. The silence stretched, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the distant howl of the wind against the manor stones.
Then, slowly, he lowered his forehead until it rested against hers. The contact was startlingly intimate, a surrender of distance. His eyes slid shut. "Elodie," he whispered, the name a benediction and a curse. "She saw… a ghost of who I could be. A shadow on the wall."
He drew a ragged breath. The firelight catches the sheen of sweat on his forehead as he pulls back just enough to look at her again, his storm-grey eyes dark with something dangerous and raw. "And you?" His question emerges rough, almost inaudible. "What do you see when you look at me, Giselle?"
The blood on his shirt has dried into dark patches, but she can smell the metallic tang beneath his sweat and soap. His proximity overwhelms her his heat, his breath warm against her skin, the way his chest rises and falls with quick, uneven breaths.
"I see a man, trying." The words hang between them, stark and simple. They are not an absolution, nor an accusation. They are merely an observation, a truth stripped bare.
His breath leaves him in a sharp, shuddering exhale, as if she has struck a physical blow. His forehead remains pressed to hers, his eyes still closed. For a long, suspended moment, the only sound is the frantic hammering of her own heart against her ribs, echoing his.
When he opens his eyes, they are no longer the storm-grey of distant thunderheads, but the dark, roiling slate of a sea before a squall. The raw pain is still there, but it is now threaded with a bewildered, desperate hope. She closes her eyes and presses a gentle trembling kiss on his neck, her lips meeting the salt-damp skin just above his collar. The contact is fleeting, a whisper of warmth against the pulse hammering there. Victor goes utterly still, his breath catching in his throat. The hand at her collarbone tightens convulsively, pulling her even closer against the solid wall of his chest.
A low, ragged sound escapes him, half groan, half sigh. He turns his head, his cheek brushing against her temple, his lips finding the shell of her ear.
"You undo me," he murmurs, the words rough with an emotion too vast to name.
Giselle moans gently the sound foreign to her own ears, she sucks in a shaky breath her eyes clamped shut She can feel the tremor in his fingers, the slight unsteadiness in a man built of stone and shadow. Pressing her into the heat of him until not even a whisper of air separates them.
"Victor," she whispers against his neck, the name a plea and a surrender.
He shifts, his lips trailing from her ear down the line of her jaw, a path of fire on her chilled skin. The world narrows to the heat of his mouth on her skin, the desperate way his fingers tighten around her. His breathing is ragged, uneven, his chest rising and falling against her with the force of his emotions. When he speaks, his words brush against the curve of her ear like a summer breeze turned winter-cold.
"You give me no peace," he murmurs, but there is no real anger in it. Only a raw, unguarded need that makes her stomach clench.
His hands slide to the small of her back, pressing her flush against him. She can feel everything the hard planes of his body, the rapid beat of his heart, the way his muscles tremble with restraint. When he finds the corner of her mouth, he pauses, his breath mingling with hers. The scent of blood and sweat is still there, but beneath it is something warmer, uniquely him leather, wood smoke, and the sharp, clean scent of the coming rain.
He doesn't kiss her. Not yet. He holds himself there, a hair's breadth away, as if testing the strength of his own control. Giselle's own restraint splinters. Her free hand lifts, her fingers threading into the dark, sweat-damp hair at the nape of his neck. The contact is electric. A shudder ripples through him, a tremor that starts in the corded muscles of his neck and travels the length of his body. Her fingers tighten in his hair, not pulling, but anchoring. It is a silent answer, a permission he has not asked for but desperately needs.
Victor's control snaps.
His mouth covers hers with a hunger that is almost violent in its intensity. It is not a gentle kiss. It is a claim, a confession, a battle surrendered. The taste of him iron, salt, and that deeper, darker warmth floods her senses. It's almost to much all at once for her, her mind snaps at the edges was this really the man that had been cold to her the past few weeks?
The thought is a flicker, a wisp of logic drowned in sensation. His hands are on her face now, cradling her jaw, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. The pressure is relentless, his mouth moving over hers with a raw, possessive need that steals the breath from her lungs. She can feel the faint ridge of the scar that bisects his lower lip, a tangible reminder of all the violence he has both endured and dispensed. Her own hands slide from his hair to his shoulders, gripping the heavy wool of his tunic, feeling the solid, unyielding muscle beneath.
This is not the aloof Duke, the calculating lord who reduced her to an entry in a ledger. Insufficient.
The words flare in her mind but they soon turn to ash as he pulls her closer, his hands sliding from her jaw to the curve of her neck, his thumb brushing the pulse point beneath her skin. It's racing, she can feel it her own heart stumbling against his touch.
The air in the west wing feels thinner, charged. Somewhere beyond the heavy oak door, the manor continues its rhythm the distant clatter of servants, the murmur of conversations that have nothing to do with this room, with this moment. But here, in the dim light of the hearth, the world has narrowed to the two of them and the heat rising between their bodies.
Giselle's thoughts fracture further. Tears spring behind her closed eyes, not of sorrow, but of a profound and terrifying overwhelm. The kiss is a devouring storm, and she is swept into its center. She gives it back to him, her own hunger rising to meet his a fierce, defiant thing that tastes of lavender, of the tea she'd taken at noon, and of something long-suppressed. Her lips part beneath his, and the kiss deepens into something wet and desperate.
When he finally breaks away, it is only to breathe, his forehead pressed to hers. Their breaths are ragged, mingling in the scant space between them.
"I-I should go" Her voice is a whisper, a tremor in the charged air between them. She makes to pull back, to retreat from the precipice they have both stumbled upon, but his hands tighten on her waist, holding her fast.
"Go where?" Victor's voice is rough, scraped raw from the force of his own emotion. His stormy grey eyes are dark, the pupils blown wide, and they hold hers with an intensity that pins her in place. "Back to your ledgers? To watch the horizon for an army that will not come?"
The words are a challenge, a gauntlet thrown. He sees her, truly sees her, and the knowledge is as terrifying as the kiss. Her eyes fall to her feet, He takes her hand and leads her out of the blood stained room into the hall, he swings another door open rushing her in. he quickly begins undressing her, her mind struggling to process the situation at hand, "W-What are you doing?"
Victor's hands are sure and deft as he unlaces the back of her bodice, his fingers brushing the skin at the nape of her neck. The touch sends a shiver through her, but she does not pull away. She watches as he works, his jaw tight with tension, his breath still uneven from the kiss. "I am doing what we both want," he murmurs, his fingers pausing on the lacings.
She can see the way his throat works as he swallows, the quick pulse at the base. When he finally meets her gaze, his eyes are dark with restrained hunger. "Unless you tell me to stop."
Giselle's fingers twitch at her sides. "The blood, it's-"
He kisses her again, "Come, there's a bath room." Giselle's breath catches as his lips claim hers once more, the taste of iron and wine clinging to him. The blood on his hands has dried in thin lines across his knuckles, dark against the pale skin, but now it feels distant, unreal something belonging to a different world, one that does not include this heat, this breath, this man.
She lets him lead her through the dim corridors of the manor. The bath chamber is smaller than she expects, the air thick with the scent of rosemary and rain. A basin of water steams near the hearth, and the Duke—no, Victor releases her only long enough to draw her into the circle of his arms again. He continues works on her bodice as hips lips capture her neck again His teeth graze her collarbone, a subtle bite that makes her gasp. His fingers continue their work, loosening the lacings with practiced ease, though his movements are hurried, driven by need. The bodice falls away, pooling around her feet in a cascade of pale silk. Her breath comes in shallow pants as she stands before him, her corset the only barrier left between her bare skin and his touch.
He doesn't wait, doesn't hesitate. His hands move to the ties of her corset, pulling them loose with a gentle but insistent tug. The garment falls slack, and she feels it slip down her sides, brushing against her skin as it pools at her feet.
She sucks in her breath as he gazes at her, he tugs at her tight bun letting her dark waves fall around her shoulders. The damp air of the bath chamber curls tendrils of it against her flushed cheeks and throat.
For a moment, he simply looks, his storm-grey eyes sweeping over her with a possessiveness that steals the breath from her lungs. The firelight from the hearth paints her skin in gold and shadow, highlighting the curve of her breasts, the dip of her waist. His expression is one of raw awe, stripped of all ducal aloofness. He lifts a hand, not to touch, but to hover, as if she were a flame he might extinguish.
"You are..." he begins, but the words fail him. Instead, his thumb finds the frantic pulse at the base of her throat, tracing its rhythm. Her skin, bared to the warm, rosemary-scented air, felt hypersensitive. Every shift of the heavy, damp atmosphere, every flicker of firelight, was a caress. Victor's silence was more potent than any words. The awe in his gaze was a confession, a surrender that mirrored her own internal unraveling.
His hovering hand finally descended, his calloused palm flattening against the center of her chest, over the frantic beat of her heart. The heat of his touch was a brand. He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers once more, his breath warm and unsteady on her lips. His breathing falters as he inhales her scent rosemary and sweat mingled with the iron tang of his own blood. The heat of his palm against her bare chest sends a tremor through her frame, her heartbeat thundering against his fingertips. His other hand slides to her waist, spanning the narrow curve as his thumb traces slow circles against the dip of her side.
"Tell me to stop," he murmurs, his voice rough with need, but his touch contradicts the words, pulling her flush against him. The fabric of his shirt is cool against her heated skin, his belt buckle pressing into the soft flesh of her belly. "I'll stop if you tell me to."
She clings onto him, "I don't want you to." The words are a breath, a confession torn from a place deeper than defiance, deeper than duty. They hang in the rosemary-scented air, a permission granted, a line irrevocably crossed. A low sound escapes him, part groan, part surrender. His hand at her waist tightens, hauling her even closer, erasing the last sliver of space between them.
His kiss is not gentle. It is a claiming, a devouring.