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My gaze tracked over her bow-shaped lips, the proud tip of her nose. “Because I wanted to,” I said, giving her another bit of honesty.

“And what if I didn’t want to?”

I chuckled. “Princess, I’m confident that if you didn’t want me to do something, I’d be lying flat on my back with a dagger at my throat before I even took my next breath. Even if you can’t see an inch in front of you.”

She didn’t deny that.

I glanced down at the curve of her leg. “You have your dagger on you, don’t you?”

She sighed. “I do.”

“Knew it.” Desire surged through me as I let go of her hand. It wasn’t so much the dagger that turned me on. It was what the blade symbolized. Her resilience. Her capability. Her strength. The proof that she had taken the nightmares and the fear and turned them into power. That was what turned me on. “No one can see us. No one is even aware that we’re here. As far as anyone knows, you are in your room.”

“This is still reckless for a multitude of reasons,” she countered. “If someone comes in here—”

“I’d hear them before they did,” I told her. I had my reasons for being under here. Many reasons. One of them was that I wanted her to have at least a handful of minutes where she was just Poppy. Not the Maiden. Minutes where she didn’t have to worry about being caught. I wanted her to be as she was at the Red Pearl, free to experience. To live. “And if someone did, they’d have no idea who we are.”

Poppy leaned back, trying to see my face in the shadows. “Is this why you led me out here to this place?”

“What is this, Princess?”

“To be…inappropriate.”

It hadn’t been at first. Now? Most definitely. I touched her arm. “And why would I do that?”

“Why? I think it’s pretty obvious, Hawke,” she said. “I’m sitting in your lap. I doubt that’s how you normally hold innocent conversations with people.”

“Very rarely is anything I do innocent, Princess.”

“Shocker,” she muttered.

“So, you’re suggesting I led you out here, instead of toward a private room with a bed.” Knowing how touch was so forbidden to her, I exploited that, skimming my fingertips down her right arm. “To engage in a particular type of inappropriate behavior?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, though my room would’ve been a better option.”

“What if I said that isn’t true?”

“I…” Her exhale teased my jaw as I moved my hand to her hip. “I wouldn’t believe you.”

“Then what if I said it didn’t start off that way?” I moved just my thumb along the soft, rounded flesh there. I spoke the truth. I hadn’t planned on this. Especially not right before I betrayed her. That would make me the kind of bastard that I…well, that I was. “But then there was the moonlight and you, with your hair down, in this dress, and then the idea occurred to me that this would be the perfect location for some wildly inappropriate behavior.”

“Then I…I would say that’s more likely.”

I glided my hand down. “So, there you have it.”

“At least, you’re honest.” She bit her lip as her eyes drifted halfway closed.

“Tell you what,” I said, watching her closely. “I’ll make you a deal.”

“A deal?”

“If I do anything you don’t like…” I drew my hand down her upper thigh, stopping when I felt the dagger beneath the thin panels. Closing my hand over it, I smiled. “I give you permission to stab me.”

“That would be excessive,” she stated.

“I was hoping you’d give me just a measly flesh wound,” I said. “But it’d be worth finding out.”

Her lips curved into a grin. “You are such a bad influence.”

“I think we’ve already established that only the bad can be influenced.”

Poppy’s eyes closed as my fingers slipped off the hilt of her dagger and trailed over the blade. “And I think I already told you that your logic is faulty.”

My heightened senses picked up on how her breath and pulse quickened. I could feel the heated restlessness building inside her.

It was building in me.

“I’m the Maiden, Hawke,” she said, sounding more like she was reminding herself of that fact.

“And I don’t care.”

Her eyes snapped open. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“I did.” And I fucking meant it, because even with all the lies I’d told, this was the truth. Right now, under this willow, the only thing that mattered was who she was. “And I’ll say it again. I don’t care what you are.” I moved my hand from her back and cupped her cheek. “I care about who you are,” I said, and…fuck, godsdamn Kieran was right. I did care about her.

Her lower lip trembled as the muscle in my jaw flexed. “Why?” she whispered. “Why would you say that?”