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She kissed me instead.

Her fingers in my hair, she pulled my mouth down to hers. She may have been small, but she was as fierce as any of Toke’s storms. Her palms slid to my cheeks, and she was reaching on tiptoe, pressing her chest to mine.

I wrapped my arms around her. She was giving herself up, and I took, took, took whatever I could have of her. My mouth at her lips, my hand on the small of her back. Her hands fell to my abdomen, and I shuddered. I kissed her harder. She slipped fingertips up my shirt and across my skin. I gasped. She growled.

I wanted.

She gave.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Fenli

Gods help me—I was a fool.

A brash, senseless idiot. I’d claimed him and kissed him and now I was senseless with it. I loved the feel of him under my hands. I slipped under his shirt and felt his skin, pulling a gasp from his lips even as they pressed to mine. Heat stoked up my body, and I was feverish with it. With him. He swam in each one of my senses, the feeling of him making me hot, his smoky scent making me dizzy, the taste of him making me hungry for more.

“I want you,” I said into the kiss. My fingers raked down his sides and he groaned. I pulled his shirt over his head, and he was bared to me once more, like in the hut when I’d gone back for the axe. Like when we kissed for the first time.

As soon as he was free of the fabric, tossing it to the ground, his hands came back to me. They wrapped around my sides, one around my waist, the other under my shirt and drifting higher, covering my ribs. I felt small in his arms, yet limitless. A wisp of a person, and the only person—at least, the only person to him.

Gods, he made me feel everything. Maybe more than everything. The steady rain of his kisses brought out the lightning in my veins. I shuddered like thunder in the wake of his touch. Gone were his gentle lips and easy caresses. He held me tightly and kissed me deeply, pulling me to him like it could never be enough. Like I wasn’t close enough, even though I was pressed up against the whole of him.

When I started pulling at my own clothes, he faltered. He broke the kiss. His hands went to mine, stilling them.

“Please,” he huffed. “I won’t be able to stop.”

“I don’t want you to stop.”

He drew back enough to look me in the eye better.

“Fen, we can’t. We—we finally got the marriage revoked. They’ll see this as consummation.”

For too many heartbeats, I just stared at him. When his words settled, I pulled away.

“Gods,” I said, turning my back. I was trying to keep him from seeing the war that was raging on my face. I was humiliated.

“Fen, wait.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Of course you wouldn’t—I just…got carried away.”

“Fen—”

But it was all coming together in my mind. He really didn’t want to be tied to me if he had the choice, of course he didn’t. And there he was, under the full moon, finally getting to choose. Of all the days for me to throw myself at him, what was I thinking?

I wasn’t, and now I was paying for it. Roan had his pick of futures for the first time in ten years, and he was smart enough to not get himself stuck with me once more.

Did he think I’d been trying to trap him? Blush flooded my face at the thought. I’d fought this marriage for ten years, only to fall apart right at the end, right when I’d been given what I wanted. Only I didn’t know what I wanted any more, and I’d very nearly tied Roan to me against his will. Only, he’d had enough sense to refuse me.

I’m going down in flames and I’m taking their golden-boy with me.

My face flushed anew. I was so embarrassed, so mortified, and I needed to get away. I pointed myself in the opposite direction of Roan, which happened to be south, and started walking.

“Wait,” he said from behind me, but I didn’t heed him.

He wore no shirt, thanks to me, and his boots were off. He couldn’t follow.

I left him there and headed in between the trees, nowhere in mind. Eventually I met the shoreline and halted, looking out over the stretch of salty water before me, the moon reflecting off the bobbing waves. Itstarted to rain.