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Something about the softness of the kiss reminds me of…something. Like a dream you can’t quite explain to someone. Like grabbing a cloud with your bare hands only to have it slip through your fingers.

I squeeze his shoulder and then scooch myself out from behind him and move into the main area, leaving him to grieve his brother’s memory.

He stays in there most of the day, or what I assume is most of the day, considering I cannot see the sunrise and sunset, and all I can hear is the wind.I make a cold meal of meat, bread, and cheese, and leave some at the alcove entrance for Riley while I eat mine alone, going over his story in my head.

I’m making jasmine tea when I hear shuffling and see Riley emerge.

“Tea?”

“Thank you,” he says, taking the mug I offer. “Thank you for the food too.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looks at me in confusion, but before he can say anything, I follow with, “For pushing you. About the drinking, I mean. I should have been more kind.” It sounds awkward to me, so it must sound the same to him.

“You didn’t know who I was. I was just some drunk that was making everyone around me miserable. And you were right. I haven’t forgotten the words you said to me after you found me asleep,drunk,on watch, a couple of moons past.”

“I didn’t think you remembered.”

“Oh, I remember.” He touches his cheekbone where there was once a bruise. Something about the memory makes me cringe now. So prone to violence even when someone is clearly hurting.I don’t say anything. I know what I said. I’m not sure which part he’s repeating to himself, and I’m not about to ask.

“It’s hard remembering, I swear the pain is as sharp as it was fifteen revs past. The alcohol makes it easy to forget. Makes it easier to think without feeling too. The thought of losing another sibling is…” He clears his throat and takes a deep breath. “But it also makes me feel like I’m asleep…in a constant waking nightmare.”

He looks at me then, my rage strangling my heart into a painful ache with the intensity of the pain reddening his eyes. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Firecat. I’msorry.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The next two nights and days are uneventful. We eat, we sleep, we talk about nothing important, and we wait for the wind to die down.In the middle of our third night, rough hands grip my shoulders and I hear someone saying my name.

“What’s going on?” I ask in sleepy delirium.

“You were thrashing about—I caught an elbow in the face,” he says in a voice I can’t quite decipher. “Are you okay? Nightmare?”

Was it a nightmare? I have nightmares often. But…thiswas no nightmare.I remember lips against my neck, strong hands gripping my calf, my hand clawing down a back…Riley’s back. That was more than a dream: it was a memory. The rest of it came flooding back in an overwhelming rush.

I do something against my better judgment and reach for Riley.He barely has a moment to register what I’m doing—that I’m trying to undress him while undressing myself, while also trying to kiss him. But in a matter of seconds, he’s pulled me on top of him, both of his hands in my hair as he kisses me roughly.

“You lied to me,” I breathe, catching a moment without his lips on mine. “You said nothing happened.” I have enough room to be half sitting up, straddling his growing bulge through his pants.

“I didn’t lie. Nothing happened,” he says through a grin while my hands are holding his face, and he’s slowly lifting my tunic up, exposing the stretchy fabric around my chest.

He pulls off my tunic as he tries to sit up and remove his own, but I have to help him because the cave ceiling is so low.

“Is this still nothing?” I ask him as he’s gripping my thighs, and I grind against him, causing a moan to escape from his lips. He laughs as he roughly thrusts his full erection against my growing wet heat in reply, both of us still infuriatingly clothed from the waist down.

I growl as I grab his face again, taking a moment to smooth the hair away so I can see him properly. I need to see him, see his eyes again. Maybe I am greedy. Maybe I do want to take something from him. Or maybe I want to give him something of me instead. Enough light filters in that I can see his eyes, and I lean down to kiss his bottom lip, and then his top lip.

He’s reaching up to undo the fabric trapping my breasts. I let him, my heart skipping.He pulls me forward until I’m leaning on my elbows above his face.One of his hands grips my ribs while the other runs a thumb over the small mound and across one of my nipples, which has already puckered in response.He flicks a tongue to the other breast before kissing it fully, pinching the nipple between his lips and teeth, making me gasp.

Heat licks up and down my spine, and I can’t catch my breath.

Riley reaches back up to my face and pulls me down so he can kiss me, an intoxicating blend of forceful need and gentle wanting.His other hand is gripping my waist, and my brain is overwhelmed.

I shift all the way back to straddle his thighs, running my hands down his well-defined chest and over his abdomen, caressing every single muscle. A slight fuzz of chest hair trickles down the center and disappears underneath his pants.

Two raised scars an inch long mar the otherwise smooth skin near the left side of his navel. I kiss a line from the middle of his chest until I reach the scars, and I kiss them once each before moving down further toward the top of his pants.

Is Riley even breathing? Am I pushing this too far?