Page 26

Chapter

Twenty-Two

Adara

“ I am exhausted,” Adara said, stretching her hands overhead to loosen her tight shoulders. It felt as if they’d been rucked up around her ears for weeks. Heat from the fire blazed, sinking into her muscles, loosening her joints.

“Striking bargains with your enemy will do that to a person,” Grahame said as he leaned against the wall, leanly muscled arms crossed.

A shiver worked through Adara at the deep timbre of Grahame’s voice.

He had followed her into her room after watching his friends travel through the gate, his hand raised in farewell.

Sorrow had sown itself into Adara’s heart as she’d watched them part, knowing it may be the last time they do so.

If she couldn’t correctly out-maneuver her father…

she suddenly didn’t want to think that far ahead.

Adara swallowed around the boulder that lodged in her throat.

She had to beat back the slivers of panic that sank into her skin as soon as she’d struck the arrangement with Langley.

After Grahame dropped the details of the High Priest of Hyrstow’s desertion and an incensed Ridley had calmed, they’d forged a delicate alliance.

Hyrstow would not storm Clayton House, and Adara would immediately halt any action of revenge she had for Ridley.

The Hyrstow chieftain swore not to encroach on her lands.

Begrudgingly, Adara had relayed her plan for Grahame to stand in as a husband.

Though the beastly man, Branton, had muttered about it being a death sentence, everyone agreed that they did not want a northern army on their doorstep.

Sir Langley had even sworn support from Deircia to fend off the expansion of Bernira if Adara and Grahame’s marriage ruse failed.

Adara did not miss the way Ridley, Yrsa, and Branton had all paled when they realized Grahame’s life would be forfeit if the plan went awry.

She also noticed the jovial manner in which Grahame scoffed at the danger, offering easy, charming platitudes that allowed his friends to move on from their concern.

He was a skilled talker, yet Adara couldn’t help but wonder if the others noticed the drum of his fingers on the tabletop.

Surely, his friends could tell he was putting on a show for their sakes?

The birch in the fire popped and fizzled.

“As if you would know,” she said with a scoff, her eyes crossing and uncrossing as they followed the flames. “Have you any enemies?”

She felt rather than saw Grahame come to stand beside her, his arm brushing hers as he shrugged.

It would have been better for her to step away, but it was becoming increasingly difficult not to fall into the old patterns of casual touch she and Grahame had once shared.

They’d been so thirsty for one another once.

As hard as she tried to resist, the habit was dangerously close to solidifying again.

“None that I know of,” he said, mirth in his tone. She wondered if there was any truth in it.

For long moments neither spoke, worn out after a long day.

“Though, I am sure I will earn some,” Grahame said softly.

He turned to her, his chest brushing her arm before he inched back as if too aware of their proximity.

Adara had the urge to grab hold of his wrists and force his arms around her.

Any comfort in the face of abandoning her revenge would have been appreciated.

She knew it was evil, but her vengeance against Ridley Ward had been one of the things that she’d clung to when life seemed unbearable.

Between Elvin’s illness and her father’s demands, she’d plotted, her mind sharpening with the promise of power.

“You do not gain in this life without conflict,” Adara murmured. It had been an old sentiment of her father’s. One she had been told throughout her childhood.

“Gain what, ’Dara?” Grahame asked.

Adara flicked her gaze to his, a question forming between her eyebrows.

Grahame’s eyes, bright as polished emeralds, scoured her face as if starving.

For her. After everything with his friends, he still looked at her as if she were something to covet.

A blush worked its way up her neck and bled into her cheeks.

She didn’t think anyone had looked at her like that, other than him.

“Why, power and influence, of course,” she answered, though the words tasted like ash.

Grahame dared to reach out, his finger looping around her ear as if brushing away a strand of hair. His brow furrowed.

“And is that all that matters?” he asked, his tone as entrancing as the midnight sky.

“I…I have been playing games of survival my entire life, Grahame. Yes, when it comes down to it, power and influence are most important. I can only hope giving up my revenge and looking onward will not end in the deaths of everyone I care for.” Exasperation curdled her tone.

“What of yourself? You never seem to have concern for yourself.”

Adara paired a weak shrug with a little laugh.

Unable to look at him any longer, she shifted her gaze to the corner of the room.

It was a poor attempt to cover up her newly developed self-loathing.

The feeling was like a dress she’d suddenly outgrown, too tight and scratchy.

And, despite her resistance to share her thoughts with her husband, Grahame’s presence meant he would rather spend his time with her than alone in his quarters. It wore down her resistance.

Resigned, she said, “I am a pawn in the realms of powerful men. Always have been. Since Elvin died, I thought I could grasp a life for myself, yet in doing so, have brought worse down on those I care for. I wished to prove to my father that I could hold the line of our territory. That I did not need another marriage. Yet here I am, scrambling to find solutions to problems I created. I am so, so stupid.”

Grahame’s head was shaking as she spoke, his fingers grasping her upper arms gently. They were too damn comforting to be real. She took a breath, held it, let it go as she dared look at him again. The devastation written in his features nearly made her collapse.

“’Dara, don’t,” he whispered, leaning in. “Don’t say things like that. I cannot stand to hear you speak so poorly of yourself. Not when I’ve come to admire you so ardently.”

His thumbs worked the muscles in her arms as he spoke.

She quirked her head, her gaze catching on his lips, the scruff along his jaw.

He carried a slight scar along the underside of his chin, one he’d told her his sister had given him in childhood.

There were likely other scars unseen, scars she’d been responsible for. Her middle churned.

“Grahame, you do not have to say such things. You cannot go home with your friends because of me.”

She brought her hands up to twist herself out of his grip, but Grahame held fast. His fingers dug into her flesh just enough to let her know he wasn’t letting go. Her pulse ratcheted higher.

“I am where I wish to be.”

His tone held a severity she’d rarely heard from him. And when he leaned toward her, so close their noses would graze if she closed the hairsbreadth of distance, her senses came alive with the heat and strength and sweetgrass scent of him.

Want, untamed and urgent, was a bolt through her. Adara knew she should resist it. Knew that caving to her desire for him would only break her anew when she set him free.

The thought slammed into her with a fierceness that almost made her recoil.

She would set him free. If she could, if he wasn’t struck down by her father, Adara would allow Grahame to return to his people.

He could come back when needed if her father visited, a continued ruse to benefit them both.

As selfish as she was for using him to her advantage, the part of her that would always care for him knew he deserved better.

Though it would nearly kill her, she would do right by him.

“Your friend that was here…not Ridley…” She wanted to kiss, wanted to lick that strong column of throat.

“Branton?” Grahame’s breath skittered over her mouth.

Adara softened. His friend had told them something Adara had been shocked to hear. Something that fanned the flames of her hope.

“He said you paid for word about me. What did that mean?”

She expected him to recoil. To become sheepish. But Grahame surprised her yet again. He slid his hand to her bottom, gave the flesh a good squeeze as he smiled broadly.

“Aye, I paid for word about you. Even if we were no longer in one another’s lives, I had a compulsion to know how you fared. Do not begrudge the person in your household that sent it, for I paid handsomely.”

Adara knew she should have been concerned but could not bring herself to care. Her heart beat the excited rhythm of a bird’s wings at the thought of Grahame keeping tabs on her.

“I…I do not know what to say,” she replied, breathily.

“Say that you will forgive me for leaving you that summer. Say that you have yearned for me as I have for you.”

Grahame’s other hand skimmed her jawline then dipped into her nape.

He lightly tugged the hair at the base of her neck.

It felt delicious. She was dangerously close to telling him anything he wanted to hear.

A part of her wanted to rejoice, to have no secrets between them.

However, her need for survival, for safety, overrode the impulse to give him what he asked for.

“It is late,” she stated, though the words felt wooden.

Undeterred, Grahame murmured, “Mmhmm.”

Grahame’s eyes searched hers, gauging her reaction.

There was a moment between held breaths where Adara wished to live forever.

Where, in spite of everything, he wanted her for her.

And, try as she might, there was no fighting the flame of desire that raged for him.

Against Adara’s better judgement, her hands fit to the peaks of his shoulders, tugging him down to her mouth.

Grahame’s lips ghosted over hers. A whisper. A promise. Adara whimpered. She knew he could pull away at any moment, could take the lust that coated her insides and use it against her. However, the sound seemed to break whatever tether he had on himself.

Grahame’s mouth crashed to hers, fast and hard.

Adara stalled as his lips molded to hers, stroking, nipping, and, heaven help her, she was hopeless to resist. She kissed him back with every emotion she’d felt since they parted.

His hands tightened around her waist, dragging her to him.

She could feel every line, every muscle, and she wanted more .

Damning the consequences, Adara skimmed her hands over his shoulders, up his neck, and buried them in his hair.

Without hesitation, he canted his head, slanting his mouth as he ran his tongue over her eager lips.

Adara was already opening for him, drinking his breaths like they were an elixir of life.

He tasted like the ale from dinner and a slice of the sun, strong and hoppy and hot.

“Grahame,” she sighed as he angled his head again.

A groan worked its way through his chest, rumbling into her.

“I love when you say my name,” he growled, one hand rising to capture her cheek.

He slid his tongue into her mouth and made slow love to it before drawing back to speak against her lips.

“For years, I thought I’d never hear you say it again.

All this time, all the distance between us, what I needed was for you to sigh my name just like that, and I am a new man. ”

If she’d been of sound mind, she would have truly contemplated his sentiment, but Grahame’s hard chest was against hers, and the sheer size of him had her grabbing hold of his face.

Beneath her palms, his stubble scratched.

She longed to know how it would feel on other parts of her but didn’t want to give up kissing him, not yet.

Grahame seemed to understand, for he slid a hand to her breast, his palm conforming to the soft mound.

When he squeezed, something low in Adara liquified.

Then they were moving, Grahame crowding her toward the bed.

His lips scored the corner of her mouth, then her jawbone.

He sucked, eliciting a gasp from her at the wicked sensation.

Never had she been kissed like that. Never had she wanted a man’s hands on her in such a way.

A moan slunk from her when he ran his tongue over the spot.

All the while, his hand worked her breast, gently squeezing, then finding the pebble of her nipple only to nip at it with the tips of his deft fingers.

“I want to devour you, ’Dara. I want to lick every inch of your sweet skin. I want—no, need—to be inside you, to make you scream my name as you come.”

Adara was nodding as he spoke, her hands trailing from his cheeks to his neck to the sinewed muscle of his chest. Madness had surely overtaken her because she tugged at the threads closing the top of his tunic. The need to see him, to feel him without it had overridden all thought.

“This has to…come off,” she said, her words a breathy whisper as she tugged at the collar.

Somehow, Grahame’s thigh had propped between hers, though the thick, hard muscle did nothing to satisfy the terrible ache that had blossomed in her nether-region.

His hands fell to her hips, practically lifting her onto him while he propped his foot on the bed. When he shoved his leg forward, grinding it between her thighs, a hiss spilled from her mouth.

Adara felt a smile curve his lips before he broke away to say, “I did not lie before. I will not stop until we’ve both slaked our thirst for one another.

So help me, ’Dara, I am all but an animal in your thrall.

Tell me now if you do not want this. If you merely want to be married in name only.

I will leave. You do not have to bother yourself with me again.

For, once I have you, I fear the craving I’ve always felt will never abate. ”

Grahame’s thumbs dug into her hips as the feel of his thigh beneath hers started a slow madness in her core.

Breaths sawed from them both, weaving between the space of his declarations.

Leave it to Grahame to say things that twisted her heart.

Despite knowing she couldn’t keep him, that the game they played could end in disaster, she still wanted him.

All of him. For as long as he would have her.

“We are married,” she said, her voice not sounding like her own. High and breathless, as if she were years younger. Yet she fought to keep control. “We might as well enjoy one another while the arrangement lasts. I want your pleasure, Grahame. I want you to make me see stars.”