Page 45 of Heart’s Rescue

Arryn

I’m Not Okay

“Wake up, Arryn.”

I know that voice, but I don’t want to listen. Stars, I’m so tired. All I want is to fall asleep, to lose myself in that gentle golden haze. But this voice is pulling me back, reminding me of something I’d forgotten. Am I supposed to be somewhere, supposed to be someone?

“Come on, Arryn. Stay with me.”

The voice is rough, almost like a growl, but I’m not afraid. It’s coarse and harsh and somehow warm.

“Talk to me, lady,” he says.

His breath is hot against my cheek. Some part of me realizes he’s way too close and this is all horribly improper; another part of me, a stronger and wilder part, loves it. There are hands on my back, rubbing my spine, and breath on my neck, and his scent all around me, reminding me of the first warm thing I touched in this world.

“Tell me about the Worlds Above,” he says, and it’s Rowan. Of course it’s Rowan.

“Tell me about where you grew up,” Rowan whispers against my skin.

It’s too much effort to open my eyes. I open my lips instead, and I tell him everything. In cold, stuttering breaths I pull together whatever fragments of memory surface first. Hiding in the royal gardens, the scent of roses heavy in the gloaming. Elegant silk and lace dresses that pinched and tugged. Equinox candles floating on seashells in the pools of the Spirit Wood. Waiting for the sun to set to see the stars peek through the firmament above the crystal tower.

Rowan has a lot of questions about the stars. Do they really move? Are they truly different colors, blue and white and gold and red? I tell him everything I know, all the constellations I can recall and even the wild myth that stars are the suns of other worlds, until the sudden, insistent awareness that Rowan is holding me in his bare arms and we’re huddled together beneath the furs of one shared sleeping roll forces its way into my consciousness and my breath catches in my throat, stopping the river of words pouring from between my lips.

My heart hammers against the inside of my ribcage as if I’ve just won a footrace, and my body, the body I just thought might never be warm again, is suddenly burning. My cheeks must be blazing like signal fires. I turn, burying my face in the fur. Rowan shifts beside me. His leg brushes my thigh, and something inside me pulls as taut as a bowstring.

I’ve never been this close to anyone but the prince. Rowan has his hands on my back, his arms around my chest. His breath ripples across my cheek, and it’s almost like I’m standing close enough to a fire to get burned.

“Arryn?”

Rowan shifts again, pulling his arm from under me to brush his fingers over my cheek.

“Arryn? You okay?”

No. No, I’m not okay. I’m trembling. I’m burning. This is the most inappropriate situation I’ve ever been in, and—

And no one will ever know. My breath catches in my throat; for a moment, I feel like I’m floating. No one will ever gossip about Rowan in the halls of the royal court, because no one in those halls will ever know Rowan. His arms around me, his breath on my cheek, his wild scent and pale eyes and strong arms — these are part of another world. A world where I’m alone. Where I’m free.

And I like it. I like the warmth of his touch, the way I can feel his voice move through my body. I like the smell of him, his heat spreading through my body, that tight pressure in my core.

I want more.

My hips rock forward, turning my body toward Rowan like a flower opening toward the light. His chest is so warm, so solid. I remember the wild look in his eyes after his magic dragged me from the ice, the expression that said he would burn down the entire world just to keep me warm. A long, slow shiver traces its way up my body, but I’m not cold anymore. Slowly, I pull my face out of the fur and open my eyes.

Rowan is there, watching me with those impossibly blue eyes. His pale skin seems almost delicate in the blue-green light falling from above. His full lips are parted slightly, and he’s watching me like I’m something precious. Like I’m something he needs to protect.

I lean forward and meet those open lips with my own. For a heartbeat, he’s frozen. Then he yields, opening to me. He tastes like salt and smoke, like warmth and comfort. His kiss is gentle, soft whereas the rest of him is hard and strong. I open my lips, wanting more, needing more.

Rowan pulls back. He looks like I just slapped him. There’s a scramble of motion, and then his arms are no longer wrapped around me.

“Shit,” Rowan hisses under his breath. He’s shaking his head as if denying my very existence. “No, Arryn. You don’t want this.”

I open my mouth to disagree, but he’s already scrambling out of the sleeping roll in a flurry of arms and legs and bare, pale torso. I watch him shove his feet into his boots, pull his cloak over his shoulders, and stomp away from me so quickly it almost looks like he’s running.

Huffing out a sigh, I collapse back into the furs. The sleeping roll seems almost absurdly large now that it’s only holding me. Far above me, three of what Rowan calls glowsoft orbs float in lazy orbits around one another, their paths blurring as tears sting my eyes.

Rowan had run, but not quite fast enough. Not before I noticed the hard length of him pressing against the thin black shorts he wore under his pants.

He’d been ready, but he hadn’t taken me. I swallow hard and blink until my vision is clear. The prince had never refused me. Not once. Not when his cock was hard. As soon as it got hard, in fact, I’d be bent over the nearest piece of furniture. Or on the floor. Or in the dirt of the palace gardens as the prince grunted and rutted over me, saying oh yeah, you wanted this, didn’t you?