Chương 238: 42. First Night 2

The moment those words landed, the last pretense that we were still in the realm of rational conversation burned away. I looked at her. She looked back. We were close enough that if either of us moved a fraction forward, there would be nothing left to call this a late-night talk.

"Do you know what you're saying?" I asked, low.

"I'm not like you, Cedric," she said.

"I know exactly what I'm saying." That answer was more dangerous than her kissing me outright. I could feel my own breathing start to slip. Not because I'd never seen her before. Not because tonight was the first time I'd grasped how close she really was. Because the meaning of her standing here was too obvious. She hadn't come to test me, or scare me, or chase a moment of impulse. She'd walked through the fire of that audience, through the weight of the throne, and come to my door with her eyes open.

I lifted my hand and wrapped it around the wrist she'd set on my collar. She didn't pull away. Her skin was warm. Her pulse steady. I pressed my thumb gently against the inside of her wrist. Her lashes finally trembled — the smallest break in her composure I'd seen all night. Not much. Enough to make my own breathing worse.

"Like this," I said, "you're making it extremely difficult for me to pretend I still have any self-control." She looked down at my hand on her wrist, and after a long moment, let out a soft breath of laughter.

"Then don't pretend." Excellent. Apparently no one had any intention of making tonight easy. When I stood, the chair legs scraped a soft line across the floor. She didn't step back. Neither did I. Whatever space had still been hanging between us vanished under the combined weight of height, breath, shadow, and the heat rolling off her. I looked down at her. The lamp's flame moved in her eyes, breaking the gold of her pupils like molten metal.

Her hair fell over her shoulders, a few strands slipping forward, resting against her collarbone and the side of her neck, turning skin that was already unfairly pale into something that looked hot to the touch. She wasn't dressed for any occasion tonight. Which, perversely, made it worse. The quiet, late-city plainness of her was far harder to defend against than anything deliberate could have been. I heard myself say, very softly:"You're beautiful." The words surprised me as much as they did her. Too direct.

Too unlike me. Her reaction, however, was far more dangerous than I'd anticipated. Ignicia blinked once, and then the tips of her ears went red. Not a full flush — a fine, quick burn that crept along the tips of her ears and into the corners of her eyes. She looked like she wanted to say something and ended up glaring instead. There was very little venom in that glare. If anything, it only made the red deeper. The next instant, she lifted a hand, gripped the back of my neck, and pulled me down.

When our mouths met, whatever lingering illusion I'd had about maybe we can still take this slowly dissolved on the spot. It was the first time she kissed me. The moment those words landed, the last pretense that we were still in the realm of rational conversation burned away. I looked at her. She looked back. We were close enough that if either of us moved a fraction forward, there would be nothing left to call this a late-night talk.

"Do you know what you're saying?" I asked, low.

"I'm not like you, Cedric," she said.

"I know exactly what I'm saying." That answer was more dangerous than her kissing me outright. I could feel my own breathing start to slip. Not because I'd never seen her before. Not because tonight was the first time I'd grasped how close she really was. Because the meaning of her standing here was too obvious. She hadn't come to test me, or scare me, or chase a moment of impulse. She'd walked through the fire of that audience, through the weight of the throne, and come to my door with her eyes open.

I lifted my hand and wrapped it around the wrist she'd set on my collar. She didn't pull away. Her skin was warm. Her pulse steady. I pressed my thumb gently against the inside of her wrist. Her lashes finally trembled — the smallest break in her composure I'd seen all night. Not much. Enough to make my own breathing worse.

"Like this," I said, "you're making it extremely difficult for me to pretend I still have any self-control." She looked down at my hand on her wrist, and after a long moment, let out a soft breath of laughter.

"Then don't pretend." A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.... Excellent. Apparently no one had any intention of making tonight easy. When I stood, the chair legs scraped a soft line across the floor. She didn't step back. Neither did I. Whatever space had still been hanging between us vanished under the combined weight of height, breath, shadow, and the heat rolling off her. I looked down at her.

The lamp's flame moved in her eyes, breaking the gold of her pupils like molten metal. Her hair fell over her shoulders, a few strands slipping forward, resting against her collarbone and the side of her neck, turning skin that was already unfairly pale into something that looked hot to the touch. She wasn't dressed for any occasion tonight. Which, perversely, made it worse. The quiet, late-city plainness of her was far harder to defend against than anything deliberate could have been.

I heard myself say, very softly:"You're beautiful." The words surprised me as much as they did her. Too direct. Too unlike me. Her reaction, however, was far more dangerous than I'd anticipated. Ignicia blinked once, and then the tips of her ears went red. Not a full flush — a fine, quick burn that crept along the tips of her ears and into the corners of her eyes. She looked like she wanted to say something and ended up glaring instead. There was very little venom in that glare.

If anything, it only made the red deeper. The next instant, she lifted a hand, gripped the back of my neck, and pulled me down. When our mouths met, whatever lingering illusion I'd had about maybe we can still take this slowly dissolved on the spot. It was the first time she kissed me. In the harbor's fire, that closeness had been forced out of us by explosions, tears, chaos, and the taste of farewell.

This was deep night in Latpan, in a room with only the two of us, after she'd closed the door herself and said, out loud, that she meant to finish the third unforgivable thing — and kissed me first. That alone was hotter than any fire. My arms moved on their own, gathering her against me. She didn't flinch — if anything, she pressed in more. Fabric brushed against fabric, a whisper of sound between breaths, like fire slowly eating along the edge of paper. One of her hands pressed against my chest.

At first it felt like she was steadying herself. When I kissed her back, that pressure changed. Less pushing away, more holding on. Our breathing started to tangle. Her lips were warmer than I remembered. Softer, too. Every time I moved even slightly closer, she responded like someone who'd held herself taut all day and finally decided she was done being reasonable — flushed, and still refusing to let go. My hand slid from the back of her neck down, cupping hair, spine, waist.

The lines beneath the cloth were slimmer, tighter, more lethal than I'd imagined. She shivered under my palm, very lightly, and pulled me into another kiss. I don't know when, exactly, I started guiding her backward. By the time I noticed, we'd already reached the bed. Her calf caught the edge. Her breath stumbled, lashes shaking hard — but even so, between breaths, she managed:"... Cedric."

"Mm."

"The light." I glanced at the small lamp still burning, then back at her.

"Only remembering to care about that now?" Her eyes looked hot, but her tone was still trying, valiantly, to stay even.

"I'm just reminding you."

"Of what?"

"If you intend to let all of Latpan know I came to your room in the middle of the night to do a third thing you're not supposed to do to a dragon—" She didn't finish. I'd already laughed under my breath and reached out to pinch the flame out. The room dropped into near-darkness, holding only the faintest slice of moonlight from the window. Everything softened. And sharpened. Her outline blurred; only her eyes still caught the light, breath louder in the quiet.

Darkness hides many things and shoves every other sense to the front. The rustle of cloth grew closer. Swallowing, breathing, the slide of fabric against skin — all of it sounded louder. Her hand found my collar again. This time it didn't stop at the edge. Slowly, it tugged downward. The fastening came loose with a sound almost too soft to hear — as if someone had finally set aside the last remaining shred of the night's propriety. My spine went numb; my hand had already moved to her shoulder.

My fingertips found the fabric of her nightclothes, far softer than the rigid formal wear of daylight hours, and as I traced down along her shoulder, every small shift beneath was clear enough to be its own kind of trouble. She drew a breath in the dark.

"You're doing that on purpose..."

"So are you." The words had barely left me before she reached up and, almost in retaliation, tugged at my outer coat. The sound of the fabric slipping down was quiet, but entirely sufficient to make a man's chest run hot. I dipped my head to find her lips; she turned just enough that my kiss landed instead behind her ear, along the side of her neck, the edge of her collarbone. She drew in visibly at the contact, yet her hands, quite stubbornly, gripped my shoulders.

"... Don't push your luck." I stayed at the curve of her neck, my voice already rough.

"Your Highness. The moment you knocked on my door tonight, you must have known that line wasn't going to do much good." She was quiet for one breath. Then, unexpectedly, she laughed. Very softly. Barely there. But it sounded more like permission than anything she'd said all night. That sound—soft as it was—was utterly lethal. I pulled her back into my arms, my palm closing over her waist.

Her heat burned straight through what little fabric still stood between us, hot enough that it didn't feel like she was simply close to me—it felt like she was setting me on fire on purpose. Her long hair spilled loose, sliding over the back of my hand and my arm, carrying a faint scent and a softness that only existed at this hour of the night. The Emperor, the throne, Eckhaus, the Dragon Court's outer field—all of it was still out there, still real, still waiting.

But for this one stretch of time, it felt as though the two of us had kicked all of it out the door together. There was only breath. Only hands. Only the kind of heat that made even reason start coming loose at the seams the closer she came. Her fingertips traced along my shoulder, paused at the back of my neck, and then gripped—hard—as if she'd finally decided she was done pretending at calm. The next instant, she shoved me backward. The back of my knees hit the bed frame.

I went down, and the mattress dipped beneath me. I should have known this woman was never going to stay passive for long. When she leaned over me, red hair and shadow fell together, her knee cutting off my line of retreat at an angle that was violently, unmistakably her. Those gold pupils blazed in the dark—a fire dragon that had finally stopped holding anything back, looking down at something she'd already decided belonged to her. I reached up and caught her waist.

"Have you forgotten," I said, "that pushing someone down like this is dangerous?"

"You're the one who should remember." She leaned in, her breath brushing the corner of my mouth, voice low as banked coals.

"The third thing isn't finished yet." I genuinely couldn't tell if she needed to say that, or if she was just trying to kill me. I looked up at her, close enough to count every lash, and finally gave up resisting—rolling us over and pinning her beneath me instead. The instant her back hit the mattress, real surprise flashed through her eyes. It didn't last. A heartbeat later it melted into something hotter.

She raised a hand to my shoulder, as if she meant to say something, but I'd already lowered my head and kissed her. The mattress sank a little deeper. Her breathing came apart completely, fingers digging into the fabric at my back. In the dark, it was impossible to tell whose collar came loose first—only that cloth, hair, skin, and ragged breath had all tangled together, as if trying to burn through everything we'd been holding down all night in one single blaze.

One of my hands braced beside her; the other slid up along the line of her waist, and I heard her draw a very quiet, sharp breath. The corners of her eyes had flushed red, her mouth already a little undone from my kisses, but she still looked up at me—stubborn and burning, a look that said plainly: if you dare stop here, I will bite you to death. I lowered my forehead to hers, the tip of my nose brushing her cheek. My voice came out rough enough that I barely recognized it.

"Ignicia." Her hand tightened at the back of my neck, her breathing just as wrecked as mine.

"Mm..." Outside, the night wind slid past the high windows, carrying the very distant sound of Latpan's midnight bells. There was no lamp left burning—only moonlight, pale as ash. She was a live coal beneath me, and in her eyes I watched the last scrap of my own reason get swallowed, inch by inch. Then I pressed her deeper into the mattress. She arched her neck, red hair spilling across the sheets, fingers digging hard into my shoulders. The next instant, the night came down over everything completely.