My pulse is firing like crazy. My fingers are shaking as I find the lip of the sash and lift it carefully from my head, turning away from him as I fold it and place it on the edge of his desk.
“Like you’ve said, the same desire hums through you as it does me. You also said that was enough to make some sort of marriage work, but I disagree.”
I hear him moving towards me. “You have no idea how much I want to prove you wrong.”
A soft moan escapes my lips because I want that too, but not as much as I want a real marriage, complete with not only desire but love as well.
It reminds me of why I have to leave. Being pulled into the vortex of our sexual chemistry is easy, but it doesn’t obviate the truth of what I know I have to have. When the desire passes, I want more. More than he’ll ever give me. And that’s not his fault; I don’t think I can even be mad at him. The history of his family and mine is too knotty, too destructive, too negative. How could two people ever hope to overcome what’s happened between us?
“It would be easy to give into that. We both feel it.” I turn to face him, forcing myself to be brave. “Since the first moment we met I have been overwhelmed with how much I want you, physically. There’s no sense denying it. But that’s not enough. Not for me.”
He’s silent.
“I get why it is for you,” I say softly, my heart breaking into pieces. “You need an heir, and you need peace with the factions who would support my father’s claims to the throne. Our marriage ticks every box for you. Sleeping with me gets you what you need.”
“But it doesn’t for you?”
I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak.
“What more do you want?”
“Nothing you can give me,” I say, definitively.
“Try me.”
I laugh, but it’s a deranged sound, lacking amusement.
“You wanted your father brought home and I did that.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” I say with a shake of my head. “You know how much I regret asking that of you.”
“I offered it willingly.”
“Which just underscores my point – you need our marriage to work. You were willing to take a big gamble for the sake of this marriage and the heirs you hoped would result.”
“Yes.”
His agreement thunders through me.
“Why does that anger you?” He pushes. “Why is it bad that our marriage makes such perfect sense?”
I strangle back a sob. “I don’t want to be a part of a marriage that makes sense.”
“You’d rather be a part of a marriage that makes no sense?”
I glare at him. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“Tonight was just…proof of how messed up this all is. Everything about us is fake. For show. For other people. My father, your people. Nothing’s real. And I want real. I want truth.”
I don’t realise it until I’ve thrown the words at him but of course there’s a challenge there, an invitation. His lips crush down on mine, breaking me apart with their perfection and need. His tongue lashes mine, his body pressing me back onto the desk, so I feel every inch of him against me, his kiss stirring me to need everything he can give me.
“Is this not truth?” He demands into my mouth, pressing his hips forward so I feel his arousal and groan, because he’s not wrong. There is truth in this, there is rightness here, but it’s not enough.
“It’s just sex,” I groan, pushing at his chest, my eyes fighting him, needing him to understand. “Sex is not enough.”
His chest moves with the intensity of his breathing, his cheeks are slashed with dark colour.