I storm after him. He’s giving me the most satisfied little smirk anyone could conjure. I draw my fist back and smash it off his face.
“What the fuck?” Dayton cries, grabbing his cheek. “What is your problem?”
My hand throbs with pain and I give it a shake, trying not to make it obvious. “You couldn’t finish your fuck with Rosalina, so you’ll find the next available body, isn’t that right? That’s always what I am to you, Dayton. Something to be fucked, filled, and discarded.”
Dayton leers down and grabs my chin. “When you put it so romantically, how could I not?”
I slap his hand away.
“Okay, okay.” Dayton steps back. “You’re jealous. But over me or Rosalina?”
“No, I—” I stop and turn around, my face on fire. Am I jealous? Is that what this feeling is? Or is it something else?
It wasn’t that it killed me to see Dayton and Rosalina together. In fact, the image of him holding her in his arms, the look of ecstasy on her face—it was the most beautiful sight I could imagine.
But I’d held myself back every single day since she’d been here. There were so many moments where I’d been leaning over her to look at her work, and she’d cast her glance up—what if I had moved before Dayton had? What if I had kissed her first?
But I hadn’t. Because I followed Keldarion’s rules. Because though none of us said it out loud, we all suspected it.
There could only be one reason Keldarion was keeping her here.
Even if that reason made no sense at all.
And maybe… maybe a small part of me is jealous. Because I understand Dayton well enough to know he lied to Ez when he said Rosalina was just another fuck.
He’d only ever looked at one other person the way he’d looked at her.
We may never find our mates, but I thought we’d always have something special.
“You know I don’t care who you fuck,” I force out. “If you hurt Rosie, I’ll show you what real pain feels like. It will be an agony you won’t forget.”
In a swift movement, Dayton has me pinned against the wall, his forearm against my throat. “I willneverhurt her,” he says, his voice a raspy growl.
My breath surges through my throat. His face is so close to mine, the smell of sea salt and fruity wine mixing between us. Stars, even with his expression coarse and rigid, he’s so damned beautiful. Dark lashes over storm-blue eyes, his wide jaw appearing as if chiseled from marble. His long blond hair flows in a messy mane over his thick neck and collarbone.
Suddenly, his expression softens, and he drops his forearm. “And I’d never hurt you, Fare. Not on purpose. I’m just an idiot.”
“No arguments here,” I mumble, massaging my neck.
Dayton backs up and stares at the ceiling, as if this confession is for the sky and not me: “And here’s the problem. Even though I know it’s going to hurt so much more, even though I know my whole fucking self is going to get destroyed,” he finally meets my gaze, voice cracking, “I can’t stop myself from wanting you.”
I close the distance between us, pulling his neck down toward me, and kissing him as if this were the first time, the last time, a kiss for infinity. He wraps his arms around me and twists until his back is against the wall, and he’s holding me as tight as possible. And I want this so badly, want to be closer to him, want to feel the distance that has always been between us fade away. I would crawl into his skin if I could.
He breaks the kiss and snatches my jaw. “You fucking hit me.”
“You fucking deserved it.”
Dayton barks a laugh and grabs roughly for my ass. “Come with me, pup. Let us fuck until our worries disappear and we are but on a cloud of bliss.”
“Everything is so easy for you. Drink or fuck the problems away.”
His lips catch my earlobe. “If only I was as good at that as I pretend to be.”
The words send my heart surging because I always knew they were true; knew the more reckless Dayton is, the worse his heart feels.
“Let me in,” I whisper against his mouth. “Let me help you.”
A blankness crosses his expression before being replaced by a wild grin. It’s a mask. I know it, but I don’t press.