His breath still lingered against my mouth, ragged and desperate, his hand braced against the table beside my head, his body caging me in. The scarlet velvet clung to my skin where he had torn it, the fabric trembling like my own pulse. His eyes — dark, ravenous, burning — searched mine as though the answer he demanded would either free him or ruin him.
“Are you sure?” he asked, voice low, fractured, as if the words themselves cut his throat.
I swallowed, my lips parted, and for one fragile second I thought of Rhosyn’s warning, of the sickness, of the fire that had nearly devoured me alive. I thought of how the world would see us. How wrong it all was.
But then I thought of him — the man who carried me through the fever, who held me when I shook, who touched me like I was something both
