The danger of a kiss
1843 Words
*Linnie*
My swollen feet hurt and my back aches, but I simply put away the broom and rags we used to clean up after the last of the customers left. I get in the queue, wait my turn, and smile at the tavern keeper and proprietor as he places the coins in my hand. There's nothing I like better than the tinkling of silvers and coppers hitting each other, even if it's only three of them.
“’Night, Henry. See you tomorrow.”
“Take care, Linn.”
I snatch my cloak from a peg on the wall, drape it over my shoulders, and walk out into the cold night, my heart giving a little lurch as a man shoves himself away from the wall. Then I recognize him and my temper flares. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m going to walk you home,” Marsden says.
With a roll of my eyes, I begin striding up the street. “I get myself home every night just fine when you’re not about.”
“But I’m about now, and I know you’re upset with me. Do you fancy Robbie? Were you flirting with him?”
If I were ten years younger, I’d smack him on the shoulder, but as it is, I merely scoff. “No, he’s a buffoon. A drunk one at that. But I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t know why you have to work there.”
“My da gives me a roof over my head for working in the bakery. The pub puts coins in my pocket so I can move to Blackrock city and open my own bakery.”
“Blackrock city has enough bakeries.”
I nudge my shoulder against his arm hard, causing him to stumble. “Don’t spit on my dream.”
Straightening, he tugs on his gloves when they already appear to be snugly in place. “You won’t like Blackrock city. It’s foul-smelling and crowded.”
I could do without the odor, but an abundance of people suits me, because I could become lost, might never again see him. “You seem to spend enough time there.”
“Not by choice. I much prefer it here.”
Stopping, I lean against a wall. It’s late, no one is about except for a stray dog or two. “And why is that, my Alpha Prince?”
He glances around before stepping nearer to me. I hold my breath, waiting for the words I long to hear. Because you’re here.
“It’s my home.” His voice, deep in the quiet, wraps around me. I’d teased him unmercifully when it began to deepen, often cracking as though uncertain in which direction it wished to go: high or low.
But now my heart tightens, squeezes, drops to my toes. How could he not see that I love him, that I couldn’t stay here once he takes a mate, and he’d be marrying before the next year is out if his mother has her way. I know all about the blasted ball and its purpose: to secure him a princess. I need to be long gone before a beautiful ranked she-wolf takes up residence at the castle.
“Well, it’s not mine.” I shove myself away from the wall and begin marching with determination.
He is quick to catch up. “What do you mean it’s not yours? You live here. Your family is here.”
“My da. And he’s getting up in years. What do I do when he’s gone?”
“You take over his bakery. Why go to Blackrock city when you have a shop here?”
I shake my head, “I’m in the mood for something different, some excitement!”
“Then come to the our ball.”
I stagger to a stop and swing around to face him. For years, from the shadows, I've watched the fancy folk arrive and promenade through the gardens. Once, I even snuck up to the windows of the grand residence to see them dancing in the magnificent ballroom. “Don’t be daft, Marsden. I’m a commoner.”
“You’re anything but common. It’ll be my Christmas gift to you. A night of merriment and excitement.”
I’m half tempted. To be part of something so much grander than myself and my village life is something I sometimes dream about before the reality of my situation anchors me back to the real circumstances of my place in the world. “What would I wear?”
His brow furrows. “Well, a gown of course.”
Said so simply by a man for whom everything comes so easily. I don’t resent his place in the world, but sometimes it does give him a skewed perspective of what surviving entails for others. “I don’t have a gown, not like the ones they wear to your glamorous affairs.”
“Then we shall simply have to send to Blackrock city for one.” He glances around before taking my arm and ushering me into the narrow alley between two taverns. This village has more than its share of drunkards. “Please come. It’s going to be a dreadfully dull affair.”
“You just told me it would be exciting.”
“It will be if you’re there.”
I lower my gaze to his perfectly knotted cravat. He hasn’t buttoned his outer coat. I want to step into him, feel his warmth as he closes the heavy wool around me. Lifting my eyes, I touch his cheek, skimming the back of my fingers over his bristled jaw. For the most part, his features are lost to the shadows, but I don’t need to see them to know them. “Your mother wouldn’t like it and neither would the she-wolf you’re courting.”
“I’m not courting anyone.”
“But I’ve heard rumors you’ll decide that night whom you should court.” Whom he will marry. My stomach knots with the acknowledgment that soon he will no longer belong to me in any fashion whatsoever. “My presence would serve as a distraction.”
“You could help me determine who is best suited to me.”
Oh, yes, I bloody well want to do that. “Don’t be daft, Marsden. You know best who will make you happy.”
He removes his gloves and cradles my face between his large warm hands. His palms are smooth, not rough like my father’s. Still, I feel strength in his fingers. “And if I can’t have her?”
“You could kiss her.” I’ve wanted that for as long as I can remember. A silly thing for a silly she-wolf to wish for. He is the Alpha Prince of the castle, far beyond my reach.
I go completely still as he leans in, his breath fanning over my cheek. “And if I can’t stop there?”
“She’ll stop you before it goes too far.”
With his thumbs, he strokes the corners of my mouth. “A gentleman does not take advantage.”
“Do you want to kiss me?”
“More than I want to breathe. I have for the longest.”
I can’t help but grin at the need echoing through his tone. “Then why haven’t you?”
“My world would not accept you.”
“Then don’t tell them.”
His laugh is a rush of air as he presses his forehead to mine. “It would be wrong when I can’t give you promises.”
“Where’s the harm in a kiss?”
Rising up on my toes, I tentatively press my lips to his, hearing his low groan as he flattens his body against mine. With his tongue, he laps insistently at the seam of my mouth until I open for him and my words mock me.
I can see the harm in it now, feel the harm in it as heat swamps me and our tongues become entangled, exploring, tasting, very nearly devouring. The Goddess help me, but I have waited years for this moment, have started to crave it as my body transformed from girl into grown she-wolf. No other boy has ever appealed to me as he has. But when his voice deepened and he grew tall and his shoulders broadened and whiskers shadowed his jaw, strange stirrings began in the pit of my stomach and lower. I wanted his hands on me, on all of me.
Now I wrap my fingers around his wrist and carry the hand that cups my face down, slipping it beneath my cloak until it cradles my breast. His guttural growl is the most enticing sound I’ve ever heard. He kneads the pliant orb, his thumb circling my turgid n****e. The pleasure that ripples through me nearly has my knees buckling.
I don’t think it’s possible for him to get any closer, but I become aware of the movement of his hips as he rubs his hard c**k against the apex of my thighs. Ah, yes, there is danger in a kiss, in his at least. I want to lift my skirts, to have him even nearer, to have him dragging his c**k between the folds that harbor secrets I’ve dared not even think about.
He deepens the kiss as though it provides sustenance, as though it alone ensures survival.
“Madeline.”
Marsden reacts to the sharply delivered word more quickly than I do. I’m dizzy, breathless, and only his hands moving to my waist keep me aloft, preventing me from sinking to the ground and urging him to follow me down.
“Mr. Piletree,” Marsden says, the rasp of his voice slipping into my soul.
Blinking, striving to regain my equilibrium, I see my protective father standing there, an ominous sentinel in the night. He’s obviously come looking for me when I didn’t arrive home as expected. “Papa”
“Off with you now, Madeline,” he says brusquely.
I look at Marsden. He merely nods and steps away. It irritates me that he looks guilty doing it. Angling my chin, I meet my father’s gaze, hoping the darkness hides from him the flush burning my cheeks. “It was only a kiss.”
“It’s never only a kiss,” my father says. “Go on.”
“Good night, Marsden,” I say.
“Good night, Miss Madeline.” He always addresses me in that manner when it isn’t only the two of us. Tonight it irks beyond all measure.
Marching away from both men, I hear my father’s voice but not his words. Then his rapid footsteps as he catches up to me.
“He won’t marry you.” I hear the truth and the sadness in his tone. “He’s an Alpha prince, and you’re a baker’s daughter.”
“I know.”
But what I know in my head is very different from what I believe in my heart.
- Writer
