Page 155 of A Touch of Poison
“No,” she whispered. “I want you, and yet I shouldn’t. Every part of me calls for every part of you, but I don’t want you to regret anything between us.” Her eyebrows crashed together. “How can I want such contradictory things?”
I huffed, letting myself sink into her space, mouth only a few inches from hers. “Isn’t that what life is?”
Mine had spent the past thirty-five years tearing me apart. I wanted peace, and yet I wanted my father alive. I wanted a life, and yet I wanted to keep my hands on the reins of court. And just as I’d told Rose…
“I want you, Katherine. Yet part of me can’t bear the thought of becoming a person who breaks a contract. Not now that I know.”
And that was the contradiction that tore me in two.
Because I had fallen for her. Irrevocably. Helplessly. Perfectly.
Not just on this trip. Long before that. But… these days spent alone enjoying each other’s company, working together to look after our mounts and on our questions for the Lady of the Lake… it had broken down every attempt I made to deny or downplay it. It had made answering the Lady’s question easy, albeit terrifying.
Kat’s lip wobbled before her chin jerked upward—as far as she could with my grip on her hair. “But it’s not your contract to break. It’s not even one I chose.”
I sighed even as I pressed into her touch and my free hand slipped around her waist.
She saw me as putting her contract before her, but it wasn’t like that at all. Not once I’d got over the initial shock.
“I have killed, tortured, deceived. I’ve broken so many things, I lost count, but never a contract. That was one thing I could still hold sacred. I want to tear that damn marriage contract apart and take you so thoroughly, you don’t even remember his name. And yet… yet part of me still clings to the idea that I have this one thing I haven’t broken.”
Her eyes glimmered in the candlelight, and it felt like she saw me. Not the Shadow or the Serpent or the Bastard, butme.
I pressed my forehead to hers, sharing breath, for a wild moment wondering if I could just push her against the wall and sink into her.
Oathbreaker.My insides shrank away from that word, easing my throbbing cock.
She squeezed the front of my shirt. “I understand. It’s the only part of yourself you haven’t surrendered to duty.”
I wanted to surrender it to her, though. Or at least my conscious self did.
She gave a slight smile, stroking my collarbone. “You need a scrap of something to hold on to.”
I almost laughed with relief, but my throat was too tight. “I do. We will free you from this contract, Katherine, I promise. One way or another. Then my subconscious can shut up, and I will make up for every time it’s denied us. In the meantime…”
Releasing her, I backed off.
She swayed towards me. “What are you doing?”
“Obeying the letter of the law, if not its spirit.” I sat at the centre of the settee. “Come here.”
She approached so quickly, she couldn’t have taken a moment to think of it. Because she was that sure or because she wasn’t thinking? But she’d only had one glass of brandy, even though it was good stuff—rich and smooth, the way she liked.
Still, considering her past, it didn’t hurt to check.
“Will you do as you’re told, Katherine?”
Her cheeks flushed a deeper pink. “I will.”
“Will you tell me to stop if you want me to?”
“Iwill.”
“Are you my ember?”
“Yes,” the word spilled from her on a breath.
My blood roared, cock stiffening in anticipation. I patted the settee on either side of my thighs. “Good. Kneel with your back to me.”
