“Are you hungry?” he asked, placing our bags at the foot of the bed.
I shook my head, having filled up on the baked bars and nuts Casteel had brought with us. “I can’t believe these rooms.” I touched one of the curtains on the bed. “They’re beautiful.”
“My father would stay in this one or the other room that faces the Bay when he traveled to Spessa’s End. Both rooms have been updated as much as possible.”
I turned back to him. “I expected rooms with the bare necessities.”
“We eventually plan to fix up the rooms on the second floor. That will allow for more to stay here while the homes are either being repaired or rebuilt.” His gaze roamed over me. “I want to check your arm.”
“It doesn’t even hurt,” I told him, placing the small bundle of clothing on a settee that sat in the corner near the bed.
“Be that as it may, I would still like to see it.”
Knowing that he wouldn’t let it go, I unhooked my cloak and hung it on a hook near the fireplace and then pulled up the sleeve of my sweater tunic. I started to tug at the knot, wondering if he’d tied it in a manner that required scissors to remove.
“Let me.” He approached me as silently as always. His fingers were warm as they grazed my skin. He had the knot untied in a heartbeat. The bandage slipped away, revealing a thin slash that had stopped bleeding some time ago. His thumb slid over the skin near the wound. “This doesn’t hurt?”
“I swear.” I bit the inside of my cheek. It didn’t hurt. His touch, nor the area. The smooth swipe of his thumb felt…pleasant and shivery.
His chest rose with a deep breath and then he dropped my arm, taking a step back. “I’m going to check in with Quentyn and the others. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable. I’m sure you must be tired. Just make sure you clean the wound.”
“I will.”
His gaze met mine, and all I could think about was those moments outside, after he’d helped me down from Setti. Would he have kissed me? Would I have allowed it? I imagined we would have to kiss in front of people.
“Get some rest, Poppy.”
Casteel was gone before I could even formulate a response, and I knew I should be relieved by that. But I…
I wasn’t sure what I was.
Turning to the settee, I walked over to the bundle of clothing. There was a thin lilac-hued sleeping robe and a thicker, forest green tunic that would definitely come in handy.
Unhooking the sheath, I parted the curtain and was greeted by soft furs and a mountain of pillows.
“Goodness,” I murmured, placing the sheath on the bed.
Using only one of the warmed pitchers, I carried it into the adjoining chamber. Half afraid Casteel would return while I stood naked, I cleaned up as quickly as possible in the much cooler room, making sure to clean out the wound with fresh water and a mint-scented bar of soap. Once I was finished, I slipped on the soft robe, tying the sash around my waist. Digging my brush out of my bag, I undid my braid and worked through the tangles in my hair as I stared at the doorway to the living area.
Sometime later, while under the blanket, I wasn’t thinking about the Dead Bones Clan, the marriage, or what had happened at the keep. I wasn’t even thinking about what the sun would reveal about Spessa’s End come morning, or how strange it was that Casteel had left the room so quickly. I lay there thinking of all those stone graves, burnt-out and rundown homes in Pompay and in the fields between the two cities. If Tawny were here, she would be convinced that spirits roamed the night.
I shivered as my eyes drifted shut, wondering how the Ascended had been allowed to grow to this kind of power where they could destroy entire cities with no recourse.
And the only answer was a bitter one.
So very few had questioned what the Ascended claimed, and I’d simply accepted what they said, never truly giving life to any of the suspicions I had. That went beyond submission and straight into willful ignorance.
Shame slithered through me, another tell-tale sign that in many small ways, I’d been a part of the problem. A spoke in the wheel of the very system that brutalized hundreds of thousands, including myself.
The fire must’ve been fed at some point during the night because a pleasant heat surrounded my body. I couldn’t even remember being this toasty in my bedchamber back in Masadonia. That was my first thought as I slowly came awake.
I didn’t want to wake up and leave the warmth of the bed nor the heady scent of dark, lush spice and pine. Snuggling down against the warm, hard bed, a contented sigh escaped me.
Wait.
The hard bed?
That…that didn’t make any sense. The bed had been soft, the kind that you sank into. But now it was warm, hard, and smooth against my cheek and hand. Not only that, the bed was wrapped around my waist, my hip—
My eyes flew open. Tiny particles of dust floated in the morning sunlight seeping through the terrace doors across from the bed. The curtains had been tied back, and I knew I hadn’t done that before I fell asleep.
And I wasn’t lying on the bed, at least not completely. What was under my cheek wasn’t a pillow. It was a chest that rose and fell steadily. Beneath my hand wasn’t the worn texture of the blanket, but a stomach. The bed wasn’t wrapped around me. It was a heavy arm over my waist and a callused palm against my hip—my bare hip.
Oh my gods, I was using Casteel as my own personal pillow.
And based on the fact that I was lying on him, it was me who had sought him out in my sleep. When had he even returned to the room? Did that matter at the moment? It didn’t as I became aware of every place our bodies met.
This was nothing like curling up together while camping on the road. There was no excuse for being all tangled up in him.
I lay there frozen, my breath in my throat. My breasts were pressed against the side of his body. One of his thighs was tucked between mine, the soft buckskin of his breeches nestled against a very, very intimate part of me. The robe had parted below the sash in my sleep. There was nothing between his palm and my skin, and that hand spanned my hip, the tips of his fingers resting against the curve of my rear.
A sweet, hot feeling swept over me, and my eyes drifted shut. I knew I shouldn’t feel this. It was reckless and stupid and felt oh so dangerous. Instead of basking in how his body felt against mine, I should be plotting a way to somehow extract myself from him without waking him up, but my brain went in a totally different direction. It was almost like I could…pretend again. That this was okay. That Hawke was holding me in his sleep, and that this was just one of many mornings we woke up like this. He’d kiss me and touch me, fitting our bodies together, and this would happen because we were lovers about to marry for no reason other than the fact that we wanted and desired and needed each other. My breath caught again, and my pulse quickened. Heated lightning danced over my skin and zipped through my veins. I could almost imagine the hand on my hip slipping more to my behind and then lower still. Those fingers of his were capable of eliciting sensations I hadn’t even known were possible, not even after reading the scandalous diary of Miss Willa Colyns. My entire world concentrated on the memory of his fingers skimming over the sensitive skin of my inner thighs and then slipping inside me. A throbbing ache settled in my core, and a tiny part of me wished I had never experienced such pleasure at his hands. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t want this now, but that was only a small part. The rest couldn’t regret experiencing something so powerful and beautiful when I’d spent most of my life being forbidden to know what pleasure felt like.
But I shouldn’t be thinking about this—about what it had been like for him and me, and how he made me feel even now. Because in the early morning hours, when it was just me, I could admit that what he elicited from me went beyond the physical.
It didn’t seem to matter that I really shouldn’t desire any of this, but my body didn’t care about what was right and wrong. I still shivered with need as my toes curled.
Casteel shifted against me, and my heart seemed to stop in my chest. He was asleep, but could he still…sense my desire? His arm tightened, pulling me more firmly against him. His thigh pressed against the apex of mine. A shocking, aching pulse ricocheted through me in hot, tight waves. Suddenly, even my brain betrayed me. I was bombarded with images and sensations—the wicked memory of his mouth nuzzling my neck, the slide and scrape of sharp teeth, and the burst of pain that had so quickly turned into intense pleasure. There was a wildfire in my blood, pooling in my core. In the furthest reaches of my mind, I knew this was the slippery slope I feared would come with this…arrangement of ours. Sharing a bed. Pretending to be…in love. Touching and kissing. Pretending…
Pretending I already wasn’t slipping down that slope.
His arm loosened, but I was still pressed against him, my heart pounding so fast I would be surprised if he didn’t feel it. Was he still asleep? Each breath I took scorched my lungs as I carefully lifted my cheek.
His head was turned slightly away from me. A tumble of dark waves falling over his forehead. The line of his brow and the curve of his jaw were relaxed. Thick lashes shielded his eyes, and his lips were parted as his chest continued to rise and fall in deep, steady breaths.