Page 19 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“Give me a minute,” he bites out, his fingers tightening in his hair as his other hand flexes dangerously at his side. “If you don’t want me to touch you, then I need a fucking minute.”
Ignoring the quickening in my blood at the realization that he’s about to snap—fuck, why is it so sexy to see him about to snap?—I point out, a little petulantly, “This is supposed to be about giving me a minute, not you. Or don’t you know the rules?”
“When,” says Auden, “have we ever done anything by the rules?”
And he’s right. But then of course, so am I.
“I never wanted to say it,” I say to his back. “You know I didn’t.”
His voice is tired when he replies. “I know, St. Sebastian. I remember that summer too.”
“You begged me to stop you if you went too far. And last night—you said the same thing last night too.”
Auden turns enough that I can see his face in profile; he looks profoundly sad, although the jumping pulse at the side of his t
hroat tells me he’s aching to pin me against the wall again. “And is this too far?” he asks quietly. “Am I too far for you now?”
My mouth is dry. My body is a living contradiction of shame and angry arousal. “I can’t unknow it, Auden. And I can’t forgive that you hid it from me.”
Auden nods, once. Not in agreement or concession, but in mere acknowledgement.
“Tell me how you found out,” he says. It’s a command I’m not sure I obey because I want to, or because it feels good to obey him with something, anything at all, now that there’s this impossible gulf between us.
“Your journal,” I admit. “I found it in your journal.”
“Spying on me?” he asks, but he doesn’t sound angry. It’s hard to tell with him turned, but it sounds like there would be a fond tilt to the corner of his mouth if I could see it.
I’m honest now, too honest for my own good. “I just wanted more of you,” I mumble. “I wanted to touch the things you touch and see the things you see. I wanted to feel closer to you.”
My confession has him turning all the way around, his hands dropping by his sides to flex and flex and flex, and his erection still swelling unapologetically between his hips. His eyes are like the forest again—alive and hungry.
“This isn’t over, St. Sebastian,” he promises in a low voice. “I hope you know that.”
“It has to be over. Stop being such a bad fucking Dominant and accept it.”
The edges of his mouth tug down, and it’s not fair for any man to look so good in his displeasure. “I think you’ve forgotten last night. The thorn chapel.”
“Owning Thornchapel doesn’t mean you get to make up whatever rules you want.”
He ignores this because of course he does. He’s Auden Guest, lord of the manor, and his family has done whatever they’ve liked in this valley for fifteen hundred years. “What about Proserpina?” he asks. “What about the three of us?”
I think of Proserpina clenching her fist between us, pumping it like a shared heartbeat. The shared heart that somehow beats for all three of us.
My chest is tight. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I know,” he says with that impossible arrogance. “I know that both of you are mine, and I also know that Poe is as much yours as you are hers. I’d rather you not hurt her while you and I—” he makes an impatient gesture “—figure this out.”
I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes. “There’s nothing for us to figure out.”
I hear Auden step closer.
“You’re right about that,” he vows.
I open my eyes to see him avid and beautiful in front of me. For a long moment, we just look at each other. I can’t call it a standoff, because I know there’s no way Auden will stay frozen for long.
And I’m right.
“This isn’t over,” he repeats silkily, and then he starts for the door.
