“Well, God, Rielle, so did I!” Audric raked a hand through his hair with a slight, hard laugh. “I’d imagine everyone did. Is that what’s bothering you? Darling, please don’t let that keep you from sleep.”
“It’s not only that!” Rielle tore a clump of grass from the ground in frustration. “It’s…it’s so many things.”
Even while my mother burned, I was glad to feel the power simmering at my fingers.
Even though I know Corien is an angel, I want him to come back to me.
Even though you belong to Ludivine…I want you for my own.
I want…I want. I crave. I hunger.
“I want so many things,” she whispered, “and none of them are very good.”
Audric cupped her face in his hand, guided her to look up at him. For a moment they sat frozen, Audric’s mouth so close that Rielle could have lifted her chin and met his lips with her own.
Then Audric lowered his hand and looked away.
“We all have darkness inside us, Rielle,” he said, his voice rough. “That is what it means to be human.”
She shook her head slowly. “I think what it means to be human is that you are able to move past that darkness and do good in the world even so. And you, Audric”—she laughed a little—“I’d wager everything I am that you never experience such thoughts as I do. Sometimes your goodness shines so brightly that I want to devour you. Maybe if I have enough of you, that light you shine will stave off the wickedness that lives inside me.”
She rubbed her brow. “I can’t believe I’m saying these things. What you must think of me.”
“I think of you what I have ever since I’ve known you.” Audric reached for her hand, steadied it between his own. “That I’m glad you are beside me, and that I wish for you to always be.”
She dared to look up at him, and when she did, she let out a soft, murmuring sound, leaned closer to him as if pulled by a cord connecting his body to her own. He cupped her face with one hand, let the other trail gentle fingers down her arm. The warmth of his body flooded through her; she shuddered and twisted to move closer to him.
“Audric,” she murmured, closing her eyes. She touched her cheek to his, relished the gentle scrape of his jaw.
“If there is wickedness inside you, Rielle,” Audric said hoarsely, his lips in her hair, “then I shall treasure it as I do every other part of you.”
A soft touch of his fingers against her ribs; another at the back of her neck, sending a tremulous chill down her spine. She melted into him, slipping into his arms as easily as if she belonged there.
But then she remembered Ludivine.
She closed her eyes. “We shouldn’t,” she whispered, her body screaming at her to stop talking and touch him. “I… Audric, what about Lu?”
Audric moved slightly away from her. Sorrow fell across his face. “I know. You’re right, I know.”
Rielle propped herself up on her elbows, watching him carefully. “Do you love her?”
“She is dear to me, but…no. Not as I should.”
“Then…” She reached for him, turned his face back to hers. Tears of shame rose in her eyes, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the blazing need in his own. “Maybe just this once? For the memory of it.”
He hesitated, glanced back through the trees toward Baingarde.
“The memory,” he said slowly, “might make things harder.”
“I don’t care.” She cupped his face in her hands, shook her head. “I want to anyway.”
For a moment he was quiet, considering her. Then, a soft smile. His lips against her palm. “My wicked girl,” he murmured and lowered his mouth sweetly onto hers.
The kiss was so careful, so gentle, that Rielle’s heart ached with tenderness for him. She cried out softly against his mouth and hooked her arms around his neck. At her touch, he shivered and deepened the kiss with a groan. The moment shifted from something cautious, something fragile and slow, to a scorching, helpless need. His hands slid down her body, and she arched up into his touch. When she felt him hard against her leg, she tightened her arms around him and gasped against his cheek.
“Audric,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Yes. Yes, please.” She was dizzy with his nearness—his tongue opening her mouth, the soft murmurs of her name, the frantic nibbling gasps against her skin.
He gathered her body against his, fumbled beneath her dressing gown for the thin cotton of her nightgown, cupped her hips in his palms. It was like he couldn’t make up his mind where to touch her, and Rielle basked in every moment of his indecision, twisting beneath him, tugging at his shirt to move him where she wanted. She snaked her fingers under his tunic, greedy for the hot, bare skin of his muscled back. He was so warm, so solid and sure. She closed her eyes, pressed her lips to his collarbone. Breathing him in felt like breathing in a summer’s day.