As the hours slipped by, the temperatures dropped, and talking began to take entirely too much energy.
We both knew the only way to get warm. It was only a matter of who would say it out loud first. Knowing Lord Theo and his overwhelming sense of propriety, I reluctantly opened my mouth.
“It’s freezing.” A shiver ripped through me, jolting through my already aching joints.
“We aren’t in danger of freezing to death.” He was back to his usual clipped tone, the one I was beginning to realize he used when he was uncomfortable.
Stars.
“I know that,” I said in the overly patient voice I used with my youngest sibling. “But we are in danger of having one hell of a miserable night ahead of us.” It wouldn’t be warm until morning — not that I could tell him that — and there was no way the small flame of the lantern was going to be enough to keep me warm.
When he only stared ahead, I snorted, a white puff in the air in front of me. “Your scruples won’t keep either of us warm, Lord Theo, and honestly. Don’t tell me you haven’t bundled up with your men before.”
He nodded, once, a sharp dip of his head.
“Then how is this different?”
“You know how it’s different.”
“Do I?” I cocked an eyebrow, but the expression was chased away by another shiver. “Look, we can just put your cloak on the floor, and use my dress to cover us. We can stay mostly clothed,” I bit out through chattering teeth.
I wasn’t ashamed to admit that my practicality tended to outreach my arbitrary principles. I needed all the strength I could get to face whatever was ahead of me, and I wasn’t going to have any if we spent the night half frozen instead of getting rest.
He watched me as another tremor overtook me, and finally relented. “Fine. Just…keep your hands to yourself.”
I arched a brow. “You should be so lucky.”
He ignored me, laying his cloak on the ground, then looked dubiously at my dress. I didn’t give him a chance to change his mind, turning quickly and gesturing.
This time, when he undid my laces, it was with frigid, fumbling fingers. He turned his head while I shimmied out of my dress and onto his warm cloak, putting the full skirts to use covering me before he could catch sight of the dagger at my thigh.
He sidled in next to me, and I yanked his arm around me, having no desire to wait half a century for him to feel comfortable doing that when I was freezing. I buried my face into his chest, and whatever his original reservations, he pulled me tighter against him.
Within seconds, his body heat seared into my own, calming my shivers. A delightfully warm chill ran through me, and I pressed my frozen nose against his chest to thaw, too. Theo stiffened beneath me, but said nothing.
Even the roaring thunder and howling winds outside quieted while I was tucked into the cocoon of his arms, replaced entirely by the rushed rhythm of his beating heart.
I focused on that sound, allowing it to drown out every other thought until it eventually lulled me to sleep.
It was warmer when I awoke. Hot even, but not the unpleasant heat of the scorching sun, more like the intense, welcome warmth of a crackling fire on a wintry day.
The gentle tingling along my spine promised sunshine outside, but not enough to account for what I felt now.
As consciousness crept in, so did the startling awareness that the warmth was from another person. A large, muscular person who still had their arms wrapped firmly around me, their thumb making a slow circle on my lower back.
I opened my eyes, letting them travel upward until they met Theo’s. He must have turned the lantern off the night before, but shafts of sunlight stole through the door on the ceiling, illuminating the golden sunbursts in his hazel eyes and painting the room in a hazy, ethereal glow.
My lips parted to make a joke, but something made me still my tongue. Maybe it was his searching expression, or the way he was wide awake but hadn’t loosened his tight hold on me.
Maybe it was the way his gaze snagged on my mouth, his full lips parting in a mirror of mine. The way that every nerve ending on my body was suddenly intensely aware, trails of fire scorching a path everywhere my skin met his through the thin shift that managed to feel both like too much clothing and not enough.
He loosened his hold, his hand trailing from my shoulder down to my hip, his head leaning toward me just slow enough that it felt like a question, one I didn’t know the answer to.
But I knew what I wanted in that moment.
I tilted my head up as he pressed forward, eliminating the space between us. In spite of the cold the night before, his lips were warm and gentle. A caress, a whisper of skin against mine that had a small gasp escaping me.
He made an answering sound low in his throat, angling us so he hovered over me, supported on each side by one muscled arm, but never breaking our kiss.
Some part of my brain was sending off alarm bells, telling me exactly how stupid this was. It was diligently listing every reason I should decidedly not be kissing Theodore Korhonan, a man who was bringing me to face my judgment and couldn’t even decide if he liked me half the time.
But here in this dim room, cut off from the rest of the world, I couldn’t quite bring myself to care. Besides, I had never been great at listening to that little voice in my head. That’s how I wound up here to begin with.
I pulled back for a small second, unable to stop myself from taunting him. “Do you still want me to keep my hands to myself?” My words were a whisper against his lips.
“Shut up, Rowan,” he whispered back, closing the distance between us once more.
His tongue teased at the seam of my mouth, and my body arched in response, my lips parting for him.
I had stolen kisses before, when I was supposed to be taking chaste, boring turns around the garden after dinner, but it had never been like this.
This felt somehow more real and less tangible, all at the same time. Like a mythical bird that might take flight at any moment, leaving you in doubt as to whether you ever really saw it at all.
I was so lost in the feeling of his body against mine, his lips against my lips, and the way my heart raced beneath my breast that I nearly missed the heavy thud over our heads.
We pulled apart just in time for a blinding shaft of sunlight to pour into the room, illuminating the vague outline of a large man.
“They’re in here, Your Grace.”
Indeed, we were. Half naked, flushed, and disheveled for the entire guard to see.
Just when I thought my time in Socair couldn’t get any worse.
