The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(77)

“No?”

“No. I don’t love him. I just said I did. He expected it, and I worried what he might do if he didn’t get it.”

She leaned one shoulder against the wall, looking down at me, her brow furrowed, her hands stuffed in her pockets.

I said, “I want you.”

Her expression changed. It deepened with decision. Her mouth slipped into a slight smile that looked almost self-mocking. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Nirrim, I can’t be good to you.”

“Then be bad.”

Her hands still in her pockets, she leaned to brush her face against my neck. She kissed my throat. The heat of her mouth was everywhere except on my mouth, her body nudging me up against the wall. Her tongue found my quick pulse. “Touch me,” I whispered.

“Not yet.”

Her mouth seared through my thin silk dress, her tongue dampening it. I felt her gentle teeth.

“Kiss me,” I said.

“Not yet.”

I touched her cheek. She turned to glide her mouth over my fingers. “Please,” I said, and pulled her toward me, my mouth hungry for hers. I kissed her. Her lips opened beneath mine. She made a low sound in her throat, and then her hands were on me, finding the shape of my body, its delicate spots, its needy ones. She unbuttoned the top crystal button of my dress, and moved slowly to the next one. Impatient, I began to undo them myself. She stopped my hands. “Let me,” she said. Her tongue lightly touched my lower lip, and I knew I would let her do anything.

She undid all the buttons, her fingers dipping lightly beneath the silk to touch my skin, until the dress fell from my shoulders and slid to the floor.

“I’m not sure,” I said, and her hands stilled. She pulled slightly away, her eyes hesitant, and I saw that she misunderstood. I said, “I’m not sure how.”

She smiled. “I am.”

She knelt before me, her lips and tongue on my belly. “Please don’t stop,” I said.

Her mouth went lower.

My hands twisted in her hair.





45


I LOVE THIS BED, I thought when I woke.

I loved how narrow it was, how close the scanty space made me to Sid, who slept on, her limbs tangled with mine, mouth relaxed and full, her lashes startlingly black, skin damp in the heat.

I loved the pillow, how it dented beneath her head, her blond hair messy against the cotton.

I loved the sheet that had slipped from her bare shoulder.

I loved the burning day, how soon it would pour honey over everything, the light getting golden before it dimmed.

When I shifted, Sid tugged me close. “Stay,” she muttered, and kept sleeping.

I loved that my mouth still tasted like her.

There was so much that was mine in that moment. I counted everything I had, at least then, and all that I was allowed to love.

This was not like the poem in Harvers’s book, where dawn came like a thief. Nothing had been stolen from me. Maybe it never would be.

Sid sighed in her sleep. My eyes got heavy again. I nestled into everything that was mine. I let it cover me like downy feathers and pretended it would always be like this.



* * *



When I woke again, the light had the glow of a late afternoon. Sid slept on.

I remembered my last thought before I slept: the poem from the book I had printed in Harvers’s workshop. I remembered his stamp on a book in a High-Kith library. I thought about this, about the Ward, about the tavern. I thought, reluctantly, about Aden.

I started to slip from the bed.

“No,” Sid moaned, her eyes still shut. “Don’t do that. Why would you do that?”

“I need to go back to the Ward.”

Her eyes opened in alarm.

“Not for good,” I said. “Just to talk to somebody.”

“Which somebody?”

“A printer.”

She frowned in a sleepy pout. “You are abandoning me for a printer?”

“I’ll come back. I won’t be long.”

“May I come with you?”

I thought about Aden. “No.”

She turned her face into the pillow. After a moment, her muffled voice came. “I’m afraid you won’t come back. You’ll change your mind.”

Gently, I said, “I’m not the one planning to leave.”

She nodded into the pillow.

“Go back to sleep,” I said.

“And that’s all right with you, that we can do what we did, and one day soon I’ll leave?”

I wanted to say, I would rather have you for a little time than no time at all.

I will remember you perfectly. My memory will touch your skin, your lips. The memory will hurt, but it will be mine.

She turned, her black eyes no longer sleepy, but searching. “Will you let me do it again?”

That question I could answer easily. “Yes.”

She reached up and pulled me down to her, her mouth nuzzling my throat. “Then go,” she murmured against my skin, “and return soon. I will miss you.”

“It’s only for a few hours.”

“I will miss you the moment you leave.”

She loved exaggeration, loved to flatter. It was her way. Still, my breath caught as though what she had said was real. “Will you?”