I can’t even pretend that I’m disappointed, as hurtful as it was the way he left things, it was also the best lovemaking session of my entire life.
“You,” he grunts before his lips crash against mine and his tongue fills my mouth in one swift move.
COLT
I don’t know why I said it, but it’s true. I want her. Birdie is mine. I know that what I feel is only the prophecy and it isn’t real, but that doesn’t change the need that I have inside of me, a need that only she can fulfill.
If there is something to break this spell, I haven’t figured it out yet and right now I’m not sure that I want to.
Being with her feels amazing.
The guilt consumes me, just as it did last night. After our moment together, it hit me. I didn’t think of Adelaide. In fact, I couldn’t even recall her name immediately, there was only Birdie.
That is the reason I walked away. Not because of anything that she did, but because my guilt was threatening to choke me, it was consuming me and I had to walk away from her. I couldn’t look at her for another second. It was me, all me.
Birdie moans against my lips. Sliding my hand to the back of her hair, I grip her strands tightly, holding her against me, refusing to let her escape.
Sliding my hand up her waist I cup the side of her breast as discretely as possible, though it doesn’t matter much out here as there isn’t anyone around who would tattle on me.
Slowly I break the kiss, nibbling on her bottom lip before I look up into her eyes.
“Colt?”
I shake my head once. “Until we know what this prophecy is and how it is going to affect the country, you’re mine, Birdie.”
“And once we find out?” she asks.
Shrugging a shoulder, I lick my bottom lip and continue to look into her eyes. I search them, looking for something, but I’m not quite sure what I’m trying to find. Whatever it is, it’s not there. She confuses me, her presence alone confuses me.
“I don’t know, then we go from there,” I murmur.
She shakes her head, turning to look to the side. I don’t force her face back to mine, I don’t make her look at me. I should. But I don’t, not right here—not right now. Eventually, her gaze finds mine.
“And while we wait, you’re going to come to my bed?” she asks.
My lips turn up into a smile. “Are you trying to tell me that you didn’t like what we did in that bed?”
Her eyes widen and her nostrils flare, but she doesn’t speak right away. I wait for her to deny me, but she doesn’t.
“I did, it was the after I didn’t care for overly much,” she mutters, wrinkling her nose in that way that I’ve come to find adorable.
Chuckling, I can’t hold back my laughter. “It was more me than you, Birdie. I can’t say that I’ll never do it again…”
Lying isn’t something that I do, even if it would save her feelings, I can’t. I’m not a true politician, even if my title deems me as such. I’ve never been one to mince words. Even if it angers people, I have always told the truth. With a lover, I am no different.
“You’re an asshole,” she snaps.
“I can guess at the meaning of that, but I’m not sure as to why you’re calling me that.”
She blinks, then her lips curve up into a pretty smile. She leans forward, her lips close, but not touching my own, disappointingly.
“Your guess is probably correct and it’s because that’s what you are. You seriously just told me you would totally bounce on me again in the future with zero explanation as to why. And you’ve also pretty much said when the prophecy is all figured out, then you would decide how to move forward. Dude, nothing makes a girl want to go back the fuck home more than that shit right there,” she snaps, her nostrils flaring in anger.
At the suggestion of her leaving, my fingers twist in the back of her hair, holding her too tight. She gasps, lifting her hand to my wrist behind her head. Her fingers grip me there, but my grasp is too tight and I don’t allow her to pull my hand away.
Something inside of me clenches in pain, it radiates throughout my entire body, just at the thought of her leaving. I haven’t ever felt this way before. When Adelaide was murdered, I felt sorrow and mourning, I ached, but not like this.
This is different, this is all-consuming pain.
This is a pain that if I were standing, I would be brought to my knees.
“You will go nowhere,” I grind out.
She narrows her eyes at me, her nostrils still flaring as she watches me. “I will do whatever I need to, Colt. You do not own me. You are not in control of me, and if you’re a fucking dickhead to me, I’ll bounce. Simple as that.”
“You won’t,” I growl. “You will not. There is nothing for you here, Birdie, if you are not mine.”
“So you’re saying women don’t work out here, we are forced to rely on men? I find that really hard to believe.”
“You can be a housemaid, if you’re lucky to find a family wealthy enough to take you in, which I can name maybe two within the area or…” My words trail off.
“Or?” she asks.
I smirk, lifting a brow. “Or you can be a soiled dove over at the Blue Bird Theatre, but just to say, I’ll be coming and going from your bed there too, darlin’.”
She presses her lips together and narrows her gaze at me. “You really are an asshole,” she hisses.
I’m sure that I am just as she’s described, though I still don’t quite understand it. She will have to learn
