Not entirely on board either though. He turned us so that I was now on the ground and he could pull his hips away from mine. His eyes glittered down at me as he sucked in a breath to regain some control as I wriggled frantically beneath him. I needed more. Fire licked through me, seeking oxygen, and I lifted my head to kiss him once more, to bring him back into the inferno with me. The need pulsed through me. He groaned as he pulled his head out of reach, his hands restraining me, holding me down as he maintained what distance he could.
“Cass.” His voice was tortured, questioning. “What is going on?”
“Please,” I answered in reply, twisting my body up to regain contact.
He freed one hand to retrieve the blanket and attempted to cover me with it. I used that hand to grab a fistful of dark hair and pull his head back to mine, and now that he was caught, he responded once more, his tongue dancing with mine in the dark.
The blanket he had pulled between us fell away again and, untangling my hand from his hair where it was no longer needed to hold him to me, I pushed his shirt up and away. My skirt was tangled up around my waist as I sought and found as much skin to skin contact as possible.
I sighed, exhaling from sheer want and need. Devyn groaned in my ear.
“Cass…”
He was as caught up in the heat as me as the flames burned down the mental wall he had built between us.
We were both frantic with it, heat pulsing through us as we sought to get closer and closer, his flesh, mine, one body. The fire raged and burned us up, engulfing us both as we exploded together. Consuming us from the inside out.
I came to, shivering from the aftermath as well as the cold on our sweat-slicked skin in the chill of the night air. I could still feel Devyn, could feel our hearts fluttering in synch. I laid my hand across his chest to lie on top of his heart. And I felt him flinch.
Not again. How could I have been so stupid? Nothing had changed; he didn’t want me. Nobody wanted me. I curled onto my side into a ball as my body physically attempted to protect me from the crushing pain wafting through me.
“Cass?” His voice came out of the darkness.
I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know how. The blaze that had consumed me was utterly gone, and in its wake lay the bitterest of ashes. My soul felt like a wasteland. I kept believing in what was between us in spite of the evidence he presented again and again that he didn’t want this. That he didn’t want me.
“Cassandra.” His voice came again, stronger this time, demanding an answer. He put his blanket around me. “I’m sorry.”
A sob bubbled up from deep inside me. I shook my head. No. I didn’t want to hear his apologies. Didn’t want to listen to his explanations of why he didn’t want to be with me.
Unable to help myself now, the sob broke through, followed by a devastating torrent of them. I couldn’t hold them inside any longer, and they consumed me. Devyn wrapped himself around me as they took me over. I cried all the tears that I had in me, for the storm of flame had burned down all my defences. I cried for the life I had left behind, the family and future that were no longer mine, for Marcus who had lost his father, for Devyn who had lost everything to find me. For the heartbreak I felt inside at this second devastating rejection.
I had known that Devyn was pulling away. I had known I needed to go softly, to figure out why he was doing it, to fix it. The balance had still been in my favour. What had possessed me? Why had I pushed so hard? I needed to tread carefully, instead of which, out of nowhere, I had backed him into a corner. I thought back to my behaviour and my cheeks burned as I recollected my advances. I had jumped him in the middle of the night.
“I don’t know what came over me,” I began to apologise.
I tried to pull out of his arms, unable to think, unable to make any sense of his words as my skin crawled in self-disgust. In shame.
He held on to me tighter.
“I don’t think it was you,” he sighed in the darkness.
I shook my head. I didn’t understand.
“Whatever is going on in your crazy mind right now, stop it. What just happened, it wasn’t you.”
Some part of me surfaced through the roiling shame and ashes, and I didn’t understand. What wasn’t me? What did he mean to imply, that I was not responsible for throwing myself at him? That made no sense; of course it was me. I was the one who got up in the middle of the night and practically forced myself on him, even though I knew that was the last thing he would welcome at the moment.
“Marcus,” Devyn said, lifting my chin to look him in the eyes. I couldn’t hold his gaze. “This was Marcus. We know that the handfast band leaks desire. It wasn’t you. Marcus must be…”
He didn’t need to finish. While Marcus was shielded by the charm he still wore, without my pendant, I was vulnerable to the effects of the handfast. Devyn’s presence allowed me to think clearly, but he couldn’t protect me from the leaked passion and the pain we felt on seperation. I understood. But I didn’t care. Why it had started was now less important than how it had finished. With the proverbial crash.
“Leave me alone.”
“But Cass, this wasn’t your fault. It was—”
I couldn’t look at him. “Leave me alone.”
I did not want to debate this, not now, I felt raw and empty. I closed my eyes to shut him
