Page 37 of A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel 1)
When Becket pulls away, Saint looks dazed. “Thank you,” he says, rather distantly.
“Thank you,” the priest says graciously.
Although as he takes his chair once again, there’s something pained in Becket’s expression that doesn’t look gracious at all. It looks like he wants to do so, so much more than kiss now, and who can blame him? I’m burning alive and I only watched.
Delphine’s spin lands on her own fiancé, and she giggles as she goes over to kiss him. “This is exactly what you would have wanted,” she says, leaning down and clearly planning on giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
He catches her arms instead and pulls her to his mouth, nothing long or involved, just a real kiss, and when Delphine pulls away, her smile is pleased and affectionate and even happy—but it’s not the smile of someone who’s aroused. It’s like she just finished kissing a cousin or a fellow actor . . . or someone she had to kiss for a party game. There’s warmth, but no heat.
“Your turn,” Delphine tells her betrothed. “Don’t land on me, we don’t want to be boring.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Auden says, a bit dryly, and leans forward to spin the bottle. He gives it a quick, indifferent spin, as if already trying to absolve himself from the consequences of where it lands.
It should land on Delphine. That would be the safest alternative, the alternative that would keep our dinners friendly and our evenings free of awkwardness. But I’m just drunk enough that I don’t want it to land on Delphine.
I want it to land on me.
I want to be stupid. I want to admit to myself that I like Auden, that I ache for his touch, his crooked smile, and all this after only a week here.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And spin, spin, spin goes the bottle.
It swings past me once, quickly, then twice, going slower now, and then a third time. I breathe out a long, silent breath of either disappointment or relief—I’m not sure which—and then the bottle keeps going. Slower and slower, but it keeps moving, gradually, gradually, appearing to stop in front of Saint.
The air itself seems to crystallize; next to me, Saint’s entire body trembles. But then the bottle nudges just the tiniest bit left so that it’s pointing at the spot between Saint and myself.
I swallow.
“I think it’s Poe,” Delphine says, having apparently nominated herself the moderator of our game. True to her earlier confidence, she doesn’t sound jealous or bothered in the least as she coordinates her fiancé kissing another person.
I look up and meet eyes with Auden. He stares back at me, shocked.
“Go on,” Delphine urges. “I won’t be upset.” Indeed, she even seems excited, and I try to use this to mentally clean away my own worry and guilt.
It’s just a game, Proserpina. Just a kiss.
But there’s nothing just about the twisting thrill in my stomach as I get to my feet. Auden stands too, and we meet in the middle, neither of us seeming to know where to look or where to put our hands. For a minute, I feel like we really are teenagers, not adults at all, with nothing between us but nervousness and hormones.
“Hi,” Auden says as we finally meet.
“Hi,” I say back.
“I suppose we’ve already done this once before,” he says. “Nothing new.”
“Right,” I say back. There’s something violent threatening to shiver through me, and if I let it, it will shiver my body right apart. I’m so aware of Saint behind me watching us, of him seeing my reaction to Auden, and I hate it, I hate that I’m so stupid, I hate that I want two people at the same time—hell, five people, if I’m being honest—although it’s only Saint and Auden that make me feel like my very life depends on touching them. I hate that they can see me wanting them; I hate that all the wild desires curling through me like vines have become so tangled and thick.
I hate that at Thornchapel, I’m both not myself and more myself than I’ve ever been.
“It’s just a game,” Auden whispers to me, his hand sliding around to cup the back of my neck. “Just a kiss.”
Please, God, let this kiss be just a kiss.
My hands come up against his chest, almost of their own accord, spreading against the soft cashmere of his sweater and the warm, firm lines of his chest underneath. His hand at my neck slides up through my loose hair to cradle the back of my head, and it feels so good I want to purr. Maybe I even do purr a little, because the hesitation that had been written all over his face disappears in an instant. And in its wake is the same hungry ownership I saw in his face when we were children.
I want to tell him to ti
ghten his fingers in my hair, I want him to wrap his other hand around my throat so I can feel the pressure of his touch against my pulse. I want another wedding, another crown of flowers, I want to be his in all the bruising, sighing, sparking ways I can.
