Page 28 of The Royal Flame
I find myself nodding. A slamming heartbeat later, his lips weld with mine as his hands find the backs of my thighs. In one fluid motion, he scoops me up in his arms. I instinctively latch my legs around his waist and his arm slides under my ass to hold me up. Our tongues tangle as he backs me up, kissing me deeply. We keep kissing and kissing and kissing, not stopping even when my back brushes across the brick wall of the academy. It’s insane how when I kiss him, nothing else exists. If it was possible, I’d kiss him all the time. But like away, fear trickles underneath the desire. What if I end up like other north side women, a mistress to a wealthy, married man. While River isn’t the kind of man who would intentionally do that, he’s also betrothed. And I’m reminded of this as someone clears their throat.
“Um, River, can I talk to you for a moment?”
After we break out kisses and I blink myself out of my lustful haze, I find Isla, the woman River is betrothed to, standing beside us. She has on wide legged blue silk pants and a grey turtleneck. Her posture is stiff, revealing her discomfort.
River has insisted she doesn’t want the arranged marriage either, but with the way she appears at this moment, I’m questioning if he might be wrong.
“You need to talk to me right now?” River asks, shifting my weight in his arms.
As I become painful aware of how much I’m pressed up against River, I lower my legs to the ground. Puzzlement weavesacross his features as he glances at me. I offer him a tense smile then step back, causing his hands to fall from my waist.
“I’m going to go take a shower.” I walk off in the direction of the entrance doors.
I don’t miss the confused expression on River’s face as I do, and I know he’ll have questions later on, but for right now, I focus on entering the wide corridor of the academy. Like with outside, this inside of the academy is relatively empty as well. My quick footstep echo against the high arched ceiling. I’m not going to lie, even though the headmaster assured the public the academy was safe, uneasiness stirs inside me. What if my room was bugged and it wasn’t found out? Noah even looked into it and said it was clear of any recording devices. But I’m naturally a skeptic. My gaze roves across the walls, the domed ceiling, and across every alcove I pass by. By the time I arrive at my room, I’m bustling with nerves, and my fingers slightly tremble as I grab my phone to unlock the door.
I feel no better inside the room and partly regret bailing on River. Had I stayed with him, he’d probably come and waited for me to shower. Or offered for me to shower in his room.
I decide to take the quickest shower ever as I rush into my room and peel my clothes off. As I’m heading into the bathroom, I hear a knock on the front door. Lily is still asleep, but since I’m undressed, I decide to ignore it and turn on the shower.
While I wait for the water to warm up, though, I hear a soft knock on my bedroom door. Confused, I wrap a towel around me and make my way to the door.
“Yeah?” I ask without opening it.
“It’s me.” River’s voice floats through the door. “Can you let me in?”
“Um…” I glance down at the towel wrapped around me. “Just a second.” I quickly tug on a long, oversized shirt that reaches me mid-thigh before slightly opening the door.
“You took off so damn fast,” River states the obvious. “Did I do something wrong?”
I shake my head, opening the door the rest of the way. “No, it was just awkward with Isla there, especially since we were making out.”
His gaze drinks me in and then he bites down on his bottom lip while staring at my legs. Then he blinks and fixes his attention on my face.
“It wasn’t like that,” he tells me, scratching at his arm. “She just wanted to give me a heads up that our fathers are going to force us to go to this party together.”
An invisible cold bucket of water gets dumped all over me.
I swallow hard. “I think I need some space right now.”
“I’m not going to it,” he sputters, reducing the space between us as he enters my room. “I’m going to talk to my father today and tell him I’m done following his orders, especially after my mom’s disappearance. It just makes me…” He struggles for words. “I don’t want him in my life anymore.”
“He’ll always be in your life,” I point out. “And if you break off this arranged marriage, they’ll be consequences for your siblings.”
“We don’t care about that,” Lily’s voice rises through the conversation.
River turns, rotating me with him. Lily is in the living room, and she’s turned on a lamp so soft light filters across her face. Dark circles reside under her eyes, her hair is in a messy bun, and she’s wearing a silk pajama set.
“Finn and I have talked about this,” she continues as she wanders toward us. “And we don’t care if dad cuts us off financially. Besides, he can’t even completely do that. We have trust funds not created by him, and mom owns half of everything he does. So him cutting us off just means we get half as much, which is still a lot.”
“When did you guys talk about this?” River wonders, his fingers slipping up the back of my shirt.
“About a day after Maddy came into our lives,” she says, stopping on front of him. “We talked about it a little bit, but we discussed more yesterday.” I squirm under her implication and her gaze slides to me. “Don’t you dare get uncomfortable, bestie. You two like each other so just own it. And we’ve found a way to get around this arranged marriage. You two were meant to be.”:
“Dad’s still going to make this complicated,” River presses while tracing a path along the small of my back with his fingertips. “You know that.”
“Let him try. If we all stick together, he can’t bring us down.” She folds her arms. “I just wish we could get a hold of mom. It’ll complicated this a bit without her here.”
“We should keep it quiet for now.” River presses me closer to him. “Until we can find her.”
