Page 40 of Bound By Blood
Heat flared through her, but she kept her gaze on the cutting board and the sweet onion. He had to let this go. They both did.
Except—she didn't want to.
He tapped her with the lavender as he leaned over the counter, staring at her intently. "What about you?"
"I like Buttons too."
She scooped up the onions and dropped them into the pot rather than sweating them first in the skillet. Polph. It didn't matter. It didn't! She hadn't even remembered to put the skillet out.
"I think you might like him more than you like me."
She laughed weakly as she moved back to the counter.
"Do you like me?" he asked, softer this time.
"Yes," she said, still refusing to look at him. "You are very sweet."
He brushed her cheek with the lavender spire, tickling her sensitive skin. "You're sweeter."
It was hard not to smile. If he had any sense about him, he wouldn't be paying any attention to her.
"Have you ever been in love before, Erryn?"
"Hm?" She blinked, freezing in place. "Um. Yes. Well, more crushes than love, I suppose." Mostly unrequited. "For real, once or twice."
Her heart clenched hard as more bad memories pressed against her. She thrust them back. Her hands shook.
"What were they like?"
"They who?"
Her cheeks burned. She struggled to even look at him, but she could practically see those warm amethyst eyes studying her even when she closed hers. Could practically feel his arms around her again.
Traelan was right. Those words were bubbling up inside her already.
"Whoever you fell in love with."
"You don't like me like that, Ryul." The words were little more than a whisper.
"Who are you to say?" He spoke lower now, firmer. As if he guessed what she was doing and had decided to stop her. "Who are you to say what I feel? Is it because I am not yet a century in years? You don't think I can know my heart? That's not right, Erryn. All you can say is what you feel, and I say what I feel."
She kept her voice firm as she picked up another onion. "I'm a soup maker who works out of a cottage I don't own on the edge of the Barrens Wild. What kind of a future do you really think I have?"
"What kind of future do you want?"
She pressed her lips into a tight line. Why did he have to make this so difficult? What did she want? A future with him. Yes! How ridiculous was that!
He placed the lavender spire on her hand. "I think you could have any future you wanted."
She brushed it aside. "No. Not everything is possible."
"If it was possible? Assume it is. Whatever it is."
She swallowed the words, then set down the knife. Her hands were shaking far too much. Her mind blanked on what to say next. She massaged her fingers.
The silence intensified between them. The fire crackled and popped, and the bone broth in the second pot bubbled and hissed against the lid. It was going to cook down too far if she didn't finish chopping the rest of the ingredients soon.
"I don't know if this helps," he said slowly, "but I was thinking about when we talked the other night. When you said that nothing would happen between us, you didn't talk about your feelings. You said it was about the bargain and that you weren't any good for me. Now, I disagree with you passionately on the latter, but for the former, I just—I don't need you to ever say that you love me, Erryn. And if you never say it, you never get involved in the bargain."
