Page 43 of The Dandelion Princess
Marc doesn’t budge. “What are you trying to do?” he asks, unbothered.
I push harder and try not to enjoy it. “You’re in my personal space.”
“You once climbed me,” comes his reminder. I can hear the laughter as he exhales, narrowing the tiny distance between us. “Freja and I have personal space. Alma and Clara and I have personal space. You and I don’t have personal space.”
Rough bark bites into my skin as I attempt to fuse with the tree. “Why can’t—”
His hand covers my mouth and his body settles against mine, head dipping to my ear. I freeze. “We have company.”
Alix and Tom stumble through the underbrush, laughing. The pitch and weave of their cell phone lights tell a story of tipsiness, but when they move off, narrowing into distant pinpoints, Marc drops his hand. I draw a shaky breath. My nearness doesn’t mean anything to him. He builds walls between himself and his best friend’s lovestruck little sister like he’s been training for it his whole life, and I try to drill it into my stubborn skull that he’s not making a pass. This is just his competitive streak and he’s trying to keep us from getting caught.
“How do you think you could be more perfect?” he prods, voice rough, resuming a topic I dropped alongside my sanity.
I bless the darkness. “I’ll read my speeches exactly how they’re written for me. All my opinions will be laundered through the administration wing. Inflation? Hate it. Literacy? Big fan. Teen pregnancy? Won’t someone think of the babies?” A silent laugh hitches his chest. “I’ll order clothes that make me look like Alma.”
“You mean those straight skirts and sort of filmy blouses?” I can hear his gathered brows. He’s trying to imagine it. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“Why?” I ask this focus group of one.
“It won’t work. They won’t look the same on you as they do on your sister.”
My cheeks flame as I parse out his meaning.
I know what I look like. I can’t walk into or out of my cursed palace without passing full-length mirrors in every direction, and it would take an idiot to miss the fact that I don’t have Freja’s delicate elegance, Alma’s stately majesty, or Clara’s enviable measurements. I have to shrug off being called stout by boutique owners, described in the press as having a sturdy figure, or praised (in an actual speech with an actual transcript you can access on the actual government website) by the National Farmer’s Guild for my fine, buxom appearance.
For all that, I’m remarkably well-adjusted. I like the way I look, even if I am fairly short and all business. But having Marc point out all the invisible ways I fail to measure up to perfection feels like being in a boxing match and having my cornerman deliver an uppercut. I expect him to send me back in the ring, patched up and ready to fight, but since he returned from Seong he hasn’t been able to keep a civil tongue in his head.
I punch him in the arm—light and teasing despite the way my heart stings. “Are you calling me a dumpling?”
“What? No. I said you won’t ever look like your sisters,” he corrects, catching my second fist before it makes contact.
A sharp breath escapes me. “Do you even hear yourself?”
“Oh,” he says, pushing a thumb into the fist and breaking it up, lacing his fingers through mine. Despite all the pain and irritation, a tiny lightning storm sparks through my veins. “I see the problem.”
I tug my hand but he holds it firmly. “You can wear those kinds of things if you want,” he tells me. “Just know that everyone will lose their damn minds.”
Soju has possibly knocked the corners off my ability to bring his meaning into focus. “Explain it to me like I’ve just sustained blunt force trauma.”
His gaze swings away, silvery moonlight touching the side of his face. “She asked,” he says, speaking to his ancestors, maybe. His gaze swings back. “She asked.”
He slides his arm around my waist and pulls me up on my toes. There is nothing brotherly about his hold, and the shock of it evaporates the air in my lungs.
“That third wish,” he says, gaze dropping to my mouth, leaving me in no doubt about what he wants.
He searches my face for some sign of assent and I only have a millisecond to think. This isn’t love—it just isn’t—but my mouth tips with a smile, and the voice in my head is dragonslayer2, shouting amid a hail of enemy fire.Take the shot!
“Yes,” I whisper.
Marc draws a ragged breath and drops his head, fisting his hands in the thick cotton of my hoodie. As soon as his lips touch mine, I stop caring that this might be his way of delivering an inspirational message on body-positivity. His mouth is warm and mobile and…
I sigh, our breath mingling, as he takes control. I am intimately aware of how rich and full his life is, but he kisses like a gamer with a hyperfixation. Like someone who has been cooped up in a basement for months, planning every move,playing and replaying this moment until the muscle memory is burned into his soul.
When he gathers me closer, destroying my peace from now until the day I die, a thread of panic races through my nerves.Oh no, oh no, oh no.I had convinced myself that kissing Marc van Heyden would be like wearing a pair of espadrilles—something nicer in my head than it could ever be in real life. But the reality of Marc’s lips on mine is much better than even my best attempts to imagine it. He is not a disappointing kisser and I am in serious trouble.
I grip his shoulders, fragile with the desperate hope that he won’t see all the years I’ve spent wishing for this and hiding it.Vede, this is going to hurt. He must sense some withholding because he gives me a frustrated, coaxing shake.
Okay.
