Page 79 of Trick

Briar spun around with a yelp.

“—won’t catch us,”I finished. “Say that three times quickly, and I’ll grant you a wish.”

She sagged into the wall. “Reverting to your splendor, I see.”

“Aren’t we all.”

“No. I don’t think I can see you the same way anymore.”

“I might have a similar problem regarding a certain Royal.” I linked my fingers behind me and paused on the stair below her. “I enjoy looking up to you like this. Do you enjoy looking down on me?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“Every question is a trick question.”

She stared at me through eyes that I longed to steal, to see what she saw. My deviant reflexes wanted to crush her against the stones and map the crease of her lips with my tongue. This woman was becoming a vice, a fixation, a stimulant—something indulgently bad for me. And I did enjoy things that were bad for me.

But more than that, I enjoyed being something bad for her.

“We are hardly alike,” she said, her words tiptoeing into the darkness.

“That’s true here and false elsewhere,” I observed.

“I had a speech prepared.”

I scoffed. “Speeches are an insult to intuition.”

“Among other things, they also show we care enough to make an effort,” she rebuked. “Anything that matters takes time.”

I did a double take. She was right.

Briar checked the stairway. “Once more, I wanted to assure you that I’m trustworthy. I’ll keep all I’ve learned to myself.”

“Aye,” I stated. “You will.”

Because whatever barriers we confronted, they didn’t compare to Nicu’s plight. As he grew older, his problems would escalate, and the cocksuckers of this country would make him pay more dearly for being allegedly different than she and I ever would for sharing a kiss.

This near to her, I inhaled tart apples and fresh soil—remnants of the meadow, of her scent. The fragrance clouded my head like an opiate—tempting, unhealthy, and addictive if I got used to it.

The effect would pass. It had to.

For my son’s sake, I couldn’t afford to get on the Crown’s bad side. Being intimately acquainted with the Autumn Princess’s moans amounted to me pissing on their laws, fundamentals I planned to attack someday.

“Have you seen Eliot?” she blurted out.

I quirked a brow. I hadn’t yet seen the minstrel because I’d been out cold ever since our return. “I’ll get to that. I’ll talk to him.”

“You must have been missed,” Briar commented. “By many.”

Ah. Her expression declared,I won’t be one of a dozen.

This princess may think she wasn’t special, merely because of the ribbons and my tendency to go down on patrons. Yet what she failed to grasp was that none of my lovers had ever witnessed me uncensored the way she had.

No one else had met my son.

On the other hand, this woman had me pegged. Surely, many had missed me. The walls and halls of Spring would be a dismal place otherwise.

Regardless, it couldn’t happen for her and me. That was the point.

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