Chapter 18: Four Hours

Cassian carried me down to the boathouse at dusk.

I asked for it.

I wanted to be near the water.

I did not want to spend it in a bed at the Pruett house with a hundred lords outside.

Mom walked behind us the whole way with the shotgun on her shoulder.

At the foot of the loft ladder she stopped.

"I'll be right here," she said. "I'll be facing the other direction."

"Mom."

"I mean it. I'm not listening." She kissed my forehead hard. "Eat something later."

She sat down on an overturned bucket with her back to us and the barrel across her knees.

Cassian climbed the ladder with me in his arms.

The loft was a low room of old boards and dry hay, with a round window that looked out over the lake.

He laid me down on his coat.

Then he sat back on his heels and looked at me, and he didn't touch me.

"Four hours," he said.

"Don't count them."

"Linnet."

"I mean it." I pushed myself up on one elbow. "Take your shirt off and come here."

His mouth went crooked.

"You're ridiculous."

"I'm a woman on a deadline."

He pulled the flannel over his head.

The cut on his shoulder had closed to a long red seam.

The old scar under his ribs was white in the lamp.

I put my hand flat on it, and then on the new one.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not enough to stop."

"Good."

I sat up and pulled the flannel off over my own head.

The black lines ran over my breasts and down my ribs in branches.

I watched him look at them, and I watched his face.

"I don't want you to see them," I said. "I want you to see me."

"I see both."

He leaned in and kissed the line at my collarbone, slowly, and then the one below it.

"I see you," he said against my skin. "Every inch of you. I've been seeing you for seven years."

My breath caught.

I pushed him back onto the coat.

I got my knees on either side of his hips and sat down on him, hard, with my hands on his chest.

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