Chapter 9: Take It

He stopped where he was.

"Say it plainly," Caspian said. "I'm not allowed to guess."

"Touch me."

"Where?"

"Everywhere you want to," I said. "I'm so angry I can't feel my hands, and you're the only thing in this whole valley that has never lied to me."

He crossed the ten feet in two steps.

His hands closed on my face, rough and careful, and I felt his thumbs shake against my cheekbones.

"Thora."

"Don't ask me anything."

"I'm not asking."

He kissed me.

It wasn't polite.

It was twenty-four years of wanting something I didn't know I was allowed, and he took my mouth as though he'd been starving for it.

I grabbed his shirt with both fists and dragged him down to me.

I heard him groan against my lips, and it went through me to the soles of my feet.

"Not here," I said, gasping. "Not on pine needles. My room. The lock's on my side."

He picked me up.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed his throat the whole way across the lawn.

A guard saw us and turned his face to the trees.

I laughed out loud for the first time in a week.

He kicked the door shut behind us.

I turned the lock myself.

He set me on my feet in the firelight and took one slow step back.

"Look at me," he said, and his voice was rough.

I pulled the green dress over my head and let it fall.

He made a sound I'd never heard from a man.

His hands came up and stopped in the air an inch from my ribs, and I could see how badly he wanted to put them on me.

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