Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Henry swallowed, his lips parting. “Christ,” he whispered.
“I know,” I said. “It’s bad. It’s awful.”
“I didn’t say that,” he clarified.
“Maybe you should have.”
“Well,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You could have come with me if you’d showed up in that guest room.”
“Jesus, don’t say that, Henry.”
“Why not?” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “Don’t you ever think about how things would be if we’d both just… been able to stay in Berrydale? Together?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. I looked off into the distance, focusing on the castle. “I try not to think about that.”
“Why not?”
I let out a sigh. “Because I wanted that more than anything, and it was the one thing I couldn’t have.”
Henry let out a stiff laugh that made me jump slightly in place. “Really?” he said.
I looked at him. I couldn’t even pretend to fight it at this point. I felt like when Henry was this close to me, all of the scaffolding inside me shifted. I was the same person, but a different version.
Henry cut through all of the bullshit.
“Yes,” I said finally. “You know what I really wanted? I wanted to be your simple house husband. Cook you dinner. Rub your back. Blow you every night when you got home from work.”
A small smile appeared on Henry’s face, but his eyes still looked pained.
“Instead I’m a prince,” I said, shaking my head. “Everyone looks to me to be a certain way.”
“Who fucking cares, Sebastian—”
“A lot of people care, unfortunately,” I said.
“You can’t buck any of this stupid tradition?” Henry asked.
I felt the familiar heavy feeling settling on my chest. It had been there for my whole life, and throughout the years it had gotten both easier and heavier, somehow.
“My entire life would dismantle if I did,” I said. “Not to mention the people around me, in the castle.”
“Well, I think that’s BS,” Henry said. “I think you should try breaking a goddamn rule for once, and see what happens. It’s the same as when you were a kid—”
“The one night I finally broke a rule as a teenager, I was ripped away from you forever,” I said. “You know that, Henry.”
“It didn’t have to be that way,” he said quietly. “And you’re an adult now. You’ve been an adult for a very long time. We aren’t fifteen years old, kissing on a pile of firewood in the park. It isn’t like that.”
I puffed out a defeated laugh. “I wish it was.”
“What the hell?”
“Not the… awful parts," I said. "But the kissing you part.”
He let out a frustrated groan. I couldn't blame him. It was frustrating. All of this was.
“Fine,” he said.
Henry’s warm hand was on my cheek a moment later, and my heart jumped up to somewhere near my throat. The gentle sway of the Ferris wheel seat below us rocked as his hand guided my face.
He leaned in, pressing his lips to mine softly.
“There,” he said, leaning back. “We kissed again. All better now?”
It felt like nothing I’d ever experienced. Certainly not with Henry. When we’d kissed in the war room last week, it had been drunken and impassioned and had felt dangerously rushed.
But this? This felt like… how people might kiss if they were in love. Simple and sweet and unassuming. And God, I needed more.
Henry smelled like cider. His hand stayed resting gently on the side of my face as I leaned toward him again, pausing with my lips just millimeters away from his. I wanted to surrender to this.
“People are going to see,” I whispered against his lips. But as his fingers laced through my hair, I couldn’t find it in me to care about public opinion.
“No they’re not,” Henry said, his voice low. “You’re safe, Sebastian. Even if you’re always worried that you aren’t.”
I sighed against his lips, letting my mouth open to his again. The warmth of his tongue on mine erased me completely.
I was hard as hell under my pants. It felt like there was a war going on inside me, a battle that had been raging for my entire life. I knew I was doing something I shouldn't. But I also felt like I was floating far, far high up into the sky, above this Ferris wheel, above Frostmonte Castle.
“Fuck it,” I said, pulling back and reaching out to clutch the fabric of his shirt. “Come to Terrace View Road tonight. I’ll find a way to get you inside the castle.”
Henry breathed out slowly as he pressed his forehead onto mine.
“Don’t do this, Sebastian,” he whispered. “Not again.”
“I’m serious,” I said, gripping his forearm with my hand. “We’re adults. This doesn’t have to be…”
“Doesn’t have to be what?” he asked. “You know we can’t actually be together. You know I’m leaving after I fix up the house.”
“You’re the one who kissed me.”
He was silent for a moment. “You looked like you needed it.”