Stupid Girl
Page 33
I shuddered, reminding myself that I wasn’t going to think about him. I vowed not even to say his name in my mind; it was too painful to hear it. I chewed on the toast, but it felt like sand in my mouth. “My locked door sure didn’t stop you from breaking in.”
“I was worried about you.”
“Nothing to worry about. Sometimes things don’t work out. Is what it is.” I brushed the crumbs off my white t-shirt and stood. “I’m going back out to help with the wall.”
Kerdik rubbed his hands over his face, exasperated with me even though the sun had barely risen. “You’re still technically injured. I don’t think manual labor is the right call.”
“Maybe not, but it’s my call. I want to help. There was a whole whorehouse operating right under my nose, but I didn’t know a thing about it because I was laying around the mansion like a lazy bum.”
“You’re not lazy, you’re injured!” As his tone rose, the servants scattered, fearful of his swinging rage. Two of the sisters who ran the kitchen, Faith and Mercy, whimpered, shoving each other to get out as quick as they could.
When it was just us on the tall stools at the stone island, I took my dish to the sink. I’d eaten half my breakfast, which felt like one brick too many sitting in my stomach. “Look, I need to keep myself busy, and I don’t want to drop the ball on the whole princess thing. Lane should come back to a peaceful region with a wall in place.”
Kerdik’s nostrils flared. “You’re shutting me out. I’m not the one who cheated on you.”
I flinched at mention of the crime I’d specifically told my Avalonian BFF not to mention ever again if he valued his testicles. “You’re not allowed to psychoanalyze me.”
Kerdik raised his eyebrow, pursing his lips. “Being a brat to me isn’t going to bring Bastien home.”
I washed my dish with jerky movements, fuming. “I don’t want him home. You seem to think I’m pining for the man who cheated on me in a whorehouse, who was so drunk, he couldn’t lift a helping hand when I was attacked right in front of him. I am not so desperate as to ache over someone like that.”
Kerdik stared at my black neck tattoo with unhampered attitude, as only the most intimate of friends could do. He’d laid in bed with me every night since Bastien had gone, so I think we’d achieved that level of closeness that kept me from shoving him when he spoke hard truth I didn’t want to hear. “Actually, that’s exactly what I think. I think you’re waiting for him to come back with some amazing excuse that would make all the wrongs right again between the two of you.” He shook his head. “It’s not going to happen. He did what men who are unhappy often do. It’s nothing more complicated than that.”
“Do you want to wear that breakfast?” I steamed, eyeing his scrambled eggs and berries. My mood had been fouler than my usual cheery, shrug-it-off disposition, but everyone seemed to be giving me a pass. Somehow this only made me more irritable. “I told you that I don’t need to hear his name, and there you go, just blurting it out like a foghorn. I know he’s gone. I sent him away myself. This is me, moving on.”
“You sleep fitfully now, when you do at all. You used to require eight hours a night, but you’re barely down for two at a time before you’re up and back at that wall. You’re shutting out the animals, so your magic’s not wearing down as much. You need them. They make you happy.” He popped a berry into his mouth. “You called out for Bastien in your sleep again last night when I came in to check on you.”
I inhaled sharply, my nostrils flaring at the verbal slap he would have been better off not mentioning at all. Instead of arguing, I scooped up a handful of his warm eggs and smeared them down his cheeks. I examined the sight that was Kerdik a mess, and looked with a satisfied sense of accomplishment at the beautiful picture. “Wow, I didn’t think I could smile, but that sure did it. Thanks for being a jerk just so I could make you wear your breakfast.”
Kerdik glowered at me, the stone floor beneath us rattling with his temper before he cooled down a few breaths later. “You’re welcome. If I didn’t mention you being a brat before, it goes double now. And you’re not actually smiling, you know, so it wasn’t even worth it.”
“Oh, it was worth it.”
“You haven’t smiled in a week. That’s not you. What’s the point of being near you if there’s no you left?” He said it as if he expected an answer.
“Then leave! I’m sure you could bunk up with the Untouchables, or go see Lane, who’s still not back. Maybe you could go for a walk in the woods where I buried Abraham Lincoln and Hamish. Everyone else makes good use of the front door. Knock yourself right friggin’ out, if this isn’t the place you want to be.”
“This isn’t you.” Kerdik squinted at me and tilted his head to the side, as if trying to size up something that was more complicated than a broken heart.
I pursed my lips, and then tried to calm down my frustration. Kerdik had actually stuck around, and I was lashing out at him for it. He was right; this wasn’t me. “You’re getting too I-know-everything about it all. He was my first love, K. It’s going to sting for a while.” I looked at the eggs I’d smeared on his cheek and winced. “Sorry about making you wear your breakfast.”
He used the water he produced from his elemental magic, and ran his hands down his face, washing off the egg residue. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. “I’m going out to the border. Send a magical bunny or singing telegram if you need me.”
His nose crinkled. “You’re a princess. You don’t need to be building walls with a bunch of sweaty men.”
I stretched out my back, which was sore from all the tossing and turning I’d done before Kerdik snuck in to cuddle me last night. “What I need is to work through some of this crap, and manual labor is a good way to do that. This is my province, so I should be out working in it. If hard labor is good enough for my subjects, then it’s good enough for me.”
Kerdik studied my face, and finally sighed. “Fine. If that’s what you need, go on and do what you have to. Take Draper with you, okay? And don’t work too hard. I mean it. Yesterday was too much, and you know it.”
“Sure.” Draper had been good about giving me my space after it all imploded. He was antsy without Lane around, so he stuck by my side that much more voraciously. Turns out, we both like to work when we’re stressed, so neither of us gave the other one too much grief about it. Dad was well enough to take on most of the royal responsibilities, which was a relief to us both.
Kerdik stood before me and cupped my face, trying to warm my cold places. He pulled back and squinted at me, frustrated with my resigned nature. “Where are you, darling?”
“I’ll be out on the border until Dad needs me to sit and hold court with him tonight.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I shrugged. “I know. I’m not really anywhere. I’ll figure it all out. First broken heart. Where’s the baby book, am I right? This one deserves a photo op.” I ducked away when he tried to kiss my cheek. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I saw the fresh wound there all the same. I shook my head, unable to look at him as I tapped my heart. “It’s not you. You’re perfect. Really, K. Better than I deserve right now. It’s me. If you kiss me, it’ll make me feel, and I don’t want to feel right now. I want to nothing myself into oblivion. I need to be perfectly and utterly nothing.”
Kerdik’s eyes lit with that fire I’d seen build a cave out of a field in a heartbeat. He jerked me to him in a possessive way I wasn’t altogether unfamiliar with, my breasts pushed against his firm chest. It rattled the feelings around inside of me, which was the exact opposite of the nothing I’d asked for.
His lips found mine so quickly, I scarcely knew what to do with myself. His hand pressed on the small of my back so that I was arched against him, my waist mashing to his hips in a way that was altogether carnal and probably not too ladylike. Confusion, indignation and a lust I didn’t mean to feel rose up in me as my lips started to revel in the dirty dance they’d b
een invited to. The kiss was passionate, but lasted only a few agonized seconds. I felt more in those few seconds than I’d allowed myself in an entire week. He ripped a gasp from my mouth, swallowing it and making it his own.
When I finally had the wherewithal to pull away, my shriek was embarrassed. “What the crap, K?”
Then, so fast I almost fell over, Kerdik whirled me around, pressed my back to his chest and snatched an apple off the counter. He held it out in front of me as an ominous belch built up in my belly. I panicked when I remembered the last time we’d kissed, and the blaze that erupted from that carefully contained mess. I tried to slap my hands over my mouth, but Kerdik pinned them both down with an arm around my waist to secure me to him. “Let it come,” he whispered, his lips tickling the shell of my ear.
The fire burst out of me much the same as it had before, aiming itself at the apple and toasting it as it lay in his palm. “I’m sorry!” I choked out when the fire died as quickly as it started. I was horrified that I’d hurt him.
“You can’t injure me with fire. I’m an elemental, remember?” He moved the apple closer so I could see the crisp outer layer that had browned on one side. He buried his face in my neck, placing a kiss to a spot that was too sensitive to let him near without a shiver running through me. “People who are nothing feel nothing. You are not nothing,” he reminded me, his fingers digging into my hip. “You are my fire.”
I finally turned around in his arms, his fervor breaking through what had been a week of trying to numb everything with work and avoidance. I didn’t like my bed without him in it. I didn’t like the mansion without him bumming around, either. There had been an ache in my chest since I’d sent his drunken butt off in a wagon with Link and Mad. With time, it seemed that hole only grew larger.
Kerdik held me, hoping I would break in his arms, but I maintained what little dignity I could scrape together, and remained in his embrace with a quiet demeanor. Finally, I leaned up on my toes and pecked his cheek. “I love you. No more kissing me, though. I’m already a mess. You shouldn’t hitch your wagon to a dead horse.”
He traced my lips like a man who knew exactly what to do with them. “I’ll not apologize for it.”
“How unlike you.” I managed a… not quite a smile, but a lighter expression nonetheless, and squeezed his side, even though he wasn’t ticklish. “See you tonight when you break into my room again.” I sniffed his collar, my eyebrows pushing together in faux concern. “Hm. You smell like scrambled eggs. Might want to wash that off of you.”
Kerdik was not amused at my joke, his eyes narrowing. “Leave the door unlocked tonight, or risk my displeasure.”
“Dum-da-dum!” I sang ominously, mocking his almighty temper as I left.
Continue the series with Broken Girl today!
Other books by Mary E. Twomey
The Saga of the Spheres
The Silence of Lir
Secrets
The Sword
Sacrifice
The Volumes of the Vemreaux
The Way
The Truth
The Lie
Jack and Yani Love Harry Potter
Undraland
Undraland
Nøkken
Fossegrim
Elvage
The Other Side
Undraland: Blood Novels
Lucy at Peace
Lucy at War
Lucy at Last
Linus at Large
Terraway
Taste
Tremble
Torture
Tempt
Treat
Temper
Tease
Trap
Faîte Falling
Ugly Girl
Lost Girl
Rich Girl
Stupid Girl
Broken Girl
Untouchable Girl
Stubborn Girl
Faîte Falling: Faîte Rising
Common Girl
Blind Girl
Savage Girl
Dangerous Girl
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Mary E. Twomey also writes contemporary romance under the name Tuesday Embers.
Visit her online at www.tuesdayembers.com.