breaking into a trot. Annika keeps pace with me but doesn’t say another word.
I look over at her. She’s pulled her hair back into a messy bun and there are two blotches of color on her cheeks. Her bare-faced beauty is especially stunning against the ruggedness of the landscape.
We turn down a wide dusty path that cuts through the greenery. I know that I shouldn’t even be thinking about her in this way. But I can’t help it.
What I can help is how I act.
I clear my throat, slowing my horse to a walk again. “Do we need to talk about the other day?”
A hint of a smile ghosts over her lips. “What is there to talk about? You’ve made your level of interest quite clear.”
I grit my teeth, adjusting in the saddle. “I told you. It’s not personal. I’m… I… find you… pretty.” My neck heats. “But there are reasons why we shouldn’t… be close.”
She tosses her head. “Stellan isn’t a good enough reason. He’s defying the rules to marry Margot.”
“He’s my best fucking friend!” I bark.
Nika looks at me, pausing. I’m pinned by her ice blue stare, so intense just now that it’s almost electric. Then she returns her gaze back to the path in front of us.
“I appreciate your loyalty to Stellan,” she says softly. “But does he even notice? From what I can see, you follow him around and he just expects you to do his bidding.”
I glower at the reins clutched in my hands. “I can’t help it if you don’t like my friendship with Stellan. Like it or not, he is the king. So, what he says goes.”
She arches a brow. “And he said that I’m off limits?” She slides me a sour look. “I bet you haven’t even tried to discuss it with him.”
I shoot her my blackest of looks. Nika is perfectly right in that regard, of course. But that’s not entirely the point.
I roll my shoulders back. “Even if Stellan was okay with it, which he is very much not, other people wouldn’t smile upon it.”
She cocks her head at me. “Why do you care so much what other people think?” she asks, frustrated.
I squint at her. “Why do you?”
She flushes. “I don’t.”
“You do. You care very much about how everyone perceives you. Don’t try to hide it from me.”
“Ugh!” she declares. She urges her horse forward all the sudden, quickly shooting out and leaving me to try to catch up.
I spur my horse onward, knowing that I messed up. The plan was to come out of this on better terms than before but now I’m worried about Nika even talking to me.
“Nika!” I call. I nudge my horse more urgently, until I’m riding hard. We thunder down the little path, the dusty road disappearing beneath the horse’s hooves.
I close the distance eventually. “Annika!” I try again when I know she can hear me.
She throws a look over her shoulder, slowing down once more. Lifting her chin, she says, “It’s always Annika when you’re angry with me. But this time, I haven’t done anything wrong.”
I school my expression. “No. You haven’t.”
Nika makes a face. “What if we just… did what we wanted to do and kept it hush hush?”
My neck heats. I’ve thought about this very subject at great length for the last few nights. I look down, toying with the reins.
“That wouldn’t be fair. One of us might… develop feelings. Only to have them dashed the very first time that we had to attend a function with a date.”
She tilts her head, her eyes narrowing. “You’re expecting me to be the one with feelings, then?”
I glance away with a shrug. “I didn’t say that.”
Her lips twist and she rolls her eyes. “You thought it, though.”
I give her a small smile. “Not even once.”
She eyes me with a sigh. “So, what do you propose? Hm?”
I lift my shoulders. “It’s just a summer. Surely, we can both just… resist. It’ll just call for a little willpower.”
Nika looks at me very frankly. “I’m a virgin, Erik. No one has ever accused me of not being able to keep my hormones under control. I just… I’m ready to lose it. How will you feel if I give my virginity away to some other guy?”
I grip my reins tightly and try not to scowl. Of course I want to be the one she chooses. If I had my way, we would stop right now and fuck right here, in the middle of the goddamned road.
But