He let her go so abruptly she nearly staggered as he murmured, “I only want you safe, I want . . .”
Marian moved forward, curled her fingers around his arm, and leaned up to stop the torrent of promises and wants.
She had imagined trying to kiss Gisborne before—had dwelled on it in the late hours as she struggled to sleep. Had worried she could not do it, that her hatred would translate to a disgust so visceral that the touch of his lips on hers would be torture. Had argued with herself about whether she could do it, for the sake of Robin Hood, for the sake of winning Gisborne to her side, securing his trust. About whether her pride would let her capitulate to her enemy and give him what he wanted so that she could have her own victories, even if he’d never know they were hers. She’d wondered if it would be as strange as kissing Robin had been, the boy she’d known most of her life.
But now, in this moment—Marian kissed him because she couldn’t stop herself.
Her lips met his too strongly, the sudden need for him turning her clumsy. His own mouth was rigid with surprise, and after a second he leaned away, a hand coming up to grasp at her shoulder and hold her off. He drew breath to speak, and she knew he would ask her what she was doing, and she would not be able to answer, for she didn’t know herself.
He didn’t speak, despite his parted lips and drawn breath. His eyes were like coal, and as they met hers they sparked and caught fire, and the hand gripping her shoulder shifted. He held back a moment longer, eyes falling to her lips—and then he bent his head to kiss her.
His mouth met hers gently at first, but when she leaned close, when her lips parted, when he slipped an arm around her and felt her back arch, he abandoned gentility as utterly as the rest of the facade he’d worn for so many years. His fingers slid into her hair, cradling her head, and his kiss turned hungry. His other hand dropped to grasp her hip, pulling her into him. Marian’s hand moved across his chest, over his shoulder, down the arm that wielded his sword, the arm now holding her so possessively. Her touch was not gentle—her hold on him was as tight as his on her, and when her fingers curled, clawlike, to dig into his wrist, he groaned against her mouth, undone.
She might have gloried in her conquest, wondering at how utterly she could affect him—but Marian was gone, and in her place was someone entirely different. A winged being of flame and freedom, unmasked, untempered by expectation and inhibition—something wholly familiar, something she’d been hiding all her life.
In two stumbling steps they moved backward together until he could press her against the wall, his body lean and hard against hers. Her hips moved, tipping up like a beckoning finger, and when he felt her swell toward him he tore his mouth from hers and ducked his head—he kissed her throat, tasted the line of her jaw, breathed into her hair. His breath brushed her ear before he ducked down again, lips trailing across her skin until he could press them into the hollow of her shoulder.
Marian moved as he did, the movement of his body and hers a rising swell she did not try to resist. As he dropped his head, one of her hands came up to cup his cheek—the scarred skin was yielding and warm, indistinguishable from the rest of him but for a soft ridge only her fingertips could find. Gisborne shivered and leaned into her harder, momentarily robbing her of breath.
The hand at her hip dropped a fraction, and Marian’s body responded as if they had rehearsed the moment together. He pinned her against the wall and held her there, and she lifted her leg to curl around his. His hand cupped the back of her knee, and as his palm slid up the back of her thigh, she let out a sound.
It was her own raw, unfiltered voice that stopped her, a sudden and visceral reminder that she was not unfettered, that she was not free and unmasked and uninhibited—her voice, and the realization that Gisborne’s fingertips were about to graze the leather strip binding her dagger to her thigh.
Marian gasped again and grabbed for Gisborne’s wrist to stop