“I can…see that,” Bryony gasped, feeling her heart flutter. It annoyed her, and yet why shouldn’t she say goodbye properly? It’s not like she was going to find her father today. And it wasn’t like one more romp under the bedsheets with a man whose chest might’ve been carved from stone was going to make her stay in Marchessault. “This changes nothing,” she said as he released his hold and spun her around. She leapt into his arms, fingers already making short work of his shirt while he shucked hers off like it was a sack.

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of trying to talk a mule into changing its course,” he said, lips returning to her throat, tasting her, devouring her. His long, dark locks brushed against her skin.

“Did you just call me an ass?” she said, breathing growing heavier as he backed her up against the wall, which shivered from the impact. Not that anyone on the lower levels would notice. It was one of the benefits of his current living conditions: their nightly activities fit right in, except no coin exchanged hands at the end of each session.

“No, I merely compared your temperament to one,” Farrow said. His lips had moved lower now, and Bryony had to bite her lip to stop from crying out.

“Fair,” she said. “I can be rather…stubborn, can’t I?”

“From your lips to the gods’ ears.” Farrow reared back up to find said lips with his mouth, and for the next short while they simply existed for each other. There was a small scar at the edge of one of his eyes, and her finger found it, tracing its line. She’d wondered about this scar every day since she’d met him. How had he gotten it? And why?

“Ask me,” he said. “I won’t hold anything back from you.” His chestnut eyes were fixed on her, as serious as she’d ever seen them.

His previous words echoed in her mind: We’ve spent countless hours together and I still know so little about you. Your past.

If Bryony had been another woman with another past, maybe she could’ve stayed. Maybe she could’ve been happy with this man, in this strange, strange life they’d chosen for themselves. Maybe she could’ve shared the secrets, as shrouded in shadows as they were, from her own past with him. But she wasn’t and she couldn’t.

Not when her father was still out there somewhere.

“Less talk, more action,” she said, dropping to her feet. One made a thudding sound while the other rattled in her boot, a reminder that she would never be whole again. She shoved him back toward the bed, following after. Kissed him harder. If her lips never left his, then neither of them could ruin this moment with careless words and impossible promises.