It didn’t work. He didn’t disown you.”
His throat grew even tighter. “No.” He had tested Kairos, badly, and Kairos had proved to be the stronger man, the superior man as always. He had proved that Andres was weak. “No, he did not. Just another reason I am honor-bound to comply with him now. Why I must do this for him. I faltered. He did not.”
Suddenly, Zara sank beneath the surface of the water, submerging her head completely. When she rose again, she came up slowly out of the water, lifting her arms and sluicing the water droplets from her face, brushing her hair back. The action revealed her breasts. Plump, round, dark, rosy nipples that were more beautiful than he could ever have imagined. She settled again, hiding her body from his view. Then she began to move toward him.
Her dark eyes were locked with his, her expression questioning. She reached out, touching his cheek with her palm. She said nothing; she only leaned forward, pressing her lips firmly against his. When they parted, she was still looking at him. Looking far too deeply for his liking, as though she could see down deep inside him. Down to places not even he ever looked.
“Did it make you less lonely? Being with her?” she asked, her tone serious.
“No,” he said. “I felt nothing after being with her.”
“You said...it was about control, but... Is that another reason why you left me out there? Because you felt nothing after?”
How could he explain he left her for the opposite reason? That he left her because he felt too much. Because it felt as though she had reached into his chest and ground broken glass into his heart?
“No, that isn’t why,” he answered, his voice rough.
“I only ask a lot of questions because you make me.” She arched a dark eyebrow, letting her fingertips trail down the line of his jaw, down his neck, where she pressed her palm flat against his chest. “Just think how much faster all this would go if you were direct with me. That’s how we do things in the forest.”
“Do you also collect berries, live in burrows and bunk with squirrels?”
“Don’t be mean.” She leaned in and bit him on the chin. “I did not live with squirrels.”
He gripped her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “I feel quite a lot when I’m with you. I left because I lost control. That never should have happened. You were a virgin. You could not have known how far I was going to take it. It was wrong of me.”
“I knew. I’m not completely ignorant. That’s one thing about living in such close quarters with other people. You are forced to share some intimacies. You simply accept that certain things will happen around you and you are obliged to look the other way. As a result, I have been well exposed to certain facts of human life.”
“Being exposed to and experiencing are two different things.”
“Stop treating me like I’m a child. Or a creature. I am a woman. And though I have been able to make few decisions about my own life, I do know my mind.”
“I know that.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Do you feel guilty?”
“I just said that I did.”
“No, I mean about the engagement. Our marriage.”
“There is no other option. There is no point entertaining guilt over it.”
She moved her hand farther down his chest, her eyes never leaving his. “I have a feeling you don’t have any room inside you for more guilt.”
Cursed woman. Why did she have to see things so clearly? “Are you charging for this session?”
“What does that mean?”
“Like a therapist. They charge per hour to listen to you talk about your feelings.”
“That seems like a waste of money to me. You could go out into the woods and just scream until you feel better.”
He looked down at her bland expression. “Is that what you do?”
“I have.”
He cupped her face with his hands. “What makes you scream, Zara?”
“The first time I did it,” she said, looking down for a moment, “it was after my parents died. I ran into the woods. And I knew I was alone. Really, really alone. So it didn’t matter if I screamed. I had to behave myself at the palace. I had to be a princess. But out there, I didn’t have to be anything. Nothing but sad. Nothing but lonely. So I howled like a wolf. I don’t know for how long. No one heard me, or if they did no one came for me. When I went back...”
“Did you feel better?”
“Not really. But I could breathe.” She traced the path of a water droplet over his chest. “So whenever I had trouble breathing, that’s what I would do. I was alone a lot. I found ways to make it bearable. Ways that it was an advantage.”
He had a flash of his own life. His own behavior. Parties. Drunkenness. Sleeping around with any woman who happened to show interest. That was how he combatted the years of isolation as a child.
An isolation that had been an illusion. Locked in a bedroom, in a palace full of people, you could never scream.
So he had found new ways to learn to breathe.
“Perhaps you could take me to your mountain someday and show me,” he said.
“Are you lonely right now?” she asked.
“No,” he said, and he found that it was the truth.
“I’m not lonely either.” She pressed her mouth to his, light, tentative. “You can touch me now. I’m ready.”
He didn’t deserve such easy forgiveness, but he would be damned if he didn’t take it.
He did not need to be asked again. He claimed her mouth, his touch anything but tentative. She said she was ready. Giving him permission showed that she knew what she wanted. And he would take her at her word, because he had no other choice. He had to have her. Had to have this. To chase the full, aching feeling in his chest that was so different from the emptiness that normally lingered there. Yes, this hurt too, but it was a different pain. One that he relished, one that he embraced.
He wrapped his arms around her, her breasts pressed tightly against his chest, slick from the water. He held her tight, tilting her backward so that her hair was in the water again, making sure that he had rinsed all the shampoo away.
He brought her back up, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her eyes locked on his. There was something in them. Something luminous, filled with wonder. And he knew for a fact that he was undeserving of it.
But he would take it. And he would take her.
He claimed her lips again, delving deep, his tongue sliding against hers. He’d kissed so many women. More than he could count. More than he cared to count. But this was different. As though it were something entirely new. She was not simply another woman; she was Zara. She was wild, spicy,
