Chapter Fifteen
THEY MANAGED TO mostly avoid each other in the lead-up to the wedding. It was for the best.
Andrei found that the ache he felt for Emerald never fully went away. He would learn to live with it. To make the pain part of breathing. The ache a part of himself.
They had made their decisions, and they were the right ones.
There was difficulty between himself and Onyx, and that was all the challenging emotion he could handle right now.
The truth was, he had to figure out how to be a father, when the one thing he knew was that he couldn’t be his own. His own feelings for his father were so complicated, so tinged by trauma and loss, by who his father was, that it was difficult for him to figure out exactly what that meant.
If he hated his father it would be so much easier.
He was trying to find his way to that.
The door opened behind him, and he turned. Emerald was standing there, looking at him, her expression tentative. “Can I come in?”
“Of course. This is your room as much as it is mine.”
Except they were like that. They didn’t have that intimacy.
“It can’t be like this for our entire marriage,” she said.
“What exactly do you mean?”
“You know that it can’t be. We aren’t going to be able to resist each other. Not for the rest of our lives. It simply… It’s going to end up making more problems than solutions. That’s all.”
“Emerald, this is dangerous.” Everything in him was shouting to run away. After what had happened between them the last time they were together, the monster that had been awakened inside him…
“No,” she said. “What’s dangerous is us denying ourselves. Look where it got us. It almost started a war, and it certainly started one between the two of us. But we’ve…we’ve created a friendship since then. We need to trust ourselves.”
Her hands were shaking, her eyes hopeful. If he denied her now, he would hurt her.
And the truth was, he didn’t want to deny her.
He burned for her. His entire body shook with the need to touch her, hold her, take her, whenever she was near, and yet he knew he couldn’t risk it.
This was a war he’d wage all his life, but the resistance of it would be the proof that he could be better.
Stronger.
“I can’t see a future where neither of us ever wants a lover,” she said.
Never.
There would never be anyone but her.
“And we may want more children,” she said. “Besides, as unhealthy as your parents were, won’t we be just as dysfunctional? Denying what we want and…”
His strength ran out. Was there another way? His mind and body were working as quickly as possible to try and make a new bargain. To try and find a new way to be.
A way that would allow something. Just a touch, perhaps. A taste.
He wouldn’t lose himself.
He reached out, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger, holding her steady as he leaned in to kiss her.
Different than any other kiss they’d ever shared.
It was slow. Methodical. There was no desperation.
It wasn’t like they were trying to outrun a clock.
It wasn’t because he was trying to punish her.
It was just a kiss. And there was something beautiful about that. It was a kiss, because they both wanted it. And who knew what it would mean later. It felt good now.
Emerald, and Andrei.
There was no Basilia. There was no Alabria. There was only this.
He picked her up and laid her down on the bed, glorying in the need that was building inside him.
This felt different from what had happened before.
Where the first time had been glorious and painful, aching because it was going to be all they had, and that night at the castle had been her punishment. This was an attempt to rebuild. Not tear down.
This was who they might have been if they’d been free from the beginning to choose who they wanted to be.
He kissed her. This wasn’t hurried. It was a slow exploration. His lips over hers, his tongue thrusting deep, sliding against hers, a leisurely tasting.
His heart was beating fast, and he reached down between her legs and pushed his fingers beneath her underwear, feeling how slick she was between her thighs. Oh she wanted him.
He wanted her more than he could possibly say. More than sanity. More than keeping his word. He wanted to go faster, and he wanted to linger in this moment forever.
She pulled at his shirt, and he let her draw it up over his head. Then he reached around and unzipped her dress, tugging it down, exposing her body. She wasn’t wearing a bra, only a pair of very brief underwear, and he dispensed of those two quickly.
Still, he just held his body against hers, kissing her. Indulging himself.
She moved her hands over his shoulders, his muscles, helped him take off his pants, everything else. She explored him, kissing her way over the acres of muscle, all of his skin.
And he returned the favor.
Committed the taste of her, the shape of her, to memory.
What if they could have this?
He was on fire with that realization that they could. They had already abandoned everything. They had already burned it all to the ground. They’d rebuilt into this, so why not have this? Why not have each other?
Why not try?
Maybe they didn’t know how. But they could learn. They could learn, and then they could always, always have this.
She gasped as he kissed her neck, moved down to her breasts, down her stomach, between her thighs, where he feasted on her. She was the most glorious dessert he’d ever had. All slick and sweet like honey. He wanted to gorge himself on her forever.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her up into a sitting position, her knees on either side of him.
She lowered herself down onto his stiff, aching staff, taking him in slowly, inch by excruciating inch.
She gripped the back of the headboard, their eyes locked on one another’s. As she rode them both toward oblivion.
She flexed her hips back and forth, then rose up slightly, the feel of her tight wet body around him almost sending him over the edge into oblivion.
She established a rhythm that carried them both over the edge, and when he tightened his hold on her hips, and thrust up inside her, shouting her name…
She was his.
His.
No. He couldn’t throw himself into this. He couldn’t lose himself.
He couldn’t.
He wouldn’t deny them this. Wouldn’t deny their desire for one another, but it would never be more than that.
It was a good thing.
Because he would never be a father like his own. A father who chose to hurt his son in service to power. A father who would choose wealth above all else, including the safety of his family.
It could never only be the two of them. It would always be the weight of her crown—a weight she had chosen. And the weight of his past.
No amount of desire could overcome it.
He had surrendered to her here. Solidified his own weakness.
He pushed her away from him, his blood raging. “This cannot happen.”
“Andrei…we can’t…”
There was something wild inside him, a need to push her away he couldn’t articulate or fully understand. He wanted her gone, away from him. He didn’t want her testing him, he didn’t want to face his own weakness.
His own vulnerability.
“This is nothing but part of a plan for you,” he growled, the lie on his tongue tasting like acid. “Carefully plotted to make your legacy, your life, look better. Get out.”
She stumbled off the bed, naked, beautiful.
Wounded.
She was the promise of something he wanted. Something he’d always desperately wanted.
But it would never be his.
“We will marry tomorrow,” he said, his grip on his control slipping. “And we will kiss at the altar. But I will not touch you again.”