Chapter 31 #2
His eyes widened ever so slightly, and she held her hand out, shaking her head.
“Don’t mistake me, I’m not still in love with him.
I don’t want him, or anything like that.
But no matter how happy I am for him and how much I see Marcella is the right woman for him that I never could be, now I’m standing off to the side, and I’m cheering, but there’s still this little needle in my heart I can’t dislodge. ”
Why did she need Nikias to know she wasn’t in love with Gavril even a little?
He was staring at his hands, his expression imperceptible. What awful things was he thinking now?
Maybe now he wouldn’t think she was worth all this effort.
“I don’t know. I’m not making any sense. I want them to be happy. I just…” Her hand fell to her lap, the sound echoing in the air. Then, in the quiet followed her voice, as small and desolate as she felt in that moment. “I want to be happy too.”
“I… I think I know what you’re talking about.” Nikias looked up. “I think you’re making perfect sense.”
Aimilia could only stare at him for a moment. Then she laughed. “Can you explain it to me then?”
Nikias’ lips parted slightly before he took a deep breath.
“Even when you’re no longer in love with someone and you’ve let them go, letting go of the future you once believed you would have with them is harder to release.
You have to mourn them separately. Especially…
” His gaze fell again, this time to his chest before he shifted in his seat and stared at the scars on his left wrist, all that was left of his first marriage.
He took a deep breath and looked back out at the sunset.
“When you loved someone with everything in you, and they couldn’t return it. ”
Was this really the same man who mourned his wife so deeply he was willing to wade through an ocean of blood to get revenge?
Nikias didn’t know how not to be in love with Faustina. How could he be so insightful about something he could never do?
But instead of scoffing, Aimilia pressed her hand to her heart. “I was painfully transparent. That’s the last time I ever wear my heart on my sleeve.”
Nikias looked at her again, and this time his hand came to rest on her knee. Her breath caught in her throat at the warm weight. “Has he ever apologized for his part of this?”
Aimilia couldn’t take her eyes off the back of his hand as she breathed out, “I… Sort of… I don’t really recall what all he was apologizing for.”
She couldn’t even recall what she should be saying, his skin against hers was all her mind could focus on. His hand was calloused like all Runai’s were from years of casting, and it seemed to curl just right around her leg. Her heartbeat sped up faster and faster the longer she spent looking at it.
His thumb shifted back and forth across her skin.
She wanted to lean into it. She wanted to get rid of the small amount of distance between them.
She wanted him to use that hand to pull her into him and to flatten it against her back as he held her so tightly there was nowhere left of her that wasn’t enveloped by him. She wanted—
Aimilia jerked to her feet, dislodging his hand as she stumbled with her back to the tree as she said, “It’s all in the past anyway. I just need to get over myself.”
She needed to clear her head. None of these feelings made any sense.
She was sad and lonely, and Nikias always seemed to show up when she was sad and lonely and she was conflating her desire to have someone as being the same as wanting to have him.
Nikias rose to his feet, a familiar tone coming over his voice, but Aimilia couldn’t place it. “You don’t owe him any excuses.”
Aimilia took another step back. “And I’m not his mess you have to clean up. You—”
But then Aimilia’s foot snagged on a root, and faster than she could blink, Nikias had one arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against him as he gripped a tree branch above them to steady them.
She looked up into his eyes as his voice lowered. “Believe me, the last thing I want to be doing right now is talking about my brother.”
His eyes darted to her lips before landing on her eyes again.
Aimilia’s hands had instinctively grabbed his shoulders and she tightened her grip. Her voice came out far too breathy as she said, “You cannot be serious.”
“Hmm, serious about what?” Nikias’ head tilted slightly, fingers curling into her side.
She waited for it to catch up to her. Soon enough all her heart’s fluttering would vanish as the reality of being in Nikias’ arms set in. Her desire would vanish, and she’d be cured of ever having another dream where he held her like she was his.
“You’re still determined to marry me. If I’d known coming out here the other night would only have renewed your insane pursuit, I wouldn’t have.
” Except as the words came from her lips, she wasn’t convinced they were true.
If so, she wouldn’t have brought up the fact that he’d taken that beating for her.
“I didn’t say all of that to encourage you. ”
Then why had she said it?
“Oh, I know that. You said it because you believed it.” His breath brushed her cheek as he held her against him. “You’re not a mess I have to clean up. That wasn’t what I meant when I proposed. I came out here tonight for the same reason you came out here last week.”
“No. You came out here because you’re trying to…” Aimilia couldn’t think straight with his heart beating against hers. “You’re trying to seduce me into marrying you.”
Nikias’ laugh vibrated against her chest as he shifted them back, her back brushing the bark of the tree as a rush of heat flooded her whole body. “You think I’m seducing you?”
“Don’t play dumb.” She pressed her palms against his shoulders, but without enough force to actually move him. “You know exactly what you’re doing with all this. All the little touches and heated looks and appearing everywhere.”
He was doing this on purpose. The only problem was how well it was working.
It shouldn’t be working.
His grin didn’t fade. “So what I’m hearing is you’re admitting I’ve been taking up your thoughts as of late?”
Her knees nearly buckled, and she only kept herself upright by gripping his cloak. If he’d wanted this to work, why hadn’t he just started with that smile?
Her stomach kept flipping and she was certain her cheeks had to be as red as her hair. “Don’t avoid my accusation.”
“Oh, I’m not. If I was seducing you, do you think I would have waited this long to kiss you?”
“You haven’t—”
His lips on hers cut off the rest of her sentence.
Aimilia couldn’t believe what was happening. His other hand came down to cradle her jaw, and her eyes fluttered shut.
She couldn’t believe she wasn’t pushing him away.
She couldn’t believe she was kissing him back.
Aimilia leaned into him, and he grinned against her lips briefly before he kissed her again and again. It wasn’t rushed or frantic, but Aimilia’s mind was spinning even with every slow, gentle move of Nikias’.
Her hands uncurled from his cloak and flattened against his shoulders as he tilted her head up to meet him better. She wanted to meet him better.
This was wrong.
Wrong only in the fact that it didn’t feel wrong at all.
Like the night she’d held him to her, he held her just as closely now, and what should have been an unnatural experience was anything but.
It was Nikias.
And somehow that hadn’t mattered to her that night and it didn’t matter to her now. Right now Nikias was all that she wanted. His hand on her waist and the other sinking into her hair and messing up her braid was all that mattered. His lips on hers, gentle and purposeful, were all that mattered.
She never wanted it to end.
She wanted Nikias.
He pulled away, thumb sweeping over her cheekbone as he opened his eyes and looked down at her. “You were saying something, Commander?”
Aimilia’s chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath, leaning against the tree, Nikias still not even a step away from her. “I’m not—I’m not marrying you.”
“Good thing my plan isn’t to try to seduce you into marrying me then.” Nikias’ hand still rested on her waist. With the other he reached up and found a strand of hair that had fallen out of her braid.
“Then—why?”
He moved back in, tucking the strand behind her ear as he said, “Because you don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that, and this was the first time I was certain you wanted me to.”
Aimilia couldn’t deny she’d kissed him back. Even though she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around why.
The question almost left her lips, “How long?”
But she’d already flung open too many doors she could never close now. She didn’t want to know. She couldn’t afford to know.
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
Nikias sighed. “Of course you don’t. You want to be needed. You don’t know how to be wanted.”
Aimilia’s heart jolted in her chest. “You don’t want me. You want a wife.”
“Should I kiss you again and see if this time the point sticks?” Nikias braced a hand on the tree behind her. “If I wanted just any wife, then I would have been married by now.”
He would. He absolutely would.
Worse. He’d rather be beaten than even think of marrying anyone but her.
“Nikias…”
“No, you just can’t see yourself clearly yet. You want someone who needs you. You always have. But I don’t need you.” His other hand settled on her shoulder. “You were always so in love with and fiercely loyal to Gavril because he needed you. But he didn’t want you.”
As much as Aimilia had tried to heal that wound, Nikias’ simple words were tearing it open again. Her throat closed and she squeezed her eyes shut. “Reminding me isn’t helping your case.”
“Look at me.” His hands came up and cradled her cheeks, and she did so.
His green eyes burned as his commanding voice gripped her racing heart.
“I want you. I want all of you. That’s the difference.
I kissed you because I wanted to. Not because I thought it would convince you.
Aimilia, I am going to make you see what it’s like to be wanted. ”
Then he pulled his hands away and began to back away, leaving her leaning against the tree. She called after him, “That doesn’t mean I’m going to marry you!”
Nikias grinned. “I can’t wait for the day you do.”
She’d kissed him back.
Aimilia looked up at the branches as the breeze rustled them in the early night.
Why had she kissed him back?