CHAPTER TEN #2
The more my brain tried to make sense of what my life had become, the more I ached for my safe space. But where was that, anymore? The Library? My apartment?
The moon was high in the sky when I gave up on sleep. I tiptoed around Nya and the other women sleeping beside me. I couldn’t quite believe that my feet were carrying me back toward the ocean, but I let them.
When I reached the beach, I lowered myself to the ground in front of a dune. I ran my hands through the sand, letting it slip through my fingers. The sound of the waves breaking against the shore was rhythmic, soothing. It was hard to believe what all had transpired just a few short hours ago.
I closed my eyes. Focusing on that sound. Trying to clear my jumbled mind.
“There you are.”
My eyes flew open.
Kieran was standing in front of me. He had also changed into dry clothes, a black T-shirt and shorts.
“What is it?” I asked, starting to stand. I paused as he sat down beside me instead.
“Just making sure you’re not off trying to get yourself killed again,” he said, resting his forearms on his thighs. His tone had a slight lilt to it, as if he were trying to sound lighthearted but couldn’t summon the energy. “How are you doing?”
“I’m okay.”
It seemed like the right thing to say. I wasn’t sure if it was true.
I let my eyes travel then from the ocean, up to the stars, marveling once again at how different the view was outside of Cyllene. How could the same sky appear so changed just by me being in another location?
I remembered reading an old book years ago, from Pre-Awakening times, that explained the concept of light pollution. But that didn’t exist in a city with no electricity. When I looked at the sky Outside, I felt a sense of wonder, and a sense of…was it freedom?
It took a minute for me to realize that Kieran hadn’t responded.
I glanced over and found him staring intently at me.
As they so often did under the moon and stars, his eyes were shining silver.
Framed by his long, dark lashes, their glow felt timeless.
Ageless. Like the family he had inherited them from had lived long before humankind existed, and would live on long after we were gone.
“I’m glad you’re handling this okay,” he said finally. “Today was a lot. Even for us.”
We sat in companionable silence for a while, him gazing out to sea and me gazing at the stars. But as the silence dragged on, a knot began to form in the pit of my stomach. Before I could stop myself, I said, “Xiomara was really impressive today. During the battle. She’s so strong and agile.”
“She is,” he agreed.
The knot twisted, growing in size. That strange irritation that I sometimes felt toward Kieran resurfaced, with more intensity than usual. I wasn’t sure if it was the events of the day or something else, but I suddenly wished he would just go away.
“Maila,” he asked. He sounded like he was choosing his words carefully. “Have you ever been…intimate with someone?”
The knot clenched.
“That’s kind of a personal question.”
“So ‘no,’ then,” he said decidedly.
I opened my mouth, but he cut in, “Have you ever kissed someone?”
“I’ve had sex before, you asshole!” I spat at him, sounding much more defensive than I had intended.
Kieran’s eyes were truly sparkling now, and it wasn’t just from the reflected light from the moon and stars. He was enjoying watching me squirm, as usual.
“What does it matter to you?” I demanded.
The knot had expanded until it reached my chest, making it hard to breathe.
“Maybe I don’t have a harem like you do”—I remembered his reaction when Nya had said this and hoped it had the same effect now—“but some people only want to be intimate with someone when it means something. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. ”
It took an immense amount of willpower to look back up at the sky and not watch for his reaction.
“Interesting,” he said. I could still feel his stare fixed on my profile. “And what makes it ‘mean something?’”
I couldn’t help it. My eyes snapped back to his.
His smile was gone, but there was still amusement dancing in his eyes.
“What?” I asked, dumbfounded.
He stretched out his legs and shifted closer to me, turning away fully from the view of the ocean.
“Does it ‘mean something’ only if you care deeply about the person? Or is it enough just to enjoy yourself? Does it have to be someone who you’re having romantic encounters with on a regular basis?
Someone who’s chosen to take no other romantic partners? ”
“I don’t know.”
I really didn’t, I realized with dismay. I couldn’t say what my past experiences meant to me now that they were over, and those men were gone from my life.
“I think you do.”
My temper flared at the challenge. “Look, Kieran. Last night, I went outside the walls of Cyllene for the first time. I slept outside the walls. Today, I saw the most terrifying creature I have ever seen, almost drowned, and came face-to-face with a being the likes of which I wasn’t even sure existed.
Every single second I’m out here, I’m risking my life in more ways than one.
I could get back to Cyllene tomorrow night and have Enforcers waiting at my door, ready to put a bullet in my head for sneaking out of the city and helping the people who, in their minds, are a bunch of wild, lawless, deviant criminals. ”
Wow. The more I spelled it out, I really was fucked.
“There are so many things weighing on me, so many things I’m trying to think about, to understand, to get a handle on…I’m sorry if I don’t feel like explaining my romantic preferences right now.”
I forced myself to hold his silver gaze, refusing to look away this time.
Now both the smile and all traces of amusement were gone, replaced by something I didn’t recognize.
He sighed. “I know you’ve got more important things to worry about, Maila.
Believe me, I know. It’s just…you said there’s a lot you’re trying to understand.
” He paused for a moment, throat bobbing.
“I guess I’m just trying to understand you. ”
When I didn’t respond right away, he continued, “I know Nya has you convinced that I’ve fucked around a lot with women who don’t mean anything to me.
And I guess if your definition of ‘meaning something’ involves wanting a committed relationship or wanting to get married, then that’s true.
But all the women I’ve been with knew that and accepted it. ”
When I still didn’t respond, he exhaled in an exasperated way through his nose.
What the hell did he have to be exasperated about?
I almost asked him outright. But I said instead, “I don’t think Xiomara ‘accepted that.’ She seemed to really enjoy telling me about your time together.”
“And that bothered you?”
“What bothers me is why she felt the need to tell me at all. Why she keeps glaring at me and trying to make me feel like I’m an intruder.” Which in a sense, I was. I wasn’t one of them. But that was beside the point.
Kieran flexed his jaw. “You really don’t know why?”
The knot was no longer a knot. It was acid, and it was spreading through me. It boiled up in me, along with an avalanche of words that some sensible part of my brain was trying to keep at bay.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “Because you want to fuck me? Because you want to add ‘sheltered city girl from Cyllene’ to your list of conquests?”
The silver in Kieran’s eyes flashed, becoming an icy white. “Wrong.”
It should have been the right answer, but it was like a physical blow.
Was he lying to save face? Or in all the moments we had shared where it felt like there was this spark, was that only on my end? Was I fooling myself into thinking he even found me attractive to begin with?
The avalanche gave way then, and there was no clawing back the words as they spilled from me.
“You know what I don’t get then? Why you always mess with me.
One minute you’re nice to me, the next minute it’s like there’s some inside joke that I’m not in on.
I don’t know if I’m just a source of entertainment to you, or if you really were hoping I could be another one of your conquests and you’re just covering your ass now.
But I don’t think it’s funny. I don’t like being toyed with, and I don’t want to be just another woman you’ve slept with.
Honestly, I wish you would just leave me the fuck alone. ”
The only sound then was the lapping waves.
I kept my eyes trained on one random star, steeling myself against the lump in my throat. There was a shuffling sound next to me, and my heart sank. I waited to hear his footfalls receding in the sand.
“Maila.”
I turned. His face was inches from mine.
“Is that how you really feel? Everything you just said. Is that what you really think of me?” His expression was unreadable. Then just for a moment, so quick that I almost missed it, something like hurt flashed across his features. It was there and gone in an instant.
“I don’t know,” I said softly. Then, “No.”
The breeze ruffled Kieran’s hair and blew a few loose strands of my own across my cheek.
I couldn’t have said how or why, but there was a sudden weight to the space between us.
A charge to the air like just before a storm.
His eyes darkened, and the intensity in them made my body burn again.
But not from anger or the sunburn or even that sickly knot in my gut.
It was something uncomfortable and pleasurable all at once.
Time seemed to slow.
Kieran gently placed his fingers on my face, tilting my chin upward. And then everything around us—the lapping of the waves, the mild breeze, even the stunning night sky—seemed to cease to be, as he pressed his lips to mine.
His lips were warm and soft. He brushed his thumb across my cheek gently, as if testing my reaction.
I found myself extending my own hand, placing it on his arm.
I ran my fingertips along the curve of his bicep, then his shoulder over his shirt, traveling upwards.
My hand finally came to rest on the back of his neck, and when it did, he slipped his tongue into my mouth.
He tasted like the salt from the ocean, and like something unplaceable but distinctly him.
Somewhere in my mind, I questioned if I was kissing him the way he liked.
If he was feeling everything that I was feeling.
But my worries floated away as something stronger took their place.
Something that felt like the moment when Larimar had pulled me above the surface, and I took that first lungful of air that I had so desperately needed.
My hand still on Kieran’s neck, I brushed my fingertips up and down, feeling the warmth of his skin and then the softness of his hair. I lightly twisted a few strands around my fingers.
At the movement, Kieran shifted so that his body was against mine, making my mind turn hazy. With some effort, he extracted his lips from mine. But only to press them against my neck, trailing his tongue from my clavicle up to my jawline.
The sensation was overwhelming.
My head rolled against his, my lips grazing his cheek. Some part of me was vaguely aware that I was breathing hard in his ear. Kieran made a rumbling noise in his throat. Feeling encouraged by the sound, I pressed my lips to the spot just behind his ear.
He stilled. Then in one swift movement, he rolled and lowered us, so we were laying in the sand, his weight on me fully. “Maila,” he breathed, his fingers skimming the curve of my breast. It took me a second to realize he was asking for permission, practically vibrating with restraint.
“Yes,” I murmured, and no sooner were the words out of my mouth than he was cupping my breasts, feeling me with his hands and then with his mouth. There was something practiced and skilled in each movement, but also something messy and desperate and even a little greedy.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since you walked out in that fucking see-through nightgown,” he growled against my skin. Then, almost involuntarily, he ground his hips against mine.
In that moment, three things happened.
The first was that when his hips rolled into mine, I got physical confirmation that he was enjoying this as much as I was.
The second was that the friction of him against me, even with several layers of clothing between us, sent a spear of pleasure through me that had every nerve standing on end.
And then the third.
“Kieran.” His name escaped my lips before I could stop it. It was a moan, soft and low and a harbinger of what lay ahead of us. What I suddenly needed from him more than I needed air.
Abruptly, he sat up.
It happened so fast that it took me a second to open my eyes. I blinked at him as if waking from sleep.
His breaths were still coming hard and fast. His eyes were glazed but also looked strangely conflicted. They searched mine. For what, I wasn’t certain.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“No.” His voice was strained. “But I think this is a good place to stop.”
“To stop?” The words were a physical blow. “You want to stop?”
His jaw shifted, as though he were grinding his teeth.
“No,” he said. He attempted to adjust the fabric of his shorts where it strained, but there seemed to be no give.
He hissed as if in pain. “That’s the problem.
I don’t want to stop. And you deserve a hell of a lot better than getting fucked thirty feet from camp after almost dying. ”
I gaped at him. “And what exactly is the alternative? I mean, this is probably how it’s gone down with all the other women you’ve been with, right?”
“More or less.”
“But not with me?”
“Correct.”
Before I could respond, he stood and stalked away.
I stood, too, and watched him walk not toward where the others slept, but in the opposite direction. He cut across the mounds of sand toward the woods, away from the beach entirely. Still dazed, and now completely bewildered, I stared after him until he disappeared behind a cluster of dunes.
Everything that had faded away during the kiss now came back into focus. And the cool breeze carried away the remaining warmth that lingered on my body from his.