Chapter Thirteen
They were naked for days. They just never put clothes on.
There wasn’t a reason to. He ate with her naked, bathed with her, slept with her.
He had never experienced anything like this in his life.
He felt like a teenager. Hungry for her, desperate to have her body on his, to have himself inside her.
He was utterly and completely captivated by her. Everything that she was.
They were at the waterfall today, Birdie standing beneath the deluge, her nipples tight, her body lush and perfect. She was gaining weight, which he was grateful for. She had become quite thin, and he knew that it was his fault.
He knew that it was because of what a bastard he’d been. And he had been.
It had been a relief, in many ways, to let himself believe that she was duplicitous. Because it meant that nothing he felt was real.
It was cowardice, through and through. That was true.
And this was something else entirely. He was allowing himself to actually be on vacation.
Something he had never done before. He’d certainly never had a sex vacation, which was what this was.
There was no other purpose to it. No greater good.
Just him wanting her, needing her, having her.
She laughed, and extended her hand toward him, and he took it, letting her draw him beneath the spray, into her arms. He gripped her chin and kissed her. Deep and slow.
Then when they pulled away he marveled at her.
“What?” She had to shout because of the water.
He dragged her back behind the falls, into the small alcove there.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. Because sometimes he found himself without the words to express what was happening inside of him when he looked at her, so he told her that she was beautiful.
She always said thank you. She always told him that he was beautiful in return.
She didn’t this time. Instead, she cocked her head to the side. “And?”
He drew a blank. Not because there was nothing to say. Because there were too many things to say. What could he say about Birdie? This bewitching, maddening creature who had taken over his life?
Six months ago, he had been in an unhappy marriage.
Then he had become a widower. And then she had touched him.
Revived a need in him that he had forgotten.
And a fear. One that grabbed him low in the stomach and haunted him, made him feel like he was being chased by the very hounds of hell.
But that didn’t sound like a compliment, and maybe it wasn’t.
It was something more. Something deeper.
Nothing that he could shout over the din of a waterfall.
She shook her head, and turned away from him, heading back toward the waterfall, and he gripped her arm and brought her back up against his body, kissing her with everything he had inside of him. All the feelings he couldn’t form into words.
He held her against his body, swept the bottoms of her bikini aside and began to touch her, pushing two fingers inside of her as he kissed her.
She shivered in his arms.
He wanted her. Desperately. More than anything.
This was so foreign to him, and yet it was life as he knew it with Birdie. On this island. It had only been two weeks, and he had forgotten what it was to live in Basilia. To be the king. He had forgotten what it was to care about things other than his own need.
This had been a vacation. The first one he’d ever had.
He had lost himself. And he would have to find himself soon, but not now.
Not now.
He freed himself from his swim trunks, and lifted her up off the ground as he thrust inside of her. He took them both to the heights, standing like that behind the waterfall, nothing but his strength and his desperate need for her keeping them from falling.
Something inside of him burned. He wanted to make declarations. He didn’t know what they were. They were wordless, swelling sensations in the center of his chest, and he had no way to translate them.
So he didn’t. He simply felt. He simply claimed her. Over and over again until neither of them could breathe. Until their cries of pleasure reverberated off the walls in the cavern, overtaking the sound of the waterfall.
Then he gathered her to him, carried her back to the house, and up the stairs into the bedroom that they were both sharing now.
He tucked her against him, pushing her hair back off her face.
“You really are incredible,” she whispered.
“What did you like about me?”
The question sounded small. It sounded desperate, and he couldn’t say that he liked the sound of it on his lips, but he couldn’t hold back either.
“I like the orgasms,” she said, smiling up at him slyly.
“No. Not now. Before. You said you thought you loved me once.”
“Oh.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t know you. You were a symbol of something, I suppose. Someone who had power, but who treated people well. I felt like you would take care of me. I let myself spin fantasies around that, even though I knew that it would never happen.”
“You took care of everyone else. You just wanted someone to take care of you.”
She nodded slowly. “I suppose that’s it.”
“How do you do it?”
She wrinkled her nose. “How do I…?”
“You’re very brave, Birdie. Unlike anyone I’ve ever known. I’ve been appalling to you, and yet you treat me with kindness. You have stood your ground every step of the way, even though all the people in your life sought to lower you, you wouldn’t kneel.”
“I did plenty of kneeling while I scrubbed the floors, Your Highness.”
“I don’t mean that. Yes, you did scrub floors. Yes, you worked at the palace, you did work for your stepmother, but your spirit was never broken.”
Right then, he felt like a crack had opened up in his chest. He felt like perhaps something was broken in him, and he desperately needed to know what might fix it.
Desperately needed to understand what might heal it.
Put it back into place. Except he wasn’t sure when it broke, or what had caused it.
He didn’t know what the source of it was, or how to mend it. Didn’t even know how to describe it.
“Because I didn’t choose any of it,” she said.
“I remember having the thought very early on… You know, so many people turn to drugs or alcohol or other self-destructive behaviors to handle the kind of abuse that I went through. I don’t judge them.
I can’t judge anyone for how they cope with the sort of life I had to live.
And many people have been through much worse.
But I remember thinking that I wasn’t going to let my stepmother decide how happy I was going to be.
I wasn’t going to let her ruin my life. She already had too much.
I wasn’t going to give her everything. My mother wanted to see me happy.
I know she did. She told me, before she died.
” She looked up at him, her eyes glittering.
“I remember going into her hospital room, and it was so scary. There were wires and monitors everywhere. She was in the bed, she looked so not like herself. She was gray and so thin. And it terrified me. But she told me that she had everything she ever wanted in life, except for more time. She had a good life. Even if it was too short. That she loved me, and that she wanted me to be happy. More than anything. That she wanted me to smile, for all the smiles that she wouldn’t have.
To watch the sunset, for everyone she wouldn’t see.
To dance, because she couldn’t anymore. She didn’t want me to live for her, she made that very clear.
But she wanted me to live. To appreciate each and every moment, and I try to.
When I feel overwhelmed, I pull away from everything, and I just feel the breeze.
I feel my breath. I feel being alive. That’s how I do it.
It’s why I keep going. It’s why I breathe.
Now I get it. I’m having a child of my own, and I get it.
Because no matter what, I want this child to be happy.
To smile all the smiles that I missed, and to dance every time I couldn’t.
And now I want to be strong for that child.
Here. For as long as I can be. I want us to do better for our child than was done for us, and it isn’t that my father didn’t love me, but I do believe that he was irreparably damaged by the death of my mother. ” She paused.
“That’s another thing. My father let all that pain drive us apart.
But we are here. Alive. We could’ve been close.
But he threw himself into work. I never wanted more money.
I never wanted a bigger house. I wanted a hug from him.
I wanted more time with him. The greatest gift you can give your child is yourself.
Your attention. Your affection. That’s exactly what we should do for our child.
And it’s another reason to cling to that resilience that I found. ”
God, she was strong. Brave. She saw a world filled with miracles. Small moments. Deep breaths.
He saw a sword, hanging from a thread in the throne room. That at any moment it could fall.
That was how life felt to him. A series of cruel, unfortunate events waiting to befall anyone who had the temerity to care too much. Anytime he’d been tempted to believe in miracles, he’d been brought crashing back down to earth.
The line holding that sword aloft felt more tenuous than ever.
“Tomorrow we have to go back.”
She snuggled against him, burying her face in his chest. “We’re going to be together. It doesn’t have to change.”