Chapter 14 #2
“And you're not a pile of shit!” I must look crazy, responding to things he didn’t say, fighting not to cry over nothing.
He looked so confused, and still I kept going, kept convincing him I was nuts.
“A night with me can’t be so bad that you’d face having something burned into your flesh.
You can’t loathe me that much. You liked me before.
” I had to speak calmly, had to look put together, not like this. “At…at the pool—"
Images assaulted my mind from his, my skin flushed and chest heaving, my face close to his. And he looked away, hands clenched at his side. “I have never loathed you,” he said, like it hurt. “But I can’t…I can’t hurt you again, Rowena.” There was a comfort in hearing him say my name.
I drew breath. “What if you’re not hurting me? What if…what if I want you to?” I stepped closer.
“Rowena, don’t—"
“Do you want me?” I listened, waiting for his thoughts, his mind a pulsing answer against mine, a wave of self-loathing and desire as he pressed his mouth shut.
“You do want me,” I said. I wouldn't let myself think about this. I pulled off the dress, yanked it off over my head, and stood, like an idiot, holding it in front of me.
“Rowena…”
I threw it onto the bed.
“Rowena, you don’t—"
I grabbed my shift to pull it off, and he caught my hands. We were standing so close, his breath on my hair.
“Rowena,” he said. “Please. Don’t.” The words were pain, squeezing at my throat. “This was my mistake. Let me handle the consequences.”
I stared up into those amber eyes, my face, so small, reflected in his. “Khal,” I whispered. “Am I ever going to be more than a mistake to you?”
He tried to step back, away from me, seemed to remember that he had my hands trapped in his, the fabric of my shift clenched in my fists. This is madness, his voice echoed. “It’s not like that.”
“Could we forget?” Tears were flowing down my face, onto my hands stupidly clenched around the slip, his strong hands that captured mine. “You said once that the first night was bad but we’d get better, that we could…we could practice…”
“Rowena.” His eyes grimaced closed, and I saw myself, in that room again, silhouetted in the moonlight on that bed, my eyes vacant. My blood on his length, the blanket.
“We’re trapped there, aren’t we?” I whispered. “I’ll never be the girl you share your bedroll with again, or the one you want to kiss in the stones, because I make you think about that. If I had just…if I hadn’t told you…”
“No. No.” His grip on my hands tightened.
“You should never have had to endure this alone. You were never supposed to carry any of this. It’s my place, to grieve with you.
A real sorrow is better than a happiness that’s a lie.
” That seemed so obviously untrue. He was still speaking.
“...I don’t want to be a child you pacify with fantasies. ”
“And I don’t want to be your horror.” I tried to steady myself, just to not cry. “You used to think that you could learn to love me. You used to think we could suit each other—"
“I didn’t stop loving you.” And now his voice was the one that rose. “Not for a day. Not for a moment.” His eyes were fierce, anguished, haunted. “And I know it, because it’s tearing me apart.”
His hands, so warm on mine, gripped harder again.
“I can’t remedy this. I can’t fix that the first thing I ever did was hurt you.
All I can do, over and over, is try to make sure you’re not hurt again.
That you’re not trapped again. That you have a chance to get away from this.
You’re the one person I want to hold onto, and I spend all my time preparing to let you go.
” He let out a ragged gasp. “It’s a horrible penance, and I can’t ask for more.
I can’t ask you to stay. I can’t ask for the touch of your hand, or the warmth of your arms. I can’t put the slightest pressure on you to forgive what shouldn’t be forgivable, to betray yourself with… ” His lips sealed.
“Khal?” I said. “Let go of my hands.” He let go.
I reached up to touch his jaw, and he didn’t pull away.
“I don’t want your penance,” I said. “I want the man who married me.” I touched his face, and his eyes closed, and when they reopened they were still wary.
“Can we start over?” I whispered. “Please. Can we just try again?”
“But this shouldn’t happen to you, Rowena. You shouldn’t feel like you have to seduce me to be safe, just because of my vile cousin,” he said the word like a curse. “I should not be benefiting from his conniving.”
“I want you.”
His eyes closed, his breath trembling on those lips. His skin was so olive, but there was still that blush of bronze. “Don’t lie to me, Rowena. Don’t…don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying. I want…” my voice caught in my throat. “I want this. I want you.”
“You’re trying to make me feel better, and you can’t. I’m not going to let you…convince me to hurt you again. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.” There was so much pain in his voice, in the tension of his brow. I ran my fingers across it, his skin that was almost too soft.
“...then let me lead.” I rose up on my toes, and I kissed him.
He stiffened as my lips took his, tension still in his shoulders, his chest. I cradled his face to me, ran my fingers through his hair that I finally could touch.
His mouth moved in response to mine, halting, almost unwilling, regardless of the war in his head.
I moved closer, let my shoulders touch his.
“You don’t have to do this,” he murmured, his lips barely moving under mine.
“I know,” I swallowed. “I know you’d lie for me.” Our foreheads brushed each other.
“Then why, Rue?” His eyes opened, my heart tightening in my chest at the shock of them, amber and gold, oak and sun.
“Can’t I just want you?” I whispered. “So much has been stolen from us. But I want…”
Did he not want this? But no, every line of him, every tension, his throat moving as he swallowed…
, his thoughts against mine, trying to read me, my eyes, the color in my face, my own breath that hitched as I touched him.
If she’s a liar, she’s a wretchedly good one.
I saw my lips curve through his eyes, as he said that.
If she wants…if it’s animal, if she does want…
His focus shifted to my shift, to the fabric that was the last thing between us, back to my lips. He wanted me too. He wanted me too.
If only he could see inside my mind, too. If only I could lay my heart bare. If only power ran through both of us. “How can I show you?” I whispered.
His lips moved, but nothing came, his thoughts chaos, formless.
“Can we sit?”
A riot of images flashed through his mind, the knowledge that this put us into compromise, that he was harder to touch when I was on my toes.
But he lowered himself onto the mattress, and he’d been right; it was easier to kiss him here.
I knelt next to him on the mattress, and I took his face and brought my mouth to his again, soft.
Because this was Khal, Khal who’d been so gentle and attentive every time I was hurt, Khal who was ready to stand up to his parents to make sure no one pressed me about him.
Khal who’d said no by the pool, because he’d realized, already, that I wasn’t ready to say no to him, who would stand up for me when I couldn’t.
This was the person I was safest with in the whole brutal, terrifying world.
“I thought maybe,” I murmured against his mouth, “that you would know I loved you, when I kissed you after you fought for me in the ring.”
He bowed his forehead to mine, inhaled. “I wasn’t sure if I’d dreamed that,” he admitted. “I was…very out of it.” The magic, so strong and clear here, gave me a clear impression of some other things he had dreamed about, things with a lot less distance between us than this chaste kiss.
I laughed, not because anything was funny, just because it felt like a release. “Can we give you something else to dream about?”
He closed his eyes again. He was doing that a lot, steadying himself. His thoughts against mine were a litany of control, punctuated with riot. “I need to make sure you’re okay.”
I moved closer, my body grazing his. “Then if you hurt me I’ll say ‘ow.’ That’s enough, right?”
He looked at me.
“Khal?” I said, my bravado half-false. “Will you kiss me?”
I felt the heartbeat as he tried to remember words, Orcish, Ka Morth, any of it. “I…alright. We can…kiss.”
I leaned in, and had to grab his shoulders for balance, and his hands caught my hips.
His breath caught. His pupils were so wide.
“I think I’m safe with you.” His nose was so strong, so sculpted and rough and perfect.
I wanted to kiss the bridge of his nose.
I wanted to love every part of him. I wanted him to know how good every piece of him was. I wanted…
“May I?” I whispered.
He blinked, nodded.
I didn’t know what I was doing. It was silly.
I was silly. But I started kissing him, his eyebrow, his temple, the crest of his nose, watching the heat spread across his skin, the way his breathing changed.
His thoughts were almost quiet, like all the world, the way he talked to himself, narrowed to the softness of my lips on his skin, and then…
and then heat was spreading across my skin, as his awareness came across the bond, his warrior’s focus magnifying each place my body brushed against his, the control in his stillness.
I brushed a halting kiss against the corner of his perfect mouth, and he turned his head, and he took me.
His hands on my back were pulling me to him, even as I pulled him to me, my hands in his hair, his mouth hard and soft against mine, the taste of him like rain and iron.
He dragged me in, and I tumbled into his arms, across his lap with a yipe.
He gasped. “Are you alright? We can—"