"Why?"
"Because words are not supposed to sound that beautiful."
"I think that's exactly what words are supposed to do," he countered.
She sat her chin on his chest and gazed up at him. "What does it say?"
"Flowers beneath our feet. A wind on the sea. You are the night. And I am the trees," he breathed.
The words, as vague as they were, brought a smile to her lips. "Do you know what I think, Commander?" she asked.
He huffed under his breath. "What's that, Princess?"
"I think you bring this book with you just to make women swoon," she replied. "How many others have you cuddled with and spoke such words to?"
He hung his head, laughing quietly. "Actually, only you."
"Lies,” she accused playfully.
"Truth," he argued. "I'm an honest being. You'll find few lies from me."
"Says the one born of the Honest," she mocked. "Are all of you so truthful as you say?"
Nadir chuckled. "Not at all. I'm impressed you actually believe me when I say it."
"I still don't understand why Lovi chose to call you all the Honest.”
"He thought the word represented the purity and innocence he thought necessary for an immortal life."
Nyssa sat up on her forearm, face scrunched in bewilderment. "That ship has clearly sailed.”
He feigned hurt, laying the book over his chest as though covering up a wound. "What do you mean? I'm the epitome of those words."
"You are the furthest thing from innocent I have ever met," she countered.
A slow grin spread on his lips, and he grasped her bottom in his hand. His nose brushed hers as he grinned against her lips. “Says the Promised Princess who has every person in this kingdom fooled into thinkingsheis the epitome of those words."
She almost laughed but instead shrugged her shoulders. "It's a gift."—
—The feeling of Nadir’s hand tightening around hers again brought her back to reality. She blinked, sunlight swallowing her eyes as she met his gaze.
"It's still happening?" he asked softly.
She nodded, sucking in a jagged breath. "A little more wanted now than before."
The slight smile he gave her made her heartbeat quicken. “I should have danced with you that night,” he whispered.
Her lips quirked as the fantasy of what that would have been like filled her mind. “Flowers beneath our feet,” she whispered.
For a moment, he simply stared at her, jaw clenching as he visibly bit back the emotion from his insides. “A wind on the sea,” he finally breathed.
“You are the night.”
“And I am the trees.”
Nyssa’s eyes fluttered at his touch. “I still don’t know what it means.”
He looked as though he would laugh, but her heart warmed at his smile, small as it may have been, and his thumb dragged over her own.
