His curiosity turned leer, and he grinned slyly. "All your fantasies, Princess," he uttered. "Though, I am debating whether you will be able to touch my hair the first time you see it."
"You plan to deny me that?" she mocked.
"I plan on denying you a lot of things," he promised.
And the dare in his gaze made her breath shorten. He huffed softly, nose nudging her throat again. As though he couldn't help himself, his open mouth sucked on her skin, and she relaxed in his arms at the soft pleasure.
Someone coughed not far from them, and Nyssa found Reverie and Corbin watching them.
"Entertainment in public also runs in the family, I see," Reverie winked at her.
Nyssa's face paled.
She had genuinely forgotten they were on the beach in full view of his entire village.
"Oh, shit," was all Nyssa could manage.
"Don’t worry," Reverie said assuringly. "I think it was just us that caught the display. Commander—“ Reverie gave him a sideways smile “—knew that smirk of yours was more dangerous than you let on."
Nadir laughed, straightening up behind Nyssa. "Thanks for the lookout," he said.
Reverie winked at him and went back to doing Corbin's hair. "Anytime."
Nyssa gaped between the pair, but before she could say anything, Nadir kissed her, and she surrendered to him.
For a while after, he simply held her as they watched the rest of the people running around and playing drinking games. A couple of people came up to Nadir to talk to him, and each time he stayed holding on behind her, conversing with his friends but touching her somehow. Moved on from the tease of their public display like it had never happened. Though the tremble in Nyssa's thighs and the ache of her clit told her it had been real.
The sight of the water coming up and wrapping around people's ankles took her into a daze. Her mind drifting to all the times water had wrapped her feet, and she'd felt comforted by the cool pressure. To when even in that void, with the water beneath her toes, she hadn't felt suppressed by it. A small comfort in a room of mirrors that made her heart constrict.
"Hey—“ she snapped out of the daze, realizing one of Nadir's friends had just walked away from them. "Hey, I forgot to ask you something."
"What?"
"What does the poem mean?” she asked.
"Which one?"
"The one you read me from Somniarb's diary. The flowers beneath our feet one."
"Oh, that one. I forgot I hadn't told you," he said. “It was about her and Duarb. Duarb loved her like a little sister. Much like you and your brother. He would go to her tree, play with her in the meadows full of flowers of the Preymoor, or sometimes she would visit the sea with him. She loved to play in his wind. In all of her writings, she refers to him as either the night or the wind, but always she as the trees. The night hugs the trees, shrouding them in shadows and making them feel safe as he always did her.”
Nyssa could see it. Imagining the pair like she and Dorian. Chasing each other and laughing. "I love that," she whispered. “What does she call Arbina?”
“The fire,” he whispered. “The fire that burned and consumed her, until she fled her reality, and locked herself away so as to escape the pain.”
Her jaw tightened at the words, but she pushed the memory of her mother from her mind, and she focused on the poem. "Remembering that poem helped me in the void," she told him.
"How so?"
"I got the words mixed up," she admitted. "My feet were submerged in water at one point. The..." The more she spoke about it, the more she found herself hesitating.
"You don't have to talk—“
"No, I do," she cut him off. "There were mirrors. Black water. I was hanging onto a ledge over it. For some reason, in my head, I heard water beneath our feet, and it went to the rest of the poem." She met his eyes. "And then I heard you telling me to take your hand."
"You heard me?"
"Of course I heard you,” she breathed.
