“Uncomfortable?” he asks with a smirk.
“Nothing I can’t take care of on my own.” I unlace my pants, shimmyout of them, and twirl them over my head before flinging them to the floor. “Problem solved.”
“I admire your resourcefulness, among other things.”
The glint of amusement and pull of his perfect lips reminds me how much I miss our easy banter. I long to be the center of his attention, the one he thinks about in the middle of his day, the one he kisses just because he can. Statera, I miss the feel of his lips and the way he kisses.
A knot coils in my stomach.
It wasn’thislips I kissed earlier. My guilt along with the alcohol coursing through my veins kills my inhibitions. With little thought, I say, “I kissed Zek. Tonight. In the hallway.”
Kyron slides his hands into his pockets and shifts his weight. His chest billows with a deep inhale, and the muscle in his jaw ticks. “Do you have romantic feelings for him?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? You initiated that kiss.”
The reddening of my face travels down my neck. Kyron heard us. He sat in that chair and listened to his parah kiss someone else. If roles were reversed, I wouldn’t have stayed so calm. There would be no second-guessing as I ran out that door and pulled him away from someone else.
“I’m sure I don’t have feelings like that for Zek. I was just…”
He tilts his head and holds my gaze. “Go on, princess. I need to hear you say it.”
“Everything that has happened between us, it hurts so bad sometimes. I wanted to drown out the pain for a moment, just get lost in something that wasn’t so complicated. It was a stupid drunken move on my part, so please don’t light my guard into a walking flame,” I say.
Kyron lifts an eyebrow, and one corner of his lips quirks up. “Only because you asked me not to. Besides, I don’t blame him for giving in; you’re hard to resist.”
“I know how that feels.” I gnaw on my bottom lip and brush my fingers over the back of his. “You should stay.”
He watches our hands as his shadows curl around my wrist. “I wasn’t planning to leave. This is my quarters.”
“That’s very presumptuous of you. I believe you abandoned these quarters for more opulent living arrangements.”
A soft chuckle vibrates through him. “Reluctantly. And it’s a choiceI quickly regretted. The room was fancy, but the mattress was shit.”
“So does that mean?—”
“I’ll sleep in the chair in the other room.”
I tug on his fingers. “You don’t have to.”
“I should. You’re not in the best headspace right now.”
“Save the chivalrous bullshit, and hold me,” I say, pulling him into the bed next to me.
“Back to pulling rank again, Your Grace?” He gathers me into his arms and kisses the top of my head.
I snuggle into him and relish the feel of his body next to mine. “I don’t think that’s applicable any longer,Your Grace.”
“For me it is. All you have to do is say the words, and it’s yours. Whatever you want, I will sail any sea, journey to every star, nothing is too great of a request.”
Maybe it’s still the alcohol, but his declaration hits me hard. I so badly want to believe that the man I was falling for was in control the entire time, that everything he did was planned out for a greater good. He took a risk for me because he cared that much. That same frame of mind also seems too simple, too naïve. Never again do I want to give him the power to hurt me the way he did, no matter what his intentions were.
I curl my fingers around his shirt, trying to ground myself and hold on to reason. “You’re making it very difficult for me to remain angry at you.”
“I’ve already told you I’d do the work to fix what I broke between us. I’m not trying to plow down the walls you put up. I want to earn the privilege of you letting me in again.”
Emotion builds in my chest to the point of aching. “That’s the problem. No matter what you did, it’s so much easier for me to let you in than keep you out. If I’m being honest with myself, you were never truly out. And dammit, I tried.”
