When the tent flap closed behind her, she inhaled to begin speaking, and I paused, shoulders tensed. “Please don’t.” I hadn’t turned around. I didn’t think I could say what needed to be said while looking at her.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t say what I know you’re going to say.”
“How would you know what I’m about to say?”
“I feel it, Caly, and I can’t bear it if you say the words.”
“Before you reject it, I know that saying it doesn’t help us. But I’ll never have this again, and I know what lies ahead for me, so please let me have it for just this moment.”
A single tear tracked down my cheek, and I turned to face her, finding her eyes swimming with tears, too.
“It’s going to kill me,” I admitted.
“Me too,” she nodded. “But better to say it while we can than never have the chance.”
“Is it?”
“You know it is. Denying it won’t make it hurt less. What I feel for you will never be matched. It’s all I can do to keep it inside at this point. Living the rest of my life without it will be the hardest thing I ever have to do. So why not let me be in love for just this one perfect day? Why not love me back so that I can feel it forever?”
I tensed at the words, but I was done fighting it.
“That’s right. Love, Faolan. That’s what I feel for you. I love you. It’s in my heart and if I don’t share it with you now, I might die. So let me have this, please.”
I stared at her through my tears and wondered how I would go on after today, but today came first, and I could give her that. “You can have anything,” I choked out, and she rushed into my arms. I tilted her face up to mine and pressed a kiss to the first tear that fell. “I love you too, Caly.” I whispered. “Always.”
I lifted her off her feet, needing to be as close to her as I could possibly be, and strode for our bed. We’d touched and stroked, and there was that thing with her mouth, but she had kept me at arms’ length because she feared setting back my healing. But now, I would not be deterred.
She held my face in both her tiny hands. peppering kisses on all the parts of me she could find with her lips. When my shins met the bed, I lowered her down, and we stripped, not hurriedly, just with purpose.
When we were both bare, I rose over her, taking in her perfect, curvaceous body. I knew I was setting myself up formore hurt, but now that we were here, I had to know every inch of her so that I could keep it with me all my days.
We took our time, learning each other. Discovering what drew those pleasured sounds from the other and doing it over and over. By the time I was seated fully inside her, rocking to the shared beats of our hearts, we were both slick with sweat and gasping for air between moans.
Hours later, we dressed in silence, our fates hanging heavy in the air. I helped her with the last buttons of her tunic, then collected her hands in mine. When our fingers laced, I instantly regretted it. Suddenly, even after our day of love making, her touch was too much. How could I ever walk away from her?
It stuck in my throat to say it, but I said what was on my mind anyway. “It’s time to go.”
We both knew she belonged to him the second we landed in the First Kingdom, and I would be leaving.
“We’ll find some way to keep it alive.”She sniffed.
“How? He’ll make sure I’m nowhere near you ever again.” I sighed, stroking her hair and framing her face with my hands. The risk was too great, but I wouldn’t say it to her. She’d be willing to risk it, but I couldn’t. I knew what males like him were like. He’d torture her if he even had the inkling her heart belonged to someone else.
“Can he really control me like that?”
“Didn’t your father? Can you imagine him being any better?”
“Surely as queen, I’ll have freedoms…”
“Deep down, I think you know he will. Even if he hates you, you’ll be his property, and he’s not letting anyone else near that.”
She was quiet for a long time. “I know you’re right.”
“And you’re still okay going back?”
“I have to be. Right?”
