My eyes lift up so that I can look at his face as I speak. So that I can gauge his reaction. “They said that I jumped from one king to another.”
The stern line of his brow lifts ever so slightly as he flicks his eyes up to me. Waiting. Watching.
“Isn’t that what I’ve done?” I challenge, pulling my hand away from his touch. “I’ve gone from Zakir, to Midas, to you. Letting men take care of me.” I shake my head at myself, reeling from the outside perspectives. “I thought I was making changes, making strides to be independent, but what if I’m not? What if I’m making the same mistakes all over again?”
He jerks back, spine gone stiff against the carved wall. “You think you and I are a mistake?”
I toss up my hands with exasperation, because the more I talk, the more frustrated I am. “No. But what if I am hopping from one king to another? I just got away from a one-sided relationship riddled with abuse. I’m finally free of all that, free tolive, and I’veneverhad that before. Ever. Maybe trying to show my face today was a mistake.”
My chest rises and falls with the waves of my acknowledgement, while his stays still and quiet like a breezeless air.
“For twenty years, I’ve been caught beneath the will of another. What if I want to just...leave? To escape all the bullshit and stay in a little cabin in the middle of the woods where no one can find me? Or what if I want to travel all of Orea, never setting down roots, never staying anywhere long enough to outstay my welcome? I could...learn something new. Climb a mountain. Practice music. I could get a job somewhere. Build something. Get a pet. I could go flirt in a pub. Swim naked in the sea. Go dancing. Make a friend. Kiss a stranger. Maybethat’swhat I want.”
My eyes flash up at that last bit, and I catch myself bracing for his reaction.
For a long while, he’s quiet.
I sway with the movement of the carriage, or maybe it’s the movement inmyself—jerking me side to side with wavering emotions, while I wait for him to respond.
How he can be so still, I have no idea. Not when I’m a motley of riotous shifting. Not when words are bouncing around in my skull hard enough to give me whiplash.
“Well?” I demand. “Aren’t you going to say something?” Gold slips along my wrist, spilling from the crease of my hand. “I just told you I want to kiss someone who isn’t you. I’m freaking out about the fact that this whole newfound independence might not even bereal, all while realizing the public is calling me a seducing, king-hopping thief, and you’re just sitting there!”
My face is hot, my chest tight.
He sits forward, bent elbows flanking his knees, threaded hands coming up in front of his chin.
“Do you want me to yell at you? To get pissed off?”
“No—I don’t know,” I say, feeling more and more insecure about what the hell I’m even saying. What I’m feeling.
Catching me completely by surprise, he suddenly plucks me up from my seat and sets me on his lap. I jolt in surprise, but his steady hold keeps me in place.
“What are you doing?” I demand, floundering as I glance to the carriage window. Although the curtain is covering the glass, it’s still slightly sheer.
“Your aura is quite erratic right now,” he says, his tone conversational. As if it’s completely natural for me to be on his lap. As if the dozens of people we can hear just outside don’t even exist. “Usually, it’s calm, like the glow around a morning sun right as it drifts above the horizon.” He shifts his hips, and my breath snags in my throat when I feel him hardening beneath me. “But when you’re angry or overwhelmed, it starts to jump and swirl like its own gleaming tempest ready to bait and blind.”
“So?”
His lips curve up with the force of my snapped retort, his fingers digging into my waist. All of a sudden, I’m reminded of just how thin this clothing is. Just how few layers are between my skin and his.
“You want to be independent? You want to live your life however you see fit?”
I tilt my chin up. “Yes. Is that a problem?”
His eyes darken, like shadows filtered through a forest floor. “I must’ve made myself unclear.” He lifts a hand to wrap it around my throat, not to hurt or strain, but to hold. To bend.
My head is tilted to the left, my neck curved in invitation for his lips to descend. “You want to travel the world?” he murmurs against my skin, making it pebble, making it rise up to meet his touch. “Then I’ll be your escort.” His lips press against me, closed at first, just the tiniest feel of pinched breath between the seams. “You want to hide away? I’ll build us whatever cabin in whatever remote wood you want.”
His mouth opens, a rush of warm breath drifting out to coat my neck. But I feel that warmth drift down, lower and lower, until it’s a swirl of ardor kindling in my stomach.
I reach up, sifting my fingers through his thick hair, twining the black strands in my grip. I tug hard, jerking his own head, makinghisneck bend too. And he meets me with a flash of a grin that makes that kindled fire start to spark.
“Who said you’re invited?” I challenge with demure provocation.
He chuckles.
That low, sensual laugh that will always ruin me. It travels from his chest, making my own arch up to meet it, just so I can feel it. So his laughter can travel from him into me, and I can feel like I’m basking in something entirely different from sunlight. For my insides to revel in this sensual heat.
