What do I want?
I’ve asked myself that many times throughout my life.
What did I want when I was a young girl with dead parents?
To eat. To feel safe. My options were to find work or marry, and I didn’t want to marry. Not after I saw what marrying did for my mother. Loneliness, arguing, and the occasional black eye.
So I became a saddle instead. There wasn’t much else I could do, and since I was always told how pretty of a girl I was, I used that beauty to my advantage.
What did I want as a saddle?
I wanted to be the best, the most coveted. I achieved that and then traveled to more prestigious saddle houses. I got myself all the way from my tiny town to Sixth Kingdom’s capital, where my beauty and skill in sexual pleasures landed me a contract as a royal saddle.
The top of the top.
What did I want then?
To be the most desired. The highest paid. Looked up to or envied by all the other saddles. Aside from Auren, I achieved that too.
I thought I had what I wanted because I was in control. I used my beauty and my body to better my situation. Until one day, I looked in the mirror and realized I didn’t want any of that anymore. Didn’t want to have to please anyone else but myself.
I wanted out, and because of Auren, I got out. Because of this big oaf, I was able to flee Midas’s control.
What did I want after that?
To go as far away from the cold kingdoms as I could. To be alone, rich and glamorous, with no man around that I’d ever have to please for coin again. To live content on some remote palatial estate far from any saddle house.
“What do you want, Rissa?” Osrik asks again.
I shake my head. “I thought I knew, but…I want something different now,” I admit quietly.
His eyes spark with interest.
My throat closes, jaw aching with emotion I keep trying to bite down on. “Don’t make me say it.”
I’m not a woman comfortable with emotions. I have no experience with having real, honest conversations with a man. Ifhe makes me try to explain now, it will come out a jumbled mess, and I don’t want this—us—to be a mess.
He looks at me like he’s reading my thoughts through my eyes. “You don’t have to say anything. I hear you anyway.”
My jaw tightens around the wad of sentiment, nearly choking as I try to hold back tears to his perfect response.
“Osrik?” I whisper, and my voice sounds small. I’ve never let myself feel small around a man. It wasn’t safe. But it is with him.
“Yeah?”
“I want you to do something for me that no one ever has before.”
“What’s that?”
Embarrassment tries to strangle the words, but I push through, my eyes meeting his. “I want you…to make love to me.”
CHAPTER 7
RISSA
Osrik’s dark brown eyes shine.He blinks several times, like he’s trying to staunch the moisture there, and I see his own jaw work, as if he too is trying to chew down these emotions neither of us seem to be very good at feeling.
It’s nice—knowing I’m not alone in that either. We’re both feeling around in the dark, trying to find our way, but at least we’re doing it together.
