I let out a half-choked laugh. “That’s a really sweeping promise to make.”
“Right.” He considered it. “I will never lie to you on purpose? I will…make a concerted effort to be honest.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “I liked the no lying at all.”
He started pulling his signet ring off his finger, but I covered his hand with my own and stilled it. “We’ll wait until after the Sanhedrin answers. Then…we’ll see.”
He nodded and gazed up at the sky. The clouds had blown in, low and dark and gray, heavy with rain. “We should go back before it pours.”
We did, hands gripped tightly. I kept replaying his words, his touch.I want you, he’d said. He meant it, I had no doubt. His face as he spoke had burned itself into my mind, the perfect beauty of his eyes, the worried furrow in his brow. The heat of his body, the passion, the yearning spread beneath my skin.
But my aunt’s voice:What do you think would happen if you, a human girl, married a high shayd?
He wanted me, but did he want to marry me? Did I want to marry him?
Yes, a tiny whisper said deep inside me.Because you love him.
I shut that little whisper up far away. The end of the world was not the right time to think about love.
~~~
That evening, after awretchedly exhausting day, we returned to my aunt’s. As we brushed our teeth and washed our faces and put on our pajamas, nervous energy writhed through me. I was overly aware of each movement Daziel made. Curled upright in the massive bed, the privacy curtains tied to the posts, I watched Daziel gracefully sit in his nest of blankets.
Feeling both excruciatingly shy and wildly bold, I burst out, “Do you want to join me?”
Daziel froze. “What?”
My cheeks were hot enough to scramble eggs. “Not if you don’t want. But. You know. You can. Sleep in the bed.”
“Really.”
I nodded, so many times and so rapidly I almost pulled a muscle in my neck. Also, I probably looked like a wild marionette doll. I stilled, wincing. “I just thought—I don’t know. It might be more comfortable.”
“Right.” He studied me with a burning intensity, as though trying to read me from the inside out. “Are you sure?”
I felt like I’d swallowed a butterfly and it was trying to escape my throat, wings beating a frantic, terrified tempo inside me. “Uh-huh.”
His mouth curved up in a smile. “You don’t sound very sure.”
“I am sure.” The words scraped out past frozen lips. What if he turned me down? That, I realized, was what had me so terrified—the idea that he wouldn’t want to sleep beside me, when I wanted it more than anything else in the world. “Very, very sure.”
“All right.” He sat on the edge of the bed, his weight shifting the mattress. He swung his legs up and under the covers, and I lay very still and flat, afraid if I looked at him, I wouldn’t be able to look away. He settled in, rustling among the blankets, rearranging the pillow.
We lay side by side, all my attention focused on the scant inches between us, and how earlier today there had been none. I tried to breathe deeply and pretend I wasn’t thinking about the exact arrangement of Daziel’s body and how badly I wanted to roll into his side and press my mouth to his and fill all the places in me that felt empty.
Okay. Screw it. I turned on my side. Daziel already faced me. His eyes gleamed, like black paint yet to dry. It was easier to talk in the dark, with no light except the sliver of moon and spill ofstarlight. “You tried not to kiss me. The night after the Rocks. You held back.”
“I thought if we started being physical and then you found out I’d lied to you, you’d hate me.”
“Oh.” Fair point. I frowned. “Why did you change your mind?”
He managed a mangled smile. “I wanted to be with you too badly.”
A curl of warmth expanded in my stomach, something tender and shy and hopeful. I flopped back on my pillow and squeezed my eyes shut. “Why?”
I could hear his smile in his voice. “Because I like you.”
I believed him, but I still wasn’t completely relaxed. I wasn’t completely sure of him. “Why?” I asked again.
