“I love you,” he breathed back, and the words did not soften anything. They made it worse, which made it better.
She shoved him and he let it move him a step, then came back in, taking her mouth again. Teeth, then heat, then hunger all over again. He turned her and she turned with him, a knot that did not wish to be undone. Fingers found laces with more force than skill. Cloth rasped skin. His palm spread over the bandage at her shoulder and he paused, a single heartbeat of gentleness. She hissed the word against his ear—a yes that left no doubt, only invitation.
When he thrust into her, her breath caught hard, ragged, her body opening around the force of him. And in that wild, desperate rhythm she could not control, a memory pierced her—the echo of his voice from another night.Breathe, Ilys. Count with me.
“Look at me,” he said as they panted into one another’s mouth.
She clung to him fighting the pull to shatter, nails biting his back, every motion pulling her deeper into the truth she swore she didn’t want, but that grew harder to deny.
“I hate you,” she gasped again, though her body betrayed her, meeting him with abandon, slick with denial as he gripped her up against the frame, his fingers working between them with knowing precision. She cursed him silently—his arrogance, his practiced skill, the ease with which he drew her apart—but still her body bowed to it, helpless. She came first, fast and humiliating.
He watched her unravel, protests falling from her lips as her face flushed with pleasure, and he followed soon after, breathragged, hands digging into her waist, anchoring himself to the moment.
When he stilled inside her, she wanted to shove him away, to reassert the distance she’d carved with every word. But instead, he eased her down, kneeling before them both. His hands were tender now, smoothing the disarray he had helped create. And she found herself frozen, helpless to that tenderness.
“Ilys,” he said quietly.
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her throat felt too tight, her body still trembling from what they’d done. But he caught her gaze anyway. His eyes were dark and unbearably gentle.
“Make another bargain with me.” He reached for her hand, gingerly enough that she could have pulled away, but she didn’t. When his lips brushed her knuckles, the gesture so careful, so unlike the chaos of moments before, that it felt like being touched by a promise she hadn’t agreed to yet.
Her breath caught. “What?” she managed, the word breaking halfway out of her.
“Let us have this,” he said. “This sliver of happiness. I will die soon, and you may pick apart every piece of it that unsettles you after. But may we have it now?” His thumb swept once over the back of her hand. “May I try to make you happy, again and again, in the little time left to me?”
She stared at him, her heart pounding so hard it made her ribs ache. Part of her wanted to laugh because it sounded so easy when he said it. Another part wanted to claw her way out of his grasp, run until her lungs burned.
“You think that’s what I need?” she whispered finally.
“No.” His eyes softened even more. “It’s what I want.”
Her lips parted, but no sound came. The room smelled of salt and skin, the bedclothes rumpled under her fingers. She thought of the night before, of every place she’d let him touch, of everyplace she’d wanted him to. She thought of how the sound of his heartbeat had steadied her even as she cursed him.
“You’ll die,” she said, almost accusing.
“I will.” His voice steadied itself, but his hand held on harder, the restraint in him breaking at the edges.
Her breath shuddered out of her. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, meeting his stare. “One sliver,” she affirmed, the words trembling out of her. “No more.”
He smiled, not a triumphant thing, but a quiet, aching one, and pressed his forehead to hers. “One sliver,” he echoed.
“This iscachu hwch,” she said wryly, sighing deeply.
Death only caught her mouth with his, smiling faintly. “Hopeless,” he whispered, and kissed her again.
Chapter 35
Ilys woke to Death leaning over her.
“Wake,” he urged softly. “I am a dying man.”
Her eyes fluttered open, bleary with sleep.
“I thinkIhave died,” she groaned.
He pressed a needy kiss to the swell of her breast. “That’s in poor taste,” he observed, the dryness undoing any real reprimand.
He sat back on his heels, inspecting the bandage at her shoulder. The wound had begun to knit, yet his frown lingered—thoughtful, near worried. As he studied her, his fingers moved in slow, absent circles over her breast, his gaze intense enough to make her squirm.
