The problem was her. She’d had to decide what she wanted. What she was going to do. This had been her decision, and she had regrets now. Maybe there was a way that she could have fewer regrets.
But he was right about one thing. She couldn’t play games. She had to be certain.
He had been cruel to her earlier and he regretted it. But he needed his distance. What would she have done if he had grabbed her? Kissed her? Shown her exactly what he wanted to do with her. Shown her exactly how he wanted her.
She thought she wanted him, but what she wanted was a fantasy. She thought she could poke and provoke him as she might do some frat boy who approached her at university.
If she got a taste of his real need she would run, terrified, and she would have every right to. Because she didn’treallyknow.
And instead, you’ll let Lucian, the Sea Serpent of the Mediterranean, introduce her to pleasure?
The idea made him feel homicidal. And that wasn’t beneficial for anyone. He had to be able to walk into that palace as her bodyguard, and not present as a threat to the ruler of the country, or he would find himself executed and quickly.
It was perhaps not a ringing endorsement for his mental state that the only thing that bothered him about that was the possibility that he wouldn’t be there to protect her.
But in many ways, life for him would end after she married another.
Nothing has to change. She can still be yours in all the ways that matter. You will sacrifice yourself for her. Devote yourself to her.
Yes. That was true.
Without ever corrupting her, or violating Onyx’s trust.
Yes. Lucian will get to violate her instead.
He growled furiously, angry, yet again, that he was trapped on this boat. If he didn’t hate the ocean so damned much he might’ve thrown himself in to swim for a few laps. He was a good swimmer, and had become a better one in the years since the shipwreck. But he did not swim in the ocean recreationally. For obvious reasons.
It was growing dark, and they had made no plans to eat together. In fact, he had seen a staff member with a tray of food heading to the lower decks earlier, and he thought that perhaps she had taken dinner in her room. All for the best.
He walked around to the forward deck and saw Emerald, leaning against the railing, her red hair a curtain around her face. Her shoulders were shaking.
“What’s the matter?”
She gasped, lifting her head and wiping her cheeks. Then she looked at him, her eyes glittering with sadness, with fierce determination.
“I can’t imagine.”
“You don’t have to go through with this.” He would demand that the yacht turn around now and head straight back to Basilia. Hell, he would jump in and swim them both back. His fears about the ocean be damned.
“Ido.” Her stubbornness sounded nearly petulant.
“You can find another husband.”
“Is that what you think? That this is about me being afraid of King Lucian? No. What I’m grappling with is that there’s no way for me to marry someone who isn’t you without feeling extraordinary pain.”
He could say nothing to that. She had said it. She had spoken the invisible thing into existence. She had put into words something that they should never acknowledge. Something that he would never acknowledge, no matter how she changed the rules on them now.
“Emerald,” he said. “You are emotional.”
She threw herself at him then, as if she was leaping off a cliff, wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her head in the curve of his neck. The warm, soft press of her body against his undid him. He wrapped his arm around her waist, held her there, even though he knew that he should not. “Yes, I’m emotional,” she said. “Because I’m never going to know. I’m never going to know what it could have been. I’m never going to know what passion is. Not really. I waited, all this time. I’ve never been kissed, I’ve never been touched, I’ve never—”
He kissed her. He could take it no more. He swallowed her words down like the sweet honey that they were, an elixir that turned his dark soul into sunshine as the sweetness of her mouth flooded him. He kissed her because he could do nothing else.
He kissed her, because he wanted her. Because he had wanted her all this time. She clung to him, her fingers pushed through his hair as she deepened the kiss, as she parted her lips and slid her tongue against his, as she arched her body against him, her breasts firm against his chest.
“Please,” she whispered. “I didn’t promise him a virgin bride. I don’t want to go to his bed untouched. I want to haveyou. One night. Please.”
He gripped her hips and growled. “No.”
