“Back?”
“Back to the cabin. Back to the early morning when we woke up together.” She was pressed against me, her head on my chest and the faint tremor of her heartbeat fluttering against my own. Everything was warm and peaceful with a delicious ache in my muscles from how hard I’d worked her over.
“Aren’t you a romantic?” Zira replies. Her thumb moves to my chin and sweeps under my lower lip, and she raises her other hand interlocked with my fingers as if attempting to slide around my shoulders, but I’m not willing to let go. “What’s this?”
I follow her eyeline to our joined hands and then down to my wrist, where a small skull tattoo decorates my wrist. One of the teeth has been removed and replaced with a small crown symbol. “My tattoo?”
“How have I never seen this before?”
“I don’t know how often you’ve stared at my wrist,” I murmur. “This is my King tattoo.”
“For the Suit?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Does everyone have one?”
“Yes. It’s an identifier of sorts.”
“Aren’t you ever worried?” She turns those vibrant blue eyes back to me. “Don’t people in power always become targets? Aren’t you worried that someone will come for any of you to try and get their way?”
“Worried?” I shake my head, my voice low. “It’s expected, to an extent. Newer families who don’t want to play by the rules or older families tired of conforming. Everyone gets greedy, and noone understands the delicate balance we maintain until it shifts, and then people are hemorrhaging money and products, getting caught at the borders and unable to sell. We exist on a very thin plane of glass and luckily, the majority are happy for their cut. I…” I shake my head again. “I used to tell myself I wasn’t worried about it because what do I have to lose? But last year… things changed. Ruslan changed and the ripples… they’re everywhere.”
“Changed because of Ivy, right?”
My lips tic upward. “Exactly.”
“Before Ivy, were relationships not allowed?”
“No… but our view of how the world worked was less… individual. Ruslan fell in love and suddenly, we saw the little people, the ones who were innocent and would get swept away because we were too focused on something bigger. People like… you.”
“Like me?” Zira shifts slightly in my lap. “You think I’m little people?”
“You are. You’re not from this world, dragged in by someone awful who really doesn’t understand the danger he’s in. Previously… Damian would have handled things himself and you—” I cut myself off, unwilling to waste time imagining what could have happened to Zira if I hadn’t been brought in on this. “It doesn’t matter. It didn’t happen, so it’s unimportant.”
“And now I have you.” Her eyes dart down to my lips, then back up to my eyes. “For how long?”
How long? How do I put into words the warm sensation in my chest that blooms wider every second she’s with me? How the little twitches of smiles across her lips and the sparkles inher eyes are things I want to see for the rest of my life? That my stomach flips every time she says my name and I feel ten years younger and a hundred times more giddy just from her attention? That protecting her and making her proud tangle together in my chest as urges I can’t control and now that she’s in my lap, all I want to do is make her my world?
I can’t say it.
It’s too much.
Too heavy.
She’s just lost her brother and we have to settle this shit with Harris. I can’t distract her or risk putting her in a position where she might not feel the same. So I stay quiet and instead lean forward until my lips cover hers in a soft, sweet kiss.
“You’re avoiding the question,” Zira murmurs against my lips, but she arches her body into me all the same and returns the kiss with gentle pressure.
Words no longer matter. I close my eyes, wind my free arm around her waist, and draw her tight against my body. Our lips work against each other with me leading the soft, weaving kisses with tilts of my head and pressure from my lower lip. I kiss her upper lip and suck ever so slightly until the kiss breaks, the angle changes, and I kiss her lower. My heart aches to map out every beautiful, delicate inch of her face with my lips, so that’s what I do.
From the swell of her lower lip to the right corner that rises higher than the left when she smiles, to the bow of her upper lip and the little pucker she does when each kiss parts so we can breathe. I map it all out slowly, gently. Her hand flexes in mine, occasionally tightening, and her arm shifts with urges tohug me, but I don’t want to let go of her hand. Soon, my kissing path takes me to the soft tip of her nose, the warm curve of her cheek up to the sharp angle of her brow, and then back down her nose to her mouth. Then I kiss lower, her chin and the soft slope of her jaw that sharpens when she tilts her head back to give me more room. Soft, wet kisses trail down to the corner of her jaw and down to her throat where I kiss around the bob of her swallow until I find where her pulse flutters frantically beneath her skin. There, I spend more time. Latching my mouth over her pulse, I kiss and suck, rolling my tongue against her skin until heat builds and a soft, sweet moan escapes Zira.
Her free hand trails around the back of my neck and into my hair, caressing the back of my head in lazy strokes that send warm shivers down my spine.
I can’t stop.
I don’t ever want to stop.
