Page 187 of The Crown’s Temptation

“I cannot sit here and wait until I am too weak to do anything.”

He reached for my hand.

“You thought I would be angry.”

“Yes.”

“I am scared,” he admitted.

I looked at him.

“But not because I do not trust you.”

I waited for him to tell me I should not do this. That it was too dangerous. That I should find another way.

He did not. Instead he lifted my chin.

"I love you.”

Everything in me stopped.

"Every time you look at me like that I can barely breathe," I said.

He kissed me in a way that made me not want him to leave my mouth.

"I thought you would be angry with me," I said, my brow touching his.

"I would never be angry with you," he said. "Worried and protective, yes. But not angry."

We stayed like that, our foreheads touching, until finally he spoke. “As for Thrykis, part of me wishes you had never gone. But part of me also knows that you are more than capable of doing everything that you did." He drew in a breath. "I am learning that I cannot suffocate you." He closed his eyes. "I am still jealous. I am still terrified of losing you. I still want you to myself. But I will not make you suffer for it. Not right now. Not while you are gone and need⁠—"

"Need what?"

"Need to know that I love you anyway. No matter what."

Something in my chest warmed.

"I told you I am learning. And I admit I have regressed since losing you. But I have had time to turn everything over in my head while you were gone."

"And?"

"I thought of how there were many things we did not get to do together." He laughed quietly. "Like eating strange fruit. Or traveling to strange kingdoms."

He drew in a breath. "When you were gone I felt broken because I missed you. Because we had not gotten to do those things together." He paused. "But then I felt broken because you had not gotten to do those things at all."

He grabbed my hand and the look in his eyes was nothing short of anguish, with an earnestness I had never seen before. “I understand now, Asharin. I want you to eat strange fruit even if it is without me. Even if⁠—"

Before he could finish I was on him, unbuttoning his shirt, my mouth pressed to his.

"I love you," I said. "We will see it all together. Because you are the man I want to see it with."

He lifted me and set me down gently on the bed. I pulled down his pants and he was inside me. I closed my eyes and moaned.

"I am yours, Colsar Rathmor," I said. I pressed my lips to his and he kissed me back, running his tongue along my teeth while he thrust slowly, the room soon filling with the sound of our bodies.

"Always so fucking wet," he murmured in my ear.

"Only for you," I said.