Page 106 of Carousel

I tremble under him as he strokes the sensitive area there in tight, deliberate circles. It’s embarrassing to me that I already feel so wet.

He slides his fingers in.

A soft, lingering moan that doesn’t sound like me – that I never thought I’d make – leaves my mouth.

“Shh,” he says, silencing me with a kiss.

When the bellringer comes by in the morning, and the lights come on, my first thought isn’t about being a prisoner, or the war, or the possibility of bombs.

I feel, for a few seconds at least, content. I’m warm, and I’m safe, and I’m with someone who I think loves me. Someone who I think I love. He’s right behind me, his arm slung around me. We must have fallen asleep like this.

Groaning, he pulls me in closer. Nuzzles into my hair.

I respond by rolling over.

“I wish we didn’t need to get up today,” I say. “I wish it was just us. Here.”

“So do I,” he says, holding me. “You don’t know how much.”

In the light, his face seems so perfect. I mentally trace his freckles. Cheekbones. His hair is mussed but he looks wholesome, fresh, like he’s had the first good night’s sleep in ages. I feel like I have, too.

He’s been studying me at the same time.

“Cosmos. You’re beautiful. Are you sure you’re not a Rhavnan princess?”

“Positive,” I say.

“Could have fooled me. Could have fooled the whole room. Last night.”

My mind instantly goes to my dance with Drake. And I don’t want to be thinking about him right now.

Uneasily, I say, “Let’s not talk about last night anymore.” I add, a little slyly, “Unless it’s about what happened here, in this room.”

His eyes flash. He grabs me by the waist. “Why would we talk about it? When I could just do it to you again?”

I’m already tensing.

I want him to.

And I’m about to say that, but there’s a loud crackling from under us, and then we hear Dezeeves’ voice. “Cosmer?”

He sits up abruptly, swiping the radio from under his pillow.

The radio.

The same radio I was supposed to steal.

Drake must have been waiting all night – only for me not to present the goods. What will he think of me?

“Receiving,” Cosmer says into the speaker.

“Ara is required in The Bridge at thirteen past the hour for her first corrective instruction. Bring her, or tell Riss, will you?”

“Confirmed.”

The static dies.

As does my mood.