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He’d seen her do this before, the first night they’d been together, and it had broken his will.
Just as it broke him now.
He slammed into her and came, barely containing a shout of her name as waves of pleasure overtook him, his cock spilling into Zarrah even as her back arched, her tight sex contracting around him as she climaxed. He collapsed against her, burying his face in her throat and inhaling the soft scent of her hair.
Her legs eased their grip around his body, slipping down to tangle in his, her arms wrapped around his neck. He sighed as she stroked his hair with one hand, pushing it back and unraveling tangles as his heart eased its rapid pounding.
“I can’t keep doing this.” He kissed her throat, aware of his hypocrisy as his cock began to stiffen again inside of her. “I’ll get you pregnant.”
“I know.” She didn’t let go of him, didn’t stop stroking his hair, fingers gentle where moments ago they’d been fierce.
It was another knife to his heart, because it was another thing stolen from them. He liked children—always had—and the thought ofhischild at Zarrah’s breast made his eyes burn. He’d seen the way she was with the harem’s children, the sweetness she’d shown Sara, encouraging his sister to dream where others always cautioned her back. She’d be a good mother, as kind to her children as she’d be viciously defensive of any who sought to harm them.
And if they were his children, many would seek to hurt them.
Zarrah murmured, “How many days until we reach Nerastis?”
He wondered if she was thinking the same thing about children. Or if her thoughts were something else entirely.
“Hard to say.” He shifted off her, out of her, resting on one elbow so that he could see her face. “The wind is against us.”
“Is it?” She smiled, her hand sliding down his stomach. “I rather think it’s for us.”
If only this voyage could last forever. If only the wind would blow so fiercely that it held the ship in place, extending this moment into perpetuity, because he’d never have it again. “Don’t go back.”
Her hand stilled in its descent. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t go back to Valcotta.” Before she could say anything that would silence him, he added, “We could leave all this behind us. Buy passage on a Harendellian merchant vessel and risk the Tempest Seas. Sail all the way north until there is no one who knows or cares who we are and then live under different stars.”
Zarrah was silent, her expression unreadable. “You would leave for the sake of us being together?”
“You make it sound like a greater sacrifice than it is.” He smiled, but it was forced. “Abandoning politics and scheming and war and murder to be with the woman I’m in love with is an easy decision.”
Now that he’d said the word once, it was as though it needed to be said over and over, despite her not saying it in return. Because he knew why she hadn’t.
“What of your family? Are they so easy to abandon? To leave to suffer under your father or whichever of your brothers eventually inherits?”
Keris closed his eyes, thinking of his aunts. Of his siblings, many barely past infancy. Of Sara, forced to toil for her meals in the church. “It wouldn’t be easy. It would be a burden I’d carry for the rest of my life.” He opened his eyes. “But I’ll still do it, if it means being with you.”
“Why?” Her voice shook, but she rolled him onto his back, straddling him as she demanded, “Why are you willing to do all of this for me?”
“Because I never lived until I met you, not really.” He lifted a hand to her face, thumb stroking her cheek. “And because you’ve not been given what you deserve. Not been treated how you deserve to be treated. I would give you everything. We’d be happy.”
The storm outside was fading, the sunlight growing brighter, and it illuminated her face. Revealed the dusting of freckles on her cheeks, the highlights of red in her dark-brown hair. But it was her dark eyes he fixed on, wide and framed with endless black lashes. Doe-like, despite the mind behind them being that of a tigress.
“I need to think on it.” Her voice was tight. Strangled. “I need… I need time to think.”
It wasn’t a no. But it wasn’t a yes. A twist of anger rolled through his chest, because what did she have to go back to? Whom did she have to go back to besides the aunt who’d left her for dead? It wouldn’t be a happy life she returned to, and he wanted more for her than that. But instead of saying any of that, he gave her a tight nod.
“It’s not an easy decision.” She bit her bottom lip. “For my heart, the answer is easy, and it would be yes. A thousand times, yes. But…”
“Honor.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. “You honor the people who’d spit on you if they knew the truth.”
She flinched, and guilt flooded him. “I’m sorry. I’m an asshole to have said that.”
Zarrah only shook her head. “You’re not wrong. They would. But this decision… it’s not about honoring them—it’s about honoring myself. I…” She looked away, seeming to hunt for the words she needed. “I need to do things that I believe areright.So I can be proud of who I am and what I’ve done, because there is much I’ve done that I feel ashamed of.” Her eyes jerked back to his. “I don’t mean you. I could never regret you.”
Keris found himself wondering if that was entirely true. Or if it was, whether it would remain true.
