His fingers hook under my shirt, and he peels it off me.

“I hate you,” I say quietly, without any of my usual venom.

Montes tosses my shirt aside. “I know—you’ve told me many times.” He doesn’t stop undressing me.

“But.”

The king’s hands still on the button of my pants. “But?” he repeats calmly. I know his cool demeanor is a ruse, especially when his eyes slowly travel up to mine.

I press the palm of my hand to the side of his face. “But it is not the only thing I feel for you.”

The king’s eyes smolder at my words. He understands what I’m saying even if I can’t really put words to it.

He threads a hand behind my neck and pulls me to him, and I catch sight of it: a flicker of something vulnerable and compassionate on the king’s face. His lips press hard against mine, kissing me like I’m his oxygen. This is magic, this is heaven, this is everything my life has denied me.

We begin tugging off our clothes. My hands grasp the collar of Montes’s shirt, and I yank it open, popping buttons as I go. He growls low in this throat. The sound makes me pause until I realize that this is an approving sound.

The king pushes me up against the wall, and my back hits hard.

“Fuck,” the king swears quietly, “did that hurt?”

There’s that shred of humanity again in his eyes. Too bad it’s misplaced. I am most comfortable with pain.

I tunnel my fingers into his hair and drag his head back harshly. “Don’t stop.”

The king’s eyes hood, and he recaptures my mouth, his tongue forcing its way in.

For all his rough ministrations, his hands and his gaze are gentle. While his chest pins me to the wall and his mouth pillages mine, his fingers trail down the skin of my arms and my torso. They come to a halt low on my belly, and there they linger.

It’s the area where a woman carries a child and just below the epicenter of my cancer.

The king falls to his knees and kisses it. I lean my head back and close my eyes at the tender gesture. We both know the king’s plans for an heir will be put on hold indefinitely—at least if he wants one that shares my blood. It’s one of the many things that go unsaid between the two of us because we can’t seem to acknowledge things that waken our cold, charred hearts. Like the fact that I’m still dying.

He unzips my pants, tugs them off, leaving me in only my lingerie. That’s what I wear now—scraps of lace. I only tolerate them because I’m obviously not wasting material.

Montes stares at them, and I can see his thoughts turning wicked. “I wouldn’t have guessed my wife would go for these.” His eyes move to mine. “I always assumed you were more of a cotton panties lady.”

“Better be careful what you say when my knee is that close to your face.”

A wolfish smile breaks out on his face. His lips skim over the material, and then he drags them off of my legs.

Suddenly I feel far too exposed. I’ve only done this with Montes a handful of times, and before that, never. I’m not used to baring myself, and the king is at face-level with the most intimate parts of me. I reach down to cover myself, and the king catches my hands.

“I don’t think so.” He pins them to my side.

When he moves his mouth to my core, I yelp. “Montes!”

I’m scandalized; I wasn’t aware that anything could still shock me.

The king lets out a husky laugh, then his lips return to the sensitive flesh. I don’t last long. My legs buckle, and Montes is there to catch me. He stands and picks me up.

He quiets me with another kiss, and carries me to our bed. When he lays me out on it and removes the last of his clothes, I swear his eyes shine in the dim glow of the room’s light.

Where I’m modest with nudity, the king isn’t. Once he’s fully unclothed, he approaches me, completely unselfconscious. My eyes stray to all the pleasing lines of his body. He is mesmerizing to look at.

He prowls over to me, his hands stroking my legs as he watches me, a slight smile playing along his lips. I can’t stand just laying here, so I push myself to my knees.

Reaching out, I stroke the king’s chest for no other reason than I want to. After all, he’s clearly put his fingers—and lips—everywhere that pleases him.

The king’s eyes close, and he covers my hands with his own. They’re warm and they dwarf mine.

“Don’t stop,” he murmurs.

I blink. I hadn’t realized that his touch had stilled my own. I move our hands down, over the ridges of his abs, across his obliques, to the hard, lean muscle of his thighs. Here the king’s hands tighten over mine.

He releases his hold and softly pushes me back against the bed and follows me on, his body blanketing me.

There’s something to be said about physical touch. I’ve gone so long without it that the sensation is better than the sweetest of the king’s liquors. I don’t believe I’m the only one that feels this way. Montes is stroking my skin.

It hits me: he’s been with far more people than I have—he told me so himself—yet he’s acting as though I’m something coveted.

One of the king’s knees slink between my legs, spreading them apart. His hips settle heavily over me, and I can feel him right at my entrance. He shifts his pelvis, and then he’s pushing into me.

The king enters slowly, watching me the entire time. This isn’t the rough sex I expected. Somewhere along the way our frenzied movements have turned into this.

My lifelong enemy is now the person who’s physically closest to me. And I don’t mind. The remorse I felt on our wedding night is gone.

Montes thrusts into me, and the sensation is overwhelming. He’s overwhelming—over me, inside me.

Something about the languid way he moves and the way his eyes track mine makes me think this is more than just physical for him. That I might now consume the thoughts of the man who consumes mine.

A small smile tugs at the corners of my lips.

Montes stills. “That’s a first,” he breathes.

I’m finally giving into whatever it is I feel for this man and forgiving myself for circumstances beyond my control. I’m drawing a new beginning. One where not everything is a battle.

Long after we’ve finished, Montes clasps me to him. A light and fizzy emotion surges through me. Hope.

If not war, then love.