“Look at me,” he says.

My eyelids open, and I gaze up at the king as the two of us come together for the first time in over a century. It feels like it’s just been days to me. I’m sure, to Montes, it feels like lifetimes.

We stay joined, unmoving, for several long seconds. I can feel his heartbeat pounding against my skin, he’s so close to me.

“I imagined this moment countless times,” he admits. “Feeling you around me again.” He slides out slowly, then thrusts back in. “It never did you justice.”

His lips brush my cheekbone. “You are better than any dream I had of us.”

And we are worse than any of our nightmares. This conundrum we have.

It should never have been this way. The two of us have done so many unforgivable things. But at the end of the day, we are two wrongs that, together, make something right.

Chapter 17

Serenity

I blink my eyes open. Early morning sunlight streams in to the king’s rooms.

I can’t immediately figure out how I got here. Last night was a blur once we started drinking. I remember what I did with the king well enough for heat to spread to my cheeks. It’s what happened after that’s hard to remember.

At some point last night, after we’d dozed off, our bodies twined around each other, Montes had woken me up. After feeding me water and some nondescript pill, he led us back to our room.

I shift slightly, and the moment I do so, I feel coarse fabric rub against my skin. I finger the edge of the shirt I wear. It falls to my thighs.

Not mine.

I wear the king’s shirt. I must’ve walked through the palace last night in it. I scrub a hand over my face and muffle a groan. That’s not one of my prouder moments.

Whatever he gave me, it must’ve countered the alcohol because I feel decent. Not great, but decent.

I lay in bed staring out at the room, trying fruitlessly to fall back asleep.

Time and memory are a strange thing. The room I spent my wedding night in, as well as every piece of furniture inside it, are long gone. And yet, I swear it’s as though no time has passed.

My head tilts to the side. It’s not just the room that’s the same. Déjà vu sweeps over me as I stare at the king’s muscular back, not for the first time reveling in his masculine beauty.

A duplicate memory assaults my mind. That first morning I had looked over at the king, the light streaming in just like it is now.

It’s all the same, and yet it’s not.

I reach out and run my hand over his olive skin. That freckle of his is gone, the one I noticed the first time I woke up next to him. I wonder what injury got that one, that tiny freckle that brought me to this man at the beginning of it all. All signs of his mortality have been wiped away by the Sleeper.

He stirs beneath my hand.

I hadn’t meant to wake him. I don’t want him to wake. Not yet.

But what I want has little to do with the situation. He rolls over.

His eyes meet mine, and a lazy smile spreads across his face as he draws me to him.

He nuzzles my nose. “I dreamed of you and then I woke, and I realized it wasn’t a dream after all.” His words are sleep-roughened.

His voice, his touch, his expression … I’m remembering last night vividly.

The king must be too, because I see a flare of heat enter his features, and then he rolls us so that I’m on my back and he’s covering me.

Almost immediately, my breathing picks up. The girl in me is embarrassed by it. I try to sit up, but Montes’s hand presses against my sternum, pushing me back down as he begins to kiss between my breasts.

It doesn’t end there.

The kisses continue, and he’s dipping down, down …

He spreads my thighs apart. I’m about to push him away, when his lips press against my core.

My breath escapes me all at once.

He groans. “Nire bihotza, you taste the same as I remember.”

Suddenly, I’m not so keen on pushing him away. And my embarrassment … It’s still there, but it’s taken a backseat to the more immediate sensations.

Montes wraps his arms under the backs of my thighs, pulling me even closer. His mouth is everywhere, and he’s still just as good at this as I remember.

A small cry slips from me. I feel the breath of his husky laughter.

I’m climbing, climbing—and then it halts.

Montes releases my thighs, his body moving up mine. I don’t have time to be disappointed; I feel the press of him against me as he slides in.

We stare at each other, twin points in the universe. I think I mean more to him than even I realize. He won’t speak his thoughts, not a man like this, one who rarely lets himself get vulnerable. But I see them nonetheless, gleaming in the back of his eyes.

He captures my mouth, and I taste myself on his lips. It’s wrong and it’s right, it’s dirty, it’s pure—the king makes all my carefully crafted dichotomies disappear.

He pulls my hips close, deepening each stroke—

Oh God.

I break off the kiss. “Birth control,” I rasp.

Birth control.

We forgot last night.

The king freezes, though he’s practically trembling in an effort to hold back. We both are.

Montes leans his head against mine. “I have none.”

None.

I think about what that means, how that changes my own plans. It doesn’t—not really.

But shit, to do this knowingly …

“You are my wife,” Montes says. “This is how it’s meant to be—how it was always meant to be.”