His dark eyes are trained on mine, and as that alluring stare of his bores into me, he reaches a hand between us and flicks open the top button of my pants. The zipper goes next. His hand delves into them and—

“Montes.”

“Are you going to take your boots off, or am I?” That silken smooth voice of his is now coarse, husky with the first stirrings of passion. I like him the most when he’s like this—untamed.

When I don’t answer him, he crouches at my feet and begins unfastening my boots. He slides one off, then the other. My socks go next. Lastly, with one quick pull, he draws down the last of my garments.

Montes rises to his feet slowly, drinking in my nudity. My own eyes appraise the tight, flowing muscles that wrap themselves lovingly around his frame.

We’re both naked from head to toe. My heart gallops as he grabs my hand and draws me to the bed.

Sometimes, when we’re together, we’re feverish. I don’t have time to reflect on what exactly my heart’s caught itself up in. But now, every move of ours is deliberate, and it gives me far too much time to savor each drawn out second.

With those depthless eyes trained on me, he drapes his body over mine.

“My vicious, hardened queen,” he murmurs, cupping my cheeks, his thumbs stroking the skin beneath my eyes. “You are not so terrifying in my arms.”

I know I’m not.

Devoid of my gun, my clothes, and my anger, I’m nothing more than a troubled, broken girl. And here in the king’s arms, when all his intensity bears down on me, it’s easy to pretend that nothing else besides his skin and mine matter. He’s my Romeo, and I’m his Juliet, and even though we’re star-crossed and our time’s running out, we might fall into each other’s eyes and live forever in this moment.

He enters me, and where there was two, now there’s only one. Montes rocks his hips against my pelvis, moving languidly in and out.

The whole thing’s gentle and slow, and he watches me the entire time.

The king has a growing habit of making love to me. It’s more than a little disquieting, and it makes me feel like what he sees when he looks at me and what I see in the mirror are two very different people.

His chest slides along mine as I pull him closer.

His Serenity seems like a better person than the horrifying one I’ve known since war changed me.

Montes picks up the pace, and I begin to lose the last of my composure.

A wicked grin spreads across his face. “Say it.”

I already know what he wants. “No.”

He squeezes one of my hips. “Say it.”

When I don’t respond, he leans his forehead against mine. “Do I have to do it first?”

My eyes widen. I’ve never considered that the king could fall in love with me. Caring for me? Yes. Obsessing over me? Yes. Loving me? Not in the truest sense. Love takes too much selflessness for that.

But now he’s essentially admitting as much.

He likes that he’s shocked me.

He rubs one of his thumbs over my lips. His eyes move to mine.

“I love you,” he says.

Instinctually, I cover his mouth with my hand, like I can push the words back inside him.

My eyes prick with moisture.

I don’t want to know this. I don’t want to feel hope like this. Happiness like this. He’s going to ruin it, or I’m going to.

He moves against me, just enough to remind me of how intimately connected we already are at the moment.

His ruffled hair hangs down around his face. He removes my hand from his mouth and presses a soft kiss to my lips.

“I never meant to,” he whispers against me, “but I do.”

A tear drips down my cheek, and he kisses that away too.

“Tell me you love me,” he breathes against my cheek.

I shake my head.

“Stubborn woman,” he says, thrusting into me harder, “I will get you to say it.”

He forces my orgasm out of me with several long strokes, perhaps just to prove how easily manipulated I can be. I don’t care. I hold him close as my climax works its way through my body.

He comes on the heels of my orgasm, his body slick with sweat as he moves against me.

Once we break apart, Montes gathers me to his chest and holds me there. “Stay with me, just like this,” he says, kissing my shoulder.

I press my hand to his heart as I lay against him and savor the thump of it beneath my palm. This is where happiness sneaks up on you, and you forgive evil people for unforgivable things because they give you a taste of a future you always thought was beyond your reach.

I wait for the king’s breath to even before I whisper my secret in the dark. “I love you too.”

CHAPTER 32

The King

SERENITY AND I have maybe been asleep for an hour when I’m awoken by one of her rattling coughs. The thing has got ahold of her body. Her entire frame shakes as she desperately tries to clear her throat.

“I’m sorry,” she says in between the hacking coughs.

It’s only after she says that, that I realize my hold on her tightened the moment I woke. She’s clearly too sleepy to realize she’s apologized to me—something she’s made a point of avoiding at all costs—and my constricting grip is only making it harder for her to catch her breath.

I relax my hold and begin rubbing her back soothingly. I’m still not used to the tight ball of fear that’s made a home for itself in my stomach, or the slow release of its poison.

I’m also not used to being caring, affectionate. The previous women I have been with can attest to that. But with Serenity, it comes naturally, perhaps because I know just how unused to it she is as well. It’s easier to give another something that’s never been demanded of you.

She’s still coughing, and at some point several droplets of her sickness hit my chest. Concern trumps any disgust I might have. She hasn’t stopped coughing; if anything, it sounds like it’s getting worse. She rolls away from me.

I pull her back against my chest and press my lips to the back of her slender neck. “Nire bihotza, I’m not letting you go.” I’m not sure whether I’m referring to this moment, or the larger trajectory of her life. She’s mine. Her life is mine, her heart and her soul are mine.

“What does that even mean?” she rasps, choking down her cough to talk.

I swallow the golf ball sized wedge that’s taken up residence in my throat.