Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
A place in his heart.
Dear Medusa.
He was going to make me weep.
“Is this understood, my Ha-Lah?” he asked.
Oh yes.
It was very understood.
I nodded.
“Please say the words, my queen,” he prompted.
“It is understood, Aramus.”
His fingers in my hair depressed in an affectionate squeeze as his arm about me tightened in the same manner.
“You do not wish my men to know you have this power,” he deduced.
“I…it is…”
“You did not wish me to know.”
I decided not to answer.
“It was wise of you, Ha-Lah. I sense I’ve only witnessed a hint of it and I still know your power is awesome. A thing of beauty. I do not know of another who wields it. And if it was known, it would be coveted. Coveted by those who would stop at nothing to possess the one who commands it. We will need to keep it, and you, safe.”
And again I felt like weeping.
For he understood.
“My closest men should know,” he decreed. “But we will talk, decide how to share, and when. Not now. We have other things to sort through, you and me.”
I nodded again.
When I finished, his thumb swept my cheek as his hand drew forward and he cupped my jaw.
All of this as his face got even closer.
“Do you forgive me?”
“Your temper is damaging,” I whispered.
This time, he nodded, and he did it solemnly.
“Indeed,” he agreed. “I have thought on this long and often during our travels here. It will be something I’ll endeavor greatly to work on, though I fear I must ask your patience with this as it is a part of me and thus might prove difficult to overcome.”
“You called me stupid in the tent,” I reminded him and watched his full lips twitch.
“My wife, my queen, my Ha-Lah, I woke, and you were gone.” He hesitated for emphasis and finished, “Swimming.”
I pulled my lips in and bit them.
Perhaps leaving him during that particular climate of our marriage, in this particular time on Triton, not long after a massive assault on the palace where we were staying, an attack where he lost a man he cared greatly for, was stupid.
“Mm,” he hummed, his eyes on my mouth, and I had a feeling he knew my thoughts.
I decided to change the subject.
“I need to be close to the sea, Aramus, for a few days.”
His eyebrows drew together as his gaze lifted to mine. “Of course. This is why we’re here.”
“What I mean is, I wish to stay. For a few days.”
“Of course, Ha-Lah, this is why we’re here.”
“I know that we shouldn’t linger,” I continued. “We should make moves to again join the others. I just need a few days.”
His hand at my jaw and his arm at my waist dragged me up his big body and he rumbled, “Ha-Lah, you listen close to words I wish you would not hear, and not to words I want you to hear. We will stay as long as you like. If you desired to be here a year, I’d allow it.”
I felt my eyes widen. “A year?”
“Well, perhaps not a year,” he muttered. “I have a kingdom to run.”
I smiled at him.
He grew still against me when I did.
Then I heard (and it must be said…felt) a sound that seemed to originate in his chest before it rolled out from between his lips.
And where I felt it was also at my chest.
As well as between my legs.
Which meant said legs trembled.
Kiss me, I begged with my eyes.
My husband was not looking in my eyes.
He was staring fixedly at my mouth.
Kiss me!
“We should get back,” he murmured, his body moving as if he’d let me go.
“Oh, for the sirens’ sakes,” I snapped, took my hands from his chest, latched on to his cheeks, yanked him down to me…
And I kissed him.
I barely had my lips to his before I had my back to the sand with the great, warm weight of my husband on top of me.
His tongue was plundering my mouth.
His big hands were shoved up my nightgown at my back.
And by all the bounty of the seas, he felt good.
He tasted good.
And he kissed magnificently.
I clutched his bald head in both hands, holding him to me, pressing up into his body.
He tore his mouth from mine, growling, “Sirens-bloody-dammit.”
Wait.
What?
Why had he stopped?
“Aramus?” I breathed.
“I’m not making love to my wife the first bloody time in the fucking sand,” he groused.
I shifted my hands to either side of his head and said urgently, “We’ll go back to the tent and we’ll go quickly.”
“I’m also not making love to my wife the first bloody time on a pallet in a tent with five hundred fucking soldiers camped close by.”
I clenched my teeth in frustration.
“It’s going to be you and me,” he declared.
“But—”
“Just you and me.”
That was very endearing.
However.
“It’s just you and me right now,” I pointed out.