I kissed his shoulder. Lorcan blew out a long breath.
“Is there a reason you don’t want to…with me?” I asked, because if so, I need to stop pretending my plan will work. Any plan. All of them.
Failure clawed at me.
“Want to, what?”
“Have sex. With me. Am I too”—what’s the right word? Ugly?—“unappealing?”
I squeezed my eyes closed against the memory of myself in the mirror at River Bend.
He slumped, pinning me against the rock wall of the cave.
“Please don’t tell me you think that.”
I didn’t say anything. I wish I had my real clothes on. I wish my eyes didn’t sting. I wish a lot of things.
“It’s just that you keep saying no.”
Only to me. Not to anyone else.
“Zosia, a couple of weeks ago, you had a panic attack in my kitchen when we tried to do this. Today was good progress.”
Good progress is not going to get me pregnant, though. This is my one shot at having a family, securing my succession, and keeping a piece of him with me, before Lorcan is out of my life for good. There’s no time for incremental progress.
It’s not lost on me that what I want to do to him—use him for breeding stock—wasn’t so different from what Bashir would have done to me. Except I won’t hurt Lorcan in the process. He doesn’t even have to know. All I need is for him to be as careless as he was all last winter. I know he’s not taking contraceptive teas. I’d have seen them at his house. Assuming he overheard Dr. Wen, there’s no reason for him to be worried about getting me pregnant.
Gods damn it all, at least let metry. If it doesn’t work, I can accept that. But I can’t accept not making an attempt. My vision swam.
Lorcan ran one hand down my arm and kissed my shoulder.
“Let’s end this on a high note? Try again tomorrow?”
I swallowed my disappointment and tried to ignore my growing suspicion that there’s something he isn’t telling me. I’m sick of doubting him, and of feeling like the last woman in Auralia who hasn’t had sex.
I should just find someone else to do this with.
Except, now I’m painted. If I understand the significance right, it’s akin to being married. I’m sure that would be frowned upon.
He totally planned this. Lorcan is uncannily good at cutting off every exit before I think to look for them.
“You haven’t finished painting me,” he said with a soft smile.
I laughed, relieved that he hadn’t told me outright that I was too hideous to want to fuck properly. There was hope for me yet. “True.”
Finding the paint bowl, I advancing at him, pretending to attack. As if I would stand a chance against a trained assassin.
Lorcan feinted, picked me up and threw me onto the bed. I smeared paint everywhere and came up giggling. Ten minutes later, he had my handprints on his hips, disappearing into his pants. On his thighs. On his forearms. They look so small.
Marks of possession.Mine.For a little while. My heart squeezed.
None of this is real.
There will always be another Masika leading Lorcan off into a dark corner, a Tahra he won’t send away, a maid in our chambers willing to lift her skirts. He belongs to everyone, now. One argument between us—hardly an uncommon occurrence—and he’d have a hundred women lining up to comfort the poor beleaguered Auralian king, no matter how much infidelity is frowned upon.
Whatever it is about me that he finds too off-putting to complete the act, hasn’t been a problem for him with anyone else. It’s me. I’m the problem, which is why no matter how hard he’s been trying to convince me otherwise, I remain certain he would stray in a heartbeat. I have no trust for him to win.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
