Page 10 of The Ocean's Heart
Not me.
I reach for the waistband of my pants just as she peeks from beneath the furs. I expect her to look away, but she stares blatantly. I arch a brow, and she arches one back.
“Well?” she says. “Are…we…doing this…or not? I’m not…getting…any…warmer…”
A surprised laugh huffs out of me. I pull down my pants to reveal my underwear, constricting human attire, and—wait, is that disappointment in her pretty eyes?
Had she wanted to see my cock?
No. She’s a princess. A sheltered lady of refinement who has been through a terrible ordeal. She’s frightened. Understandably so. It is my responsibility to put her at ease.
“I won’t hurt you. Turn around and I’ll hold you and loan you my heat.”
Her gaze flicks up to meet mine, and there are questions swimming in her eyes, but she simply nods and turns away, burrowing beneath the furs.
I take a breath and cross the room to join her.
I cannot recall the last time I lay with a woman. Too long if the quiver in my lungs is anything to go by. Her sweet floral scent fills my head. Her skin is smooth and soft but cold as ice.
She sucks in a breath as I press my chest to her back and pull her against me. I curl my large frame around her smaller one, cradling her to me, and her stiff body relaxes against me inch by inch.
A sob breaks from her lips. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you so much.”
I rest my chin on her head and breathe evenly and deeply until her shivers ebb and her breath echoes mine. We lie like this for long minutes, silence pressing in on us until her breath deepens and I know she’s fallen asleep.
My eyelids grow heavy, and I stifle a yawn. When is the last time I slept with a woman? Too long.
Much too long.
* * *
I openmy eyes to the princess’s green gaze fringed in thick, inky lashes. This close, I can make out the flecks of gold in her irises. She’s turned in my arms, and a layer of furs separates our bodies now. Her warm brown skin gleams in the candlelight, lips blushed with color, parted to reveal the edge of even white teeth.
My heart skips a beat, yearning twisting my gut for the first time in a century. I want this woman viscerally, primally. I haven’t wanted a woman like that in over a hundred years.
I clear my throat before speaking to ensure a steady tone. It would not do to communicate my desires to this woman. “You’re warm now?”
She nods, and I can’t deny the pang of disappointment that grips me because there is no cause for me to hold her any longer. I make to slip from the bed, and she reaches for me before catching herself.
“I…I’m sorry.” I catch the flash of confusion in her pretty eyes before she masks it.
“Don’t be.” I climb out from beneath the furs and began to dress with my back to her. I care not for modesty. Nudity is nothing to be ashamed of, but human customs are different, and now that the princess is no longer a shivering wreck, it serves to reassert a little decorum. “You’ve had a shock. What the marauders did to you…”
“My people…?”
“All dead, I’m afraid.” I turn to face her, fully dressed now. “Even the cowards that abandoned ship on a rowboat.”
Her face freezes. “What?”
Ah, she was not aware of the desertion, then. “My men found the remains of the boat and the partially eaten bodies of the absconders.”
Her mouth trembles before she presses her lips together. “No survivors? A woman?”
“All my scouts found were…pieces…It is impossible to tell if there was a woman among them, Princess.”
Her head whips up and she blinks sharply. “I…I was supposed to go with them, but they left…left without me.”
“They betrayed you.” A sour taste fills my mouth. “And they paid with their lives. I am sorry I did not arrive in time to save your virtue.”
