Chapter 16

Julian

It's been a long time since I've had a lover. Longer still since I've trusted someone enough to bare my scars to their gaze. To stay in bed with them after. To relish every rise and fall of their chest against mine.

Cricket has scaled my walls just as he scaled that building the night we first met. I can't get enough of him. He's cuddled into my side like a sleepy puppy. If I don't rise soon, he'll be drooling like one too. We'll fall asleep like this, all sticky and sweaty.

I kiss his crown, damp hair against my lips. "Darling?"

"Mmphf?"

"Let me up." I pat his bottom, then smile to myself because I have bottom-patting privileges now. "And I'll clean us off."

"S'fine." He cuddles in closer.

It most decidedly is not.

We'll be much happier come morning if we wash off before sleeping. I wriggle out from under his sleep-heavy form with very little help from him and grab the sponge from our bath. Once rinsed clean in cool water, I add a bit of my periwinkle oil and rub it in.

I wash him first, one long stroke at a time, while he arches and preens under my touch. His eyes flutter open. He grins, turning this way and that so I can do a thorough job of sorting him out.

How comfortable he is in his own skin. Naked. Well fucked. Perhaps not as sleepy as I thought. The little vixen is biting his lip and batting his lashes at me.

I've never been that comfortable in my skin, even before my capture and especially not after. Cricket watches me as I tend to myself, and though I'm trying not to be self-conscious, my skin crawls under the scrutiny of another's gaze. Even to Cricket's gaze, I'm not immune.

He said he doesn't care about the scars, but I've seen them. They're gruesome. A twisted, gnarled patch of discolored skin where bones were wrenched from sockets and skin hacked through like meat.

I shiver. I miss my wings, strong, gleaming black and iridescent like an oil slick, towering over my head at rest and beating in flight, carrying me soaring on air currents. The freedom they brought me, along with my magic, had made me think myself invincible.

All that is no more.

"Come back to bed, Jules."

I'd gotten lost in dark thoughts again. Easy for me to do. Cricket's sitting up, expression full of concern, reaching for me. I summon a clean tunic to my body to cover the worst of it. The fabric over my flesh helps. A barrier between the world and my pain.

If it bothers Cricket, he doesn't say. Nor does he reach for his clothes, only me. I go to him, and he welcomes me with kisses.

"I'm awake now," he says. "Shall I put my mouth to good use?" He raises his brows and licks his lips.

Laughter helps divorce me from my darker mood. "Insatiable, are you?"

"Generally? No. For you? Yes." His warm hand lands on my neck and drags me in for another kiss. "But it can wait until morning if you're ready for sleep."

"I think I am."

"Me too." He sits up excitedly. "Oh! Except, well, I've been thinking?—"

"Uh-oh." This does not seem like "ready for sleep."

He grins and flicks my knee. "It's nothing bad. I've been thinking I shouldn't hoard the coin for myself any longer."

His words slam into my chest like a punch. "What?"

"I'm not giving it to you, mind. But there's no reason we can't share it." He climbs off the bed, plucks one of his boots from the floor, and draws out the coin.

The coin we're going to share.

The one I need to steal.

Oh, Cricket, not now. Not when things are so wonderful between us. Don't make me ruin everything.

"I'm going to help you." He crawls back onto the bed and practically into my lap, shiny gold coin in hand.

My pulse races. "What do you mean?"

"With your mission. I'm going to help."

No, no, Cricket! Don't involve yourself in my mess."I don't want your help."

"We're a team now. Teammates help each other." He places the coin on my knee—the same spot he flicked a moment ago when we were still lovers—and holds his hand over it. "You're not going to take it and run off, right?"

Breath seizes in my throat. "Right," I lie, and my heart seizes next.

He lifts his hand, leaving the coin on my knee.

He's going to regret that.

And I'm going to regret this.

Cricket's sweet smile melts me into a puddle. "I trust you."

You shouldn't.