“You’re so young,” he breathed. “Gods, I didn’t mean to put you under such pressure, especially in front of the children—”
“Stop, Ruler Kreed,” she cut him off. “You didn’t pressure me.”
“But this isn’t what you want,” he said. “I should have courted you, given you flowers and romance, not put you on the spot when you just had a blaster pointed at you.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve had a blaster pointed at me,” she reminded him quietly.
It wasn’t. And they hadn’t even really talked about it.
She was right, he needed to slow down.
“How are you feeling?” he asked her, kneeling at her feet for the second time that evening. “About Jenx and everything that happened.”
“I still won’t carry a blaster,” she said thoughtfully. “But I feel… better. Tonight helped me see how important family is. When I killed that boy back in the service, the people I saved by doing it, they were all important to someone, important to me. They had kids, parents, friends and loved ones back home. Seeing Pia and Jax in his hold like that…”
She trailed off, but he understood her perfectly.
“Anyway, I still don’t like the idea of killing anyone,” she said. “But I’m glad Thomm took him out before he could hurt you.”
“I don’t know how you’ll feel about this,” Ba’sh said carefully. “But my last comm of the evening was from the hospital where Jenx was taken. He’s going to make it.”
“He’s alive?” she breathed.
“When he’s physically well enough to leave the hospital, he’ll be going to a facility where they can help him work on getting mentally well,” Ba’sh told her.
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, looking relieved.
“I was glad, too,” he said thoughtfully. “It surprised me to feel like that.”
“You’re a good man, Ruler Kreed,” she said fondly, smiling at him.
“You know you can call me Ba’sh, right?” he teased.
“Ba’sh,” she tested his name softly.
It sounded good in her mouth.
“I’m not afraid to commit to you, Ba’sh,” she told him. “I just don’t ever want to do something that would hurt you or the children.”
“Are you sure that’s all?” he asked.
She cocked her head quizzically at him.
“Thinking about it?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Would you take your circlet off? Please.”
A frisson of awareness shot through him.
He lifted his hands to his forehead and slowly slid his circlet off, placing it on her bedside table.
He felt her excitement flowing into him the minute it was off.
She leaned in and he met her halfway, pressing his forehead to hers.
Joy and longing shot through him, so similar to his own that he was almost uncertain at first as to whether he was feeling her emotions or she was amplifying his.
“You and your family mean everything to me,” she whispered, as he saw her fantasy in his mind, the four of them together, his ring on her finger. “You are more than I ever dreamed of, more than I deserve—”
He stopped her with a kiss, before she could say more foolish things.
She melted into him, and he felt her bliss at the same time he tasted her sweetness - like Ambeerian pears and pleasure flowing into him, ratcheting up his own desire until he was practically panting with it after a simple kiss.
“Yasmine,” he whispered, pulling back. “We don’t have to spend the night together. We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”
But she pulled him close again, her fingers working at the slide on his cloak.