We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya 2)
“With Kifah,” he answered, and closed the door behind her, closing away the entire world. Every last worry over Lana and the Lion and the Jawarat faded away, replaced by a burn low in her stomach.
He paused, realizing the same with a shallow breath, and stepped past her.
Before the window, he handed her two pieces of supple calfskin, a cross between socks and shoes. His sleeve shifted with the movement, and when he didn’t bother to conceal the teardrop tattoo as quickly as he once did, she felt … She didn’t know what she felt, but it was stirred with fear.
A kind of fear she craved.
“Can you climb?”
She looked out and the desert cold bit at her nose, the stars clear and bright and real enough to grasp. Silhouetted buildings rose into the night, as vigilant as the owls she sometimes saw in the Empty Forest. They were a good two or three stories off the ground, but she shrugged against the thrum in her blood. “Of course. The first rule is don’t look down, laa?”
“Looking down is half the fun,” Nasir scoffed, but there was a strain to his voice that heightened her awareness.
“Fun. You.” She almost laughed.
He turned to her abruptly, caging her between the wall and the heat of his body. Her limbs ceased to function. Myrrh and amber twined when he lowered his head the barest fraction, his mouth so close to hers that her lips buzzed and her head spun.
The right of his mouth lifted. “I can be lots of fun, Zafira.”
She swallowed at the lazy drawl of her name, and his eyes darkened as they traced the shift of her throat. She wanted to fight the wicked grin off his mouth with her own, aware of the sway in her body, threatening to pitch forward and close the distance between them.
“This is all I’ve been able to think about. You. Us. Those damning words,” he said softly, his voice liquid darkness.
“You said them,” Zafira breathed.
“I take them back.”
“Is that how you say you’re sorry?”
“I can get on my knees for you, fair gazelle,” he whispered against her cheek, “if that is what you wish.”
This was not Sharr. This was a room with a locked door and a half-dressed prince and a bed just a small shove away. The air simmered with his dangerous words, with her errant thoughts and the tension making it hard to breathe.
“I measure fun by the pound of my pulse.” His low voice dropped even lower. Rougher. “Do you feel it?”
He trailed the backs of his fingers up her wrist, skeins of shadow following like smoke after a flame, and dipped his head, touching his mouth to the inside of her elbow with a ragged breath.
Her throat was dry. “This isn’t fun. This is … this…”
Skies, what were words? He hummed softly, almost in answer.
What would it be like to let go? To ignore caution and live this moment without restraint?
“You learn to take what you can get,” he murmured, then hefted himself onto the sill and out of sight.
Zafira sagged against the wall.
Sweet snow below.
Her arm was ablaze. How was it that a handful of rough words and a trimming of distance could make her limbs buckle like a newborn fawn’s? She gulped fistfuls of air. What was the daama point of climbing up there anyway? It took her three tries to tug on the slightly-too-big slippers, and then she pulled herself onto the ledge just in time to catch him crawling spider-like to the top. He leaped, disappearing from view.
She had half a mind to slip back and climb into bed—her bed. She growled.
Engrossed.
With a steadying breath, she grabbed the jutting curves of stone and pulled herself up, relieved when her toes found purchase. Don’t look down. She grabbed the next stone and climbed up another notch, nearly losing her grip when Nasir poked his head over the side again.
“Dawn will get here before you do,” he mock-whispered.