Page 94 of Unrequited

My sweet, sweet girl.

“When you left… I thought you were using me. I thought you were just… just trying to get to my family. I thought I was a pawn. That you didn’t really want me.”

I stay silent, even though I want to beg her forgiveness. But she needs to speak. She needs this, and I owe her every word.

Of course she felt that. Of course she doubted.

“Even on my wedding day… when I agreed to the arrangement,” she goes on, “I told myself I’d only fallen in love with an image of you. That it wasn’t real. That I was just some foolish girl…”

Oh, Zoya. She's twisting that knife, and she doesn’t even know it.

I nod slowly and hold her tighter to me. “Yes, angel. Go on.”

“You came to me that night,” she continues. “The night before my wedding. And I… I still thought it was a game. That you were playing me. That you were clearing the board for your family.”

She swallows hard. “And then you took me. And married me.”

She looks up at me, her voice a whisper, her face shattered. “Even then, Seamus… even then, I wasn’t sure. I still had doubts. I still wondered…”

Her words fall from her lips like a confession, raw, ragged, and aching.

Her heartbeat slows beneath my palm. My hand is perfectly cupped right between her breasts, where I can feel it. My thumb and forefinger curve around her side, instinctive, protective. I want to hear that steady, comforting beat under my touch.

“Now there's not a doubt in my mind,” she says, with no hesitation. “Not a doubt that you loved me. Not a doubt that you ever wanted me. I know now. I know you wanted me. That you waited for me. That you broke out of a damn prison for me.” She sniffs. “And I know, Seamus.” She says it soft. Steady. “I know that you love me as much as I love you.”

I want to burn this moment into my memory. Me, with her. Holding her. Tucking her against my chest like she belongs there.

This… this feels like the edge of heaven.

But I can feel the tug, the fear of losing her. Of losingthis.Raw vulnerability.

Certainty.

Something's going to drag me under, any second.

“I love you, Seamus.”

But before I can respond, before I can breathe, a sharp sound slices through the air.

Chapter 18

ZOYA

I should move,I want to move, but my limbs are limp. Jelly. I'm locked in place by the echo of that sound.

Then he moves, fast, out of bed in a blur. One finger pointed at me like a warning shot. His eyes burn.

“You stay right there, Zoya. You hear me? I'm not fucking around.”

His voice isn't the lover’s voice I know, the one that rasps into my skin, the one that begs and whispers and curses when he’s inside me.

No, this is the commander.

This is the man people fear. The man they whisper about when they think he isn't listening. But I don’t fear him. I never have. Because I know exactly what he is. What he’ll do to protect me.

I swallow hard and nod. My throat is dry, but my voice is steady.

“I know how to use a gun,” I say.