The look in her eyes was so intense that he thought his heart was going to stop.
“Get. Off,” she hissed. Her body was rigid. He must have misinterpreted that split-second look. For a sliver of an instant he could have sworn—
“Sorry,” he said. He pushed himself up. “Good catch,” he said again. Did she cling to him just for a moment there? Did her body rise with him, keeping the contact for just one moment more? He looked at her.
The sun was baking the bay and had been for the last two days. Gavin had stripped off his shirt to cool down immediately, and after modestly sweating through the first day, Karris had followed his lead on the second, wearing only her tight Blackguard’s chemise. The sight of her on her back, lean stomach exposed, legs on either side of him, skin radiant from golden sun and sweat—his breath stopped, thoughts scattered. He tried not to—failed—looked at her breasts.
Briefly, but she noticed.
Gavin could hear his imprisoned brother’s voice, sudden, sharp: ‘So you’d take this, too, huh, brother? Make love with her, as if you were me? You want to hear her scream my name when she’s in the throes of passion?’
If she were any other woman, he would force the moment to its crisis: he would kiss her right now and let her decide. She wanted to say no? Fine, to hell with her. He’d move on. Or, more likely, she’d say yes, and he’d bed her and leave her with a smile on her face—but leave her. At least he’d do something.
Karris was the only woman who paralyzed him.
He remembered lying beside her in her room in her father’s house, so long ago. He remembered kissing that breast, caressing her body, talking as the dawn approached. They’d made love half a dozen times through the night, urgency and passion winning through the awkwardness of inexperience. He had to be gone before her maid came to wake her in the morning.
They’d both known their romance was doomed, even then, even as the children they’d been. “I’ll come for you,” Dazen had promised.
He’d come back as he’d sworn, and she’d been gone—taken away by her father, though he hadn’t known it then; he’d thought she had betrayed him—and her brothers had ambushed him. And he’d started the fire that killed them all: brothers, servants, slaves, children, treasures, hope.
“I’ve done you many wrongs,” Gavin said now. He stood. “And I regret every one of them. I’m sorry.”
He extended a hand to Karris, to help her stand. He thought she was going to refuse for a moment, but then she took his hand, popped to her feet, and didn’t release his hand. She stood close, but her proximity was a challenge. “Do you want to specify what you’re asking my pardon for?”
At Garriston, she’d said, ‘I know your big secret, you asshole.’ And slapped him.
Which hadn’t actually clarified that much. He’d kept a lot of secrets over the years, and whatever she thought she knew could be leagues away from the worst truth. His central secret had necessitated all sorts of other ones over the years.
And by secrets, I mean lies.
So how cold are you, Gavin? How committed to your goal? You’ve killed for it before. Can you do it again?
They were hundreds of leagues away from the nearest Chromeria spy. If Gavin told Karris the whole truth and she swore to expose him or ruin him, he could kill her.
Simple. Easy.
In a fair fight, she’d have a fair chance against him. Her Blackguard training had made her quite a weapon. But there was no fair fight against a Prism.
“I’m just sorry,” Gavin said. He looked away.
She didn’t let go of his hand. She clamped down on it until he met her fiery gaze. “It’s not an apology if you won’t take responsibility. If you can’t even name what you’re apologizing for, you’ve given me nothing. You will not buy absolution on the cheap, not after what you’ve done. Not from me.”
Gavin tried to take his hand back. She refused to let go.
“Let go, or swim,” Gavin said coldly.
She let go.
Damn woman. She made him so furious. More furious because she was right. Damn her!
But he couldn’t kill her, and he knew it. He’d let the world burn down first.
She picked up the luxin tube he’d been using to place charges and handed it to him. “Five more charges should finish the channel,” she said. “But we’ll have to hurry to get it done before low tide. Then we can work on the seawall footings.”
They worked until there was no longer enough light in the sky for Gavin to draft. Karris steadied the boat, and made the forms, and made sure that they were keeping within the lines they’d planned.