Page 69 of Kingmakers, Year Two

Then when we’re finally alone and I can give into it, his touch on my skin is far beyond pleasure—it’s all the way to necessity. I have to have it. The more I get, the more I want.

We haven’t had sex. We both know that would be crossing a serious line. My marriage contract states that I will arrive at my wedding night a virgin, and I don’t think the Princes will be lenient on that point. So we dance around it, kissing and touching each other, with Miles often repeating what he did to me in the library, sometimes three or four times over until my whole body thrums like a music note, until even the air against my skin feels as orgasmic as his tongue between my legs.

It’s not just physical—the more we sneak away together, the more addicted to his company I become.

I don’t know what I imagined dating would be like, having never done it before. I suppose I thought it was sex, or formal conversations over dinner. I never imagined it could be fun and playful, like being with Cat or Chay and Anna, but even better, because the laughter and conversation is strung through with this bright thread of attraction, with a rabid interest in each other that’s intoxicating, that makes time melt away like sugar in water.

Sometimes we meet up with Leo and Anna to play music and dance around together like we’re forming our own tiny nightclub.

Sometimes I show Miles the project I like to work on in my spare time, the thing that I’ve never shown anybody before, not even Cat.

It’s a story. Only it’s written like a play, with dialogue. There’s long descriptive passages, too. It’s about a girl who sees the future, but can’t seem to change the outcome of events, no matter how hard she tries.

I was embarrassed to show him. I only did because he asked me straight out, saying, “What’s that thing you’re always writing?”

“What do you mean?” I said, honestly not thinking about the story. I wouldn’t have thought that Miles had noticed me working on it.

“In that green notebook,” Miles said. “I know it isn’t schoolwork, because you’re never looking at your textbooks and you always hunch over it like it’s secret.”

My face went hot, realizing what he was talking about. There was no denying it when I was blushing so hard.

I showed him the story, saying, “It’s silly, I just work on it to blow off steam. I don’t even know what it is.”

Miles read through twenty pages, focused and unsmiling, until I couldn’t stand the suspense and I snatched it back out of his hands.

“That’s enough,” I said. “Like I told you, it’s silly.”

“It’s not silly,” Miles said, fixing me with his clear gray eyes. “It’s fascinating. You’re talented, Zoe.”

I shook my head, not able to keep looking at him. “It’s nothing. Not even a proper story.”

“It’s not a story,” Miles said. “It’s a script.”

“Like a movie script?” I laughed. “Something has to become a movie before it can be a script.”

“That’s backwards.” Miles smiled at me.

“I mean . . . there has to be some intention for it to be a movie.”

“Itshouldbe a movie,” Miles said. “I’d watch it.”

“You’re just flattering me.”

“No I’m not.” He was serious again, taking the notebook back from me, wanting to read more. “I know when something’s good and when it’s not. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

His compliment meant more to me than any I’d received before. I believed Miles when he said he wouldn’t lie. I believed that he was a good judge.

He’s smart. So fucking smart. I hadn’t realized it before. I’d only ever seen bits and pieces of Miles, never when he was engaged in his actual interests. I’d only seen the Miles who was bored by his classes, or slacking off in theQuartum Bellum.When he actually cares about something, he’s got incredible focus.

Now he’s turning that focus on me, and it’s almost frightening. I’ve discovered this completely different person who intimidates me.

He tells me all about his side businesses.

His distribution network for contraband is shockingly complex. It’s not as easy as bribing the fishermen and the shoremen to smuggle things in on the supply ships. He’s got an entire interlocking web of barter, including contacts in Dubrovnik, Tirana, and Bari, who source the items and handle payment to the hundred-odd people involved.

“How do you keep track of all this?” I demand.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Miles says. “It’s the way my brain works. I can see the system as a whole, with all the little junction points. Each of those points is one person, each with a problem and a solution. When you interconnect them all perfectly, the system feeds itself.”

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