Page 91 of Cruel Hearts

“I promise I won’t.”

She kisses me again, and her embrace feels different. Softer. Maybe Nathalie’s words did something after all. Maybe she’s thinking of this morning when she let me make love to her.

Sex has never been just sex between us. No matter how rough, no matter how much she took to absorb my pain, we’ve always had a connection. Lost, broken souls.

That drifts around us now, as my fingers find her clit, as she clings to me, crying into my shoulder.

“I love you,” I whisper. She shudders, waves of pleasure crashing through her. “I love you so much, and I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you.”

She calms, and I pull my hand out of her panties and dry my fingers on my pants. Her scent mingles with the humidity in the air, and I’ll never forget tonight, how it feels to hold her as we balance on the precipice of the most dangerous days of our lives.

Things will change, and maybe not for the better. Lives could be lost, careers will be ruined. Men my father and I admired will go to prison.

Men like Mayor Huxley will fall. Powerful men, not only in King’s Crossing, and God only knows who they’ll drag down with them.

The city lays sprawled before me.

All my life I’ve been on top.

Tonight, even holding Stella in my arms, I have never felt so low.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Stella

Zane carries me to bed. I’m out of it enough to hope he’s bringing me to the Honeymoon Suite, but conscious enough to dread it, too. I’m too lonely to want the distance I need. He finds the room Quinn’s sleeping in and lays me down on the queen bed next to hers.

He sits on the edge and rubs his thumb over my bottom lip. I keep my eyes closed. Somehow, I sense Zane needs a few moments alone. It’s hard to explain the tension, and when he kisses my cheek and leaves, I relax.

Because we all agreed to trust each other, we’re keeping our doors propped open, blocked by the security bar at the top of the doorjambs. We can’t hide anything from each other, and it’s easier to trust the people I don’t know. I like Mel and her no-nonsense attitude. I feel sorry for Nathalie. Living under Ash’s control has been hard on her, and I’m ashamed Zane didn’t look closer at the kind of life she led. He trusted Ash, and that’s as far as it went with him.

Having blind faith isn’t a crime, and as long as he knows now, he’ll fight to keep Ash and his father from hurting anyone else ever again. After things settle down, I’ll need to decide if my love for him, and his for me, is enough to cancel out the past.

I hope it will be. Nathalie said he missed me. Well, I’ve missed him too.

Quinn whimpers in her sleep. She’s reclining in bed, a mountain of pillows supporting her, and her arm is braced in the sling. She liked the clothes Mel ordered, her eyes widening at the expensive designer labels. I elbowed her and mouthed “Real ones,” and she laughed. Mel was curious by what I meant, tilting her head in bemusement, a puzzled smile on her face, and I hope Quinn’s...career choice doesn’t affect what we do here.

Her prescriptions are arranged on top of a dresser across the room, and I open a bottle and slide a pain pill onto my palm. I wiggle the pill past her lips and tip a glass of water to her mouth. She barely rouses long enough to swallow it and she’s out again before I can set the glass down on the nightstand.

I’m nervous about tomorrow night, but Ash thinking I’m dead is the smartest thing we can do right now. I can’t help if I’m hiding, and I haven’t done so well protecting myself. Ash is tenacious and has the resources to never stop hunting me down.

Barefoot, I pad down the hallway toward the Honeymoon Suite. Zane chose the luxurious room hoping he and I would share it on the nights he slept at the hotel. I want to, and I let myself in. His door is blocked open like everyone else’s, and his sleeping form is a small lump on the massive, canopied bed.

I stand near the footboard and listen to him breathe. I debate for half a second and then slip under the heavy bedspread next to him.

Zane folds me into his arms and buries his face in my hair. His easy acceptance brings tears to my eyes. I’m full of judgment and recrimination, and he simply loves me.

“Are you okay?” he asks sleepily. “Can I get you anything?”

“Just you,” I say.

He hugs me tighter. There isn’t sex in his embrace, only reassurance things will be okay, a solace I greedily accept. I wiggle in his arms, trying to get closer, though the only way we could be is if he joined us, pushing into me and turning our two broken hearts into one.

If I sought his lips in the dark, if my hand found his cock, he would give himself to me, but he’s giving himself to me now, in a different way. A more important way. I force myself to relax and go to sleep. Tomorrow, and every day after, will be long and difficult. I need to be rested and alert.

Ash wants me dead, and Zane can’t keep me safe forever.

I’m so tired, it doesn’t matter how worried I am, and I’m waking up before I realize I fell asleep.

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