Page 46 of Ruthless Scoundrel
What have I done?
Chapter thirteen
Jasper
Reina is curled against my chest and for all the contentment it brings me, there’s fear tenfold. She called me her mate inmytongue. She couldn’t have known what it meant. Very few Ki’ah Ohn know our language, and the princess is definitely not one of them.
In my haze of Heat, I called her my mate, but it was the word a male uses for his female. She used the word that a female calls her male. While they’re similar enough, I sense it’s not coincidence.
How?
Reina stirs in my arms and I inhale her scent to calm myself. My Heat is abating, thankfully, and I’ll be able to think clearly soon enough.
I’ve never experienced one before. Twenty-three rotations on Gaien and I never once entered a Heat. I’ve been near more than my fair share of female selkies on deep-sea expeditions after hitting mating age, but yet still—nothing.
And Reina isn’t even a selkie. How could she be my mate?
“Jas-per,” Reina moans in her sleep, and the sound has me questioning whether the Heat is actually over. It makes me want to feast on her again, then sink down into her and lay claim to what is mine.
No.
Not mine.
My bounty. My prize. The thing I will trade for my people’s safety.
Reina is a means to my ends and nothing more.
But the yearning in the pit of my stomach says otherwise. In my head I know what she is, but in my body, in the basest part of my being, she is more.
It’s still dark and I don’t want to wake her. We’re no longer chained together so I run my hand down her arm to soothe her instead.
“Ohksa…n…mai,” she mumbles, and then her breathing drops down into relaxation.
My cock throbs at her unconscious admission. I want to wake her and tell her she’s my mate. I want to tell her this is just a bait and switch, that I don’t intend to sell her—that Iwon’tlet her stay that vile bastard’s captive.
Reina moans and I realize just how hard I’m holding her hip. When I release her, she rolls into me, punching the air from my lungs as she snuggles into my chest.
Asleep, she trusts me—knows me, even. How many days has it been? Five? Five days and I think this woman is my mate. Five days and she’s calling out my name in her sleep, begging for comfort. Five days and she let me feast on her.
I still have the taste of her arousal on my lips.
The gods have damned me.
I drop my head into her hair and breathe. I hate that it calms me. I hate that she’s more than just a bounty. More than just bait I’ll use. It makes me not want to use her.
The air whispers through my nose, bringing her dulcet scent into my body.
Tomorrow.
This is a tomorrow problem.
I need to sleep now.
Tomorrow comes too soon, and I’m not ready to deal with the consequences of my actions. Reina doesn’t seem ready to deal with them, either.
We work silently as we dismantle our shelter and eat the remaining fish and coconuts from last night. If we have to exchange words, they’re all brief, and emotionless.
This is for the best. We can just distance ourselves from each other and that’ll be fine. I shouldn’t have tackled her to the ground and eaten her pussy like I was starving at a buffet. She shouldn’t have called me her mate in my tongue while I was in Heat. So we’re even.
