Page 38 of Protected By the Convicts
“How?”
“I just will. I have no choice, if I want you.” He pressed his hips to hers, letting her know how much he wanted her, even though his need for her went beyond sex. “But when you are with me, I will have you all to myself. I will not share you when we are alone.”
“And the sound won’t bother you? If I’m with another? Or all three?”
“Ren said he would make earplugs for me.”
“That could work, I suppose. Maybe Vaughn could—”
“I’ve had enough of the doctor’s sedatives.”
She smiled just then, slight, but genuine. It was nice being the cause of her smiling instead of her worry for a change. “My love for you has not changed,” Ky’Li added, to reassure her. “Only the circumstances in how I may show it.”
“I feel like I’ve failed you somehow.”
He traced the line of her jaw down to her very delicate neck. His sha’vi was so very fragile in some ways and as strong as a soldier in others. She had such a capacity to love. He could not fault her for that. It wasn’t a choice she’d made. She’d come to care for the other men, even love them. He’d seen this in the way she met their individual needs, becoming a source of strength for each man. It would be selfish of him to keep her from them, to tell her to deny who she was.
And yet, he wasn’t quite sure how well and how long he could tolerate sharing her with men who were still virtually strangers to him. Only Hannah connected them, nothing more.
“I have given this much thought, sha’vi. If we are to be a family, then all the men must go through a bonding ceremony. I must know I can trust them.”
Her smile grew as wide as a shift in the mines was arduously long. He’d surely been blessed by the gods to have such a sweet, loving, and fierce mate who fought for those she loved.
“I agree!”
“You haven’t heard what it entails.”
“I don’t care. I trust you. And if this will help you, then I want it.”
He chuckled. “It is a traditional ceremony on Daraan to bind men as brothers, to make the men responsible for one another in and outside of combat. I failed to do the ceremony with my squad. Perhaps if I had performed the ceremony with them, then I would not have failed them.”
She took his head in her hands. “You did not fail them, just as you will never fail me. I know this, Ky’Li. In my heart, I know this.”
“You could not know what happened—”
“I know it was meant to be. How else would you and I have found one another, Ky?”
He liked that. Perhaps she was right. “If you weren’t already mine, sha’vi, I’d take you all over again.”
She pressed her lips to his. Soft, sweet, and enough to make his blood race.
“Don’t let that stop you, pa’vi. Take me again. Please.”
