“Des—”

His cheek pressed against the side of her face, his words raw. “And I will maim, injure—crush anyone that dares to see anything less than the true spirit of who you are. The true spirit I know you to be.”

He slid up into her, filling her, his fingers against her nubbin drawing her higher and higher with each stroke of his shaft. Each thrust reaching deeper into her body—into her soul—until she was glass, ready to shatter.

And still he drove into her, his arm around her middle, supporting her weight, as her body could no longer control the last vestiges of her muscles.

A ragged growl in her ear and he slammed up into her, reaching impossible depths, his body erupting.

She broke. Fracturing into a thousand pieces, her body no longer her own as the agonized release twisted, searing every nerve in her body.

He picked her fully up, clutching her to his chest as he moved to collapse in the chair. Her body cradled in his, her legs draped over the side of the chair.

Air in her lungs came back slowly, the heat of the fire, the heat of Des making the cold bath a distant memory.

Her head snugged onto his chest, she played with the back of his hand clasped onto her belly. Her fingertips traced a feather light circle around the crooked knuckle of his ring finger. The bones moved under his skin with the slightest touch—marrow that had broken and never fused back together.

She stared at the bumps in the skin. “What happened to it?”

His fingers twitched under her touch and his head dipped down, his lips burying into her damp hair. “The finger was yanked back, splitting the knuckle. Then I broke it against a jaw before it had healed. Then it was near to being set solidly back in place, but it was crushed under a boot. It was never the same after that.”

“Three blows and it was done?”

“Aye.”

“Does it hurt?”

He gave a slight shrug. “It is more a reminder now.”

The floating bones shifted under her finger. How she wished she could make it solid again. Mend the bones back in place for him.

She shifted her head back, looking up at him. “How is it that you have trusted me when I have not returned the same to you?”

He kissed her forehead. “I know what you’ve been through, Jules. That you are managing to live now with some semblance of normalcy is admirable.”

“You overestimate me, Des. Nothing is normal. On the street—in the shop today with you, I realized I still don’t feel normal—I don’t know if I ever will. Maybe I cannot even recognize normal anymore. On the ship with you, it was easy. But now, the stares of the people on the street—the shop girl—it’s as though they can see everything about me, everything I was, had to do to survive, and they’re sending me to hell with their eyes.”

Des exhaled a sigh. “I felt that same way—for a very long time—after I got off the warship. The things I’ve done—the men I’ve killed—all of it will send me to hell and I believed for the longest time everyone could see it in me.”

Her head tilted upward to look at his profile. “Does it go away, that constant gnawing of fear that people will see the darkness inside of me?”

“Not completely, but it did ease. It helped once I realized that everyone—every single person—is more worried about themselves than of me, a complete stranger. They have their own sins to hide. There are people that know my past and have not judged me for it—Captain Folback, Wes, Johnson. Beyond that, no one cares. People don’t look that deeply unless they need to.”

She nodded against his bare chest. “I pray you’re right.” She pulled her head away from him and sat up, looking at him squarely. “I need to show it to you.”

“Show me what?”

“The box. I need to trust you as much as you trust me. You have never once asked to see it after I told you about it. Never once went looking for it.”

“How do you know I didn’t search the ship top to bottom for it?”

Both of her eyebrows cocked. “Did you?”

He chuckled. “No. I jest.”

Her fingertips swatted against his chest. “Don’t scare me like that—I like the Des I know, not one I have to be suspicious of—not like every other person around me.”

His thumb slipped under her palm and his fingers curled around her hand. “That is the one you have—always.”