Caspian squeezed his eyes shut.
I brought a hand to his face. “This doesn’t scare me.Youdon’t scare me.”
“I should.” He wrapped the towel around my body.
“Have you seen my feet?” I chuckled and glanced at my battered toes. “Apparently, ballerinas are masochists.”
After I’d dried my skin and patted the towel over my damp hair, I climbed in bed next to Caspian, who had been lying with one hand behind his head and the covers pulled up to his waist like he belonged there.
This was my haven—this house, this room. Aside from dancing, this was my escape. Sometimes I opened the balcony doors and let the sound of the night air and the ocean drift into my room and lull me to sleep.
This was the only room in the house without agreeable gray painted on the walls—the ones that weren’t covered in white shiplap, anyway. As soon as I’d moved in, I chose a soft blue-green to offset the white furniture in the room. Sheer, white curtains billowed in the breeze while my gray and white pin-tucked comforter kept me warm.
This was my sanctuary.
And I was sharing it with Caspian.
He stretched out his other arm, offering me a place to rest my head.
I laid on his shoulder. “You mean you’re actually staying this time?” His body tensed at my words, so I wrapped my arm around his waist and looked over at him with a smile. “Relax. I’m kidding.”
I’d long since gotten over the fact that he’d left me to sleep alone that night.
The tension left his body as he pulled me closer. “I told you everything I did, I did for you, and I meant it. You weren’t ready for me.” He moved his hand and trailed a finger over the bite mark and scratches that tainted my skin. “Forthis.” He shook his head. “Not then, at least.”
Could I have handled him at sixteen?
Part of me felt like I was made for this, made for him, and that I could have handled him at any age. Another part wondered if he might have been right.
“As long as I don’t wake up to a tray of fruit and a morning after pill, we’re good.”
His eyebrows shot up.
I smiled. “Yeah. I figured that out too.” It took me a while. Over two years, to be exact. When I’d first gotten on the pill, my doctor explained all the different courses of action to me, and I knew then what Caspian had done to prevent me from getting pregnant at sixteen.
When I’d first learned what he’d done, anger pulled at every part of me. I hated him for taking away my right to choose. I grieved the possibility of a new life being ripped from my grasp without me ever knowing. If I had gotten pregnant, would I have kept it? The thought weighed on my mind for months until reality sank in, and I knew the answer.
No.
My father would never have allowed it.
A pregnant teenage daughter would have been a disgrace to our family. Having his daughter carry the child of his enemy’s son would have been even worse.
Caspian did me a courtesy. He knew it then. I knew it now.
“You’re on birth control now,” he said.
“How did you—” Of course, he knew. Somehow, he knew everything.
He smirked. “I saw it on your bathroom counter when I was running your bath.”
Oh.
It felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from my chest, and I could finally breathe. Peace settled within me. We’d made so much progress. So many of my questions had been answered. Now we could finally walk away from the past and toward our future.
His fingertip brushed over my nipple. “If you’re finished with your trip down memory lane...” He ran his hand down my side, over my stomach, finally placing it over my pussy. “…I’d love it if this hot little cunt would come over here and keep my dick warm.”
***
The morning sun flooded the room with light, and the warmth of a naked body pressed against mine from behind. I eased from under his arm draped over my waist and rolled out of bed. If I thought my body was sore before last night, it was nothing compared to how it felt now.
I watched Caspian sleep. Peaceful features smoothed his usual guarded expression, and his chest rose and fell with a calming ease. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and captured the moment with my camera, then slipped on a T-shirt—no panties—and headed downstairs to make us breakfast.