Page 96 of A Reckless Indulgence

“I never thought about that. It didn’t matter. I was only allowed to hunger for one thing.” She looks at Cav again — at the vibrant heat pooling in his golden eyes — and her body thrums. “But I see now that it didn’t dampen my other appetites. It only made them stronger.”

Cav’s chest glows. He doesn’t look away from her, that same hunger spreading across his face. “What other appetites?”

The glint in his eye says he knows the answer. He’s always known it, even when she swore it was impossible. But knowing is not enough. He wants to hear her say it. Her body flushes with nerves, apprehension, and the thrill of finally speaking it aloud. “Something I don’t believe in.”

A smile tugs at his lips.

The sight of it fills her so completely that the hollow place inside her no longer aches as strongly. “I do have sentimental feelings…for you.” Each word sits on her tongue so that she can savor the taste, the weight, the feeling. “I do…love you.”

Her mouth tingles around the words when Cav reaches to pull her closer.

All her life, she thought love was weak and fragile. It couldn’t be what she felt for Cav. Love wasn’t powerful enough to captivate her thoughts and drive her every motion. To keep her going for days while she dreamt of finding him again. To fill her with feeling so compelling that she needed to eat him alive. She thought only hatred could do that. Now, she understands. It was always this. It has always been this.

Love.

His lips find her cheek, and her head swims. How can one emotion be so potent and delicate all at once? He kisses her temple. “You love me,” he teases, but he says it again with a reverence she’s never heard before. “You love me.”

Her heart swells, and she groans when she realizes she wants this dragon to antagonize her for the rest of time. It’s overwhelming. It’s strange. It’s embarrassing.

She presses her forehead into the side of his neck. “I swore I’d never crave you.” She mouths at his pulse to make her voice sound weary, but her affection gets in the way. “Those roaming hands. That cocksure smile. The never-ending stream of your voice.”

Depths, she wants them all. Her grip tightens in his shirt, and his fingers curl in her hair until the curved bridge of his nose brushes hers. Her body illuminates the window.

“My most vicious captor…” His breath is warm against her lips. “You haven’t had your song since you found me again, yet you still have me ensnared.”

Her chest fills with bubbles. She rolls her eyes, but he cups her jaw to keep her attention.

“I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose that, but you’re still just as powerful. Just as captivating. Just as strong. You’re not lacking in anything. You did all of this without it.”

Her head tilts into his hand. She never recognized it before. Even without her power, she survived Tidus. She got a place on the Indulgence. She discovered the pearls. Above everything else, she kept Cav alive, when days ago, she thought she was incapable. What once felt like the only worthwhile part of her now seems like a relic from another time. She does not need her song to be whole.

“And you have me without it.” Cav’s voice grows softer. “I want to give you everything you crave. You don’t need command or persuasion.” His thumb brushes her cheek. “You don’t need magic to have my devotion. It’s always been yours. It always will be.”

She molds their mouths together, and he meets her with the same need. He always does. Somehow, this pirate has found a way to match a siren’s intensity. It’s never scared him off; if anything, it draws him closer. When they stand on the precipice of what this could be, he doesn’t back away. He puts his arm around her waist and cuts the lifeboat free, sending them plunging into the unknown together.

For so long, she thought only pain and suffering could sustain her, but perhaps chaos is more than that. Perhaps it’s the unexpected. Like Cav, crashing in her grotto. Offering his cheek to her hand. Feeding her his scales.

Like her, falling impossibly in love with him.

EPILOGUE

Lyx

It’s still dark out when Cav’s tail curls around the back of Lyx’s neck, his lips soft against her hairline. “Want to watch the sunrise?”

Even half-asleep, her skin glows at the promise of the unexpected.

Cav’s smile spreads against her jaw, and that’s nearly enough to change her answer and keep her tucked against him. It’ll be cold outside. If she listens closely, she can already hear tiny flakes pinging against the window. She’d never seen snow before — not until Cav charted a course for the Winter Isles. It’s one of many places he was happy to show her, one of many things he encouraged her to experience for herself.

He takes her everywhere in this old sloop. It’s weathered and worn, but it never lets them down, as if the ocean itself blesses all their journeys. Unlike Tidus’s ship, this one never feels cramped or suffocating. Instead, it’s as warm and bright as the stove crackling in the corner of the room.

Cozy. A word Lyx had never understood before. A word that feels right now.

Almost as right as being next to Cav. When they set off on their own after the fire, she tried to resist him. Just a little. Just enough to prove to herself that she wasn’t being controlled by someone else. She tried to make decisions without being distracted by the pools of his eyes, the tilt of his smile, and the heat of his hands.

Cav obliged her everything. He laid out maps for her to wander, setting new courses without question, happy to be guided by her whims.

They returned to the grotto once. It was overrun with broken crates and empty bottles from the slew of hunters that followed in Tidus’s wake. Those pirates were long gone now, but Lyx felt fury rising inside her. Of course they’d invaded siren territory, but to tarnish the only place where she had memories of Cav? The place where they’d first been together?