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I push up against him, my hands tangling themselves in his hair.

He’s gone still.

“What do you want, Ara?” he asks, low.

“This,” I say.

“This, or me? Because I’m insane for you. So if you just want sex, I’m not⁠—”

“I want both. This, and you.”

And maybe I said exactly the right thing, because he’s kissing me again, deeper, and a gasp leaves my lips, because his hand is sliding along my waist.

But how experienced is he? By the feel of this kiss…

“But, Cosmer,” I say, my mouth breaking from his. “I haven’t, before. Just so you know.”

His hand freezes.

“Right. Of course. We should end this anyway. This is completely against The Accords⁠—”

No.

I don’t ever want this to end.

I make my thoughts known to him by bringing him closer. Running my hands down his smooth, hard chest. I can feel his heart thudding beneath my fingers.

The Queen’s voice suddenly fills my head. While in Hevalla, you must remain intact.

It’s bizarre.

Did I dream that? Why would the Queen – who I’d thought had never spoken to me at all – have said such a personal thing to me? Why would she even have cared about my virginity? Preserving yourself until marriage is an outdated way of thinking anyway. Only nobles abide by that now.

I shake the thoughts away. They’re from my life from a different time. They don’t belong here, on this ship that isn’t even in Rhavna or Hevalla.

Instead, I focus back on Cosmer, and us. My fingers have reached the waistband of his breeches. I can sense the breath in his mouth faltering.

But he clasps both of his hands gently over mine, keeping them still.

He starts, carefully. “Ara, anything between us has to remain a secret until you’ve FI’d. Or we’ll be out the airlock.”

“I know.”

“I guess it’s not too long to have to do that. If you’re FI’d in a few days⁠—”

“Stop talking,” I say, reaching for his waistband again.

But he blocks me again.

“Listen.” He sucks in a breath. “Let me pleasure you tonight. If you still want me tomorrow, we’ll go from there.”

There’s something I don’t like about that sentence. But my head is too full of thoughts of him, and what’s happening between us, to dwell on it.

“Okay,” I whisper.

With his hands, which feel rough but move gently, he guides me backwards until I’m laying down again.

Slower this time, he moves up my thighs, parting them. His fingers shift my underwear and find the core of me.