Page 32 of The Girl Beneath the Sea

The lantern is low. I should fill it. I don’t.

His fingers are moving on my shoulder, on the bullet scar, round and round. I am half asleep. That is the only excuse I have for what comes out of my mouth.

“I’d marry you,” I say. “If I could.”

It’s out before I even know I am going to say it. I know I am mad with the gloriousness of him. I’ve already told him my real name. It’s no real surprise that something as ridiculous as marriage is next.

Except it’s not ridiculous. The moment that I think it, I realize that it is true. I do want to marry him.

He is mine. And I am his.

He laughs, low and surprised.

“My government would never allow it,” he says.

My heart soars. He didn’t say no.

I snort. “Governments.”

“They make the rules,” he whispers against my neck. His hands circle around to my shoulder, smoothing the skin.

And again. It’s not a no. He’s not saying no.

“What business is it of theirs?” I mutter. “What people do. Who they do it with. Bunch of old men in a room deciding whose bed you get put in.” I shift under him. “They can all fuck off.”

He is quiet. His fingers stop moving on my shoulder. I reach up and take his hand, then put it over mine on my chest.

The hothouse prince. I’ve seen the title for years. I don’t really read the papers but you can’t not see the headlines when you’re standing in line at the corner store.

I never really thought about why. If I had, I’d have said it was just a thing they called him because he was pretty and rich and never went anywhere. I didn’t think about what it meant.

A hothouse is where you keep a thing that would die outside. You control the air. You control the light. You never open the door. The thing inside doesn’t know there’s an outside. It just grows toward whatever light you give it.

That’s what he is. Is he growing toward me only because I am the only thing giving him light?

I’ve been thinking, since I saw him, that he is playing me. He certainly was trying at the start.

He’s smart. He’s smart as hell. I watched him work me from the first hour, asking for the cuffs to come off and getting it, asking for coffee and getting that too.

I think he isn’t stupid enough that he wouldn’t play me now.

He’s looking up at me with those deep baby blues and I don’t see any guile, but then I realize that it doesn’t matter.

I don’t care.

Even if he were playing me, I don’t care. I’d do anything for him.

Anything.

If he wants to smother me while I am sleeping and make a run for it, the only objection I’d have is that I’d want to run with him too, just to keep him safe.

I turn my face into his hair. The lantern flickers and goes out. It’s pitch dark. I can’t see him but I can smell him and I can feel his warmth against me.

Then he is on top of me. I can’t see him. I can feel every inch of him, the weight of him settled on me, the heat of him around me, the place where his hands are pressed flat over my heart. His breath is on my mouth.

“Roan,” he says.

“Yeah.”