Zakai sped up and my vision went hazy as my muscles began tightening. “I loved you so completely,” he breathed and I came, gasping out his name, my fingernails raking down his back as he moaned his own pleasure, collapsing on top of me, both of us breathing harshly into the quiet of my new bedroom. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he went on softly. “About us. I dreamed then. I had nothing but I believed my dreams were valuable, and I offered each of them to you. It wasn’t ugly, Karys,” he murmured against my neck. “Despite where we were, it was innocent. And it was natural. It wasn’t about anything other than you and me. It wasn’t on anyone’s terms but our own.” He lifted himself slightly, gazing down at me. “You’ve always been confident when it came to what brings me pleasure because we learned together. We taught each other. We’ve never been with anyone else.”
Alarmed, I stilled. “Do you . . . do you want to be . . . with someone else?”
His eyes warmed and he smiled. “No. God, no, little star.” He cupped my face and slid his thumb over my cheekbone. “You’re the only one I’ll ever want. But you . . .”
I reached up, laying my hand over his. “Zakai! I’d never want anyone but you. Your dreams are valuable. Why are you even suggesting any of this?”
He sighed. “I just wonder . . .”
“If you’re enough for me?” I asked, incredulous. “You’re more than enough. Always.”
He stared into my eyes, his liquid with emotion and I loved him so much it felt as if it might burst from my body like a thousand rays of light filtering through my pores. “Always,” he whispered back.
I ran my hand down the velvety skin of his back, and over the rounded muscles of his backside. I wasn’t exactly sure where this was coming from. Partly my confusion was general, but partly my brain was clouded by the lingering haze of bliss.
“There are other things to be confident in though, Karys. Things . . . things that really matter—”
“You matter,” I said, frowning. What could matter more than my love for Zakai? I couldn’t fathom a thing.
“I know,” he said, our bodies disconnecting as he rolled off me. “I know and I love you. I love you so much it hurts me.”
I rolled to my side, resting my elbow on the mattress, supporting my head with my hand. He looked unhappy despite the pleasure we’d just experienced and it concerned me. “Why are you saying this, Zakai?”
A knock at the door startled me, and Zakai rushed off the bed and grabbed his pants. “Hold on, please,” I called as we both haphazardly pulled on our clothes. Had we been loud? I had no idea. It’d never mattered before and I was not used to making it a point to notice. I smoothed my hair quickly as I moved toward the door, pulling it open and greeting Braxton with a flustered smile. “Yes?” I asked.
Braxton’s jaw was tight. He looked over my shoulder at Zakai. “Aren’t you supposed to be back at your residence at a certain time?”
“Yes,” I answered on his behalf, “but not for several—”
“Actually,” Zakai interrupted, walking to where I stood and kissing me quickly on the forehead, “I should get back early. I’m supposed to help with preparing the evening meal.”
My stomach dropped. It felt like he’d just arrived and now he was leaving. “But I thought—”
“I’ll call you later tonight, I promise. Braxton,” he murmured as he moved past my uncle.
I followed, ignoring Braxton when he said my name, hurrying to catch up with Zakai. “But wait, you just got here.”
Zakai glanced over my shoulder at where my uncle obviously still stood, watching us at the door. Zakai met my eyes, giving me a small smile as he leaned in, whispering in my ear the way he had once as we performed for the ones who watched. “I’ll sleep better tonight with you on my skin,” he whispered, and then he turned, opening the door to the apartment and stepping through it. I thought about grabbing him, begging him to stay, but I felt the eyes of my uncle on me, and forced myself to calm my scattered emotions. Zakai needed to make a good impression at his new home, and I needed to give him time and space to do that. Still, it hurt.
“Can I speak with you, Karys?”
I closed my eyes momentarily and then turned toward my uncle, walking to where he stood. “Of course.”
His gaze was stony, expression stern. “Listen, Karys, I know you’re used to”—he waved his hand toward my bedroom—“that. I know it was made to seem normal where you were, but it’s not. It’s not normal and it’s not okay. You’re seventeen, Karys. And Zakai is estimated to be about twenty, which is an adult. It’s inappropriate.”
I linked my hands in front of me, looking down. I felt confusion, shame in a way I never had before, not even with all the eyes upon me, judging and staring.
Inappropriate? My love for Zakai, or the physical expression of it? I recalled what we’d overheard from the two men outside the room we’d been in and felt a fresh wash of humiliation at the memory.
It was a sexual freak show for sickos who got their rocks off watching the grotesque and unnatural.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
My uncle let out a slow breath. “No . . .” He ran his hand through his hair. “Shit. Shoot, I mean.” He let out another exhale. “I’m asking you to be patient with me too. This is all . . . out of my purview. I know you’re struggling as well, Karys, and I want to make this easier on you, not harder. But . . . there have to be rules here. My job is to house and feed you, but also to look out for your best interests.”
Best interests. What he meant was: not Zakai.
Braxton reached out and took my hands in his. He stared at our joined fingers for a moment and my heart picked up. I felt strange, uncomfortable, but I wasn’t sure what to do. My uncle used his thumb to draw a circle on my skin, and then as if he’d done it without meaning to, dropped my hands like they had suddenly caught fire. “School starts in a week,” he said, running his hands down his hips. “College. It’s a very large gift Cody Rutland was able to procure, and an opportunity not everyone is provided. A lot has been stolen from you, but there are many good people willing to help put that in the past.” He met my eyes. “You have the chance to build a good life, a great one. You can be anything you want to be,” he told me, his voice full of surety.
I tilted my head. “Anything I want to be?”
“Right, like”—he looked upward as though thinking—“like a doctor or a lawyer or . . . an accountant like me. I work with numbers.”
“Zakai likes numbers.”
“Forget about Zakai.” He raised his hands and dropped them. “For now. Just . . . at least for now. Think about yourself, Karys. You have to try.”
“I can’t only think of myself,” I murmured. “I’m nothing without Zakai.”
His face morphed into pity. “That’s not true. It’s a lie. You’ve been told many, many lies, Karys, and as your family, it’s my job to help you recognize truth.”
The truth about me being nothing without Zakai? Had someone told me that? Haziq? No. If it was a lie, I’d told it to myself. Confusion descended. It felt heavy and uncomfortable. As stifling as the midday desert heat. I glanced out the window behind my uncle’s head where wind blew rain against the glass. The heat of the desert was just a memory.