Ember smiled at the deepness of his tone. “That’ll teach you to be practical.”
She stared at how tense his grip was on the controls. “How long has it been?”
“Since?”
“You had sex?”
Was she serious? “With someone else?”
She squeaked at the question. “Of course. Why would I ask about solo practice?”
His cock jerked at the mere mention of the word as disgust filled him. “Hell, I don’t know.”
Scowling, she leaned back so that she could meet his gaze through his crash helmet as she had yet to put hers back on. “What do you mean you don’t know? You were there, weren’t you?”
He snorted at the ridiculous question that she should know the answer to. “I’m Ravin, Em. If anyone sees the mark on my stomach, they’ll know that I’m wanted. Can’t take the risk.”
“Are you telling me that you haven’t been with anyone since Alura divorced you?”
“Since long before that.”
Both her eyebrows shot up. “Pardon?”
“You have to know that we didn’t have an amicable marriage.” And their divorce had been spectacularly violent, given that her parting gift to him had been a death sentence.
“No … Alura never said anything other than how happy she was and how much you loved her.”
In her dreams only …
“Happy because I seldom went to where she lived and she had all the creds she could spend. We consummated the marriage and then I tried to make the marriage work, but…”
“But what?”
“I called her Ember one night early on, and she basically banned me from her bed.”
“You’re kidding!”
He shook his head as a particularly nasty memory over Alura’s violent reaction went through him. She’d assaulted him like a pissed-off lorina, and left him with bleeding welts on his neck, arms, and chest. “She was convinced you and I were cheating to get back at her.” He slid his sleeve up so that she could see the four deep scars on his forearm. “That was from one of her more stellar tantrums. She’d scratch and bite every time I got near her. So I learned to stay away for fear she was going to cry rape or something worse.”
Ember flinched as she realized something worse had definitely happened. She’d accused him of murder and seen him innocently convicted of it. “Why didn’t you divorce her, then?”
“To what end? You were done with me. Last thing I wanted was to listen to my family tell me how disappointed they were that I couldn’t even manage to hold on to my pleb wife for more than a year. Quin was married almost fifteen years. Lil nine. And theirs had been political marriages, assigned to them by my father. They’d have barbecued me had I filed for divorce. Especially my mother. She was traditional Ikarian.”
“Meaning?”
“A Triosan religion where no one gets divorced. Ever. It’s why my uncle Aros never married. He wanted Cairie as his wife, and if he couldn’t have her, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life locked into a loveless marriage with someone else. He kept waiting for her to abdicate her throne and live with him.”
That made her feel terrible for both of them. “I am so glad I’m not royal.”
Bastien tsked at her. “Ah, baby, you’re wrong about that.”
“Why? Because I had your son?”
He shook his head. “You were always a monidara to me,” he said, using the Kirovarian term for empress.
Ember hated the effect those words had on her. The weepy feeling they awoke. She’d forgotten how sweet her irascible captain could be.
Just like his son.
“I hate you so much, Bastien.”
“Most people do … Andarions, too.”
Bastien quirked an eyebrow as she switched on autopilot and then turned around in the seat to squat on her knees, between his. “What are you doing?”
Ember pulled his helmet off, without answering. The expression on his face was comical. He looked as if he expected her to slap him.
Instead, she loosened his hair until it fell free from its restraint over his shoulders and she could run her fingers through it. A tiny smile played at the edges of those lush, masculine lips.
“You look so feral with this hair.”
“I am feral.”
“No.” She toyed with the soft strands, reveling in the way they slid across her palm. “You’re still that man who jumped into a hole to play hero. The lunatic who scaled a building without the proper gear because you thought I’d been captured.”
“Yeah, I should have got more intel before I jumped the gun on that one.”
It wouldn’t have mattered. Rash was his middle name. Carless.
Most of all, loving.
Ember traced his lips with her fingers as her memories ran loose. He’d been so scared for her. By the time she heard what had happened, he’d rescued six of their soldiers. “You did get an accommodation and medal out of it.”
She wrapped her legs around his waist.