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“You need to leave the city,” Titus says softly, cupping your face with trembling hands. “Please, my darling. You must go. Tonight.”
“Why won’t you tell me why?” you ask, knocking his hands away. “You’re scaring me. Just tell me what’s happening? Are you in trouble? Did something happen?”
“Please, just listen to me. Please.” He reaches for you again, the behemoth of a man fragile, his eyes watering. “I need you to leave Insomnia. Go stay with a friend. I can give you gil for a hotel. Just leave. Pack a bag and leave.”
“No! Titus, you can’t leave me in the dark!”
“Trust me-“
“How can I trust you!? You have been gone more nights than not. And I know you aren’t with the Royals, I checked. You are secretive, and you don’t sleep well when you are here. And you skipped your medication. I found it in the trash. Titus, you have to take it.” You reach into a side drawer, pulling out the orange pill bottle, holding it out to him in your palm. “Why haven’t you been taking them? What’s going on?”
His face, highlighted in the city lights outside the window of their apartment, is fractured, vulnerable. His eyes refuse to meet yours, hands clenched into fists by his sides. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Then when!? You want me to flee the city and won’t tell me why! I’m scared!” You drop the bottle, arms folded across your chest as you stifle a sob. “Why won’t you tell me…”
His head snaps up and he is at your side in an instant, blanketing you with his large body, drawing you to his chest. “Don’t cry… Please, don’t cry,” he breathes, kissing your temple, his lips lingering.
“I don’t want to leave you,” you say around a broken wail, burying your face in his broad chest. “Don’t keep any more secrets from me.”
“It’s to keep you safe. Not telling you. It’s to keep you safe. You have to believe me.”
“Why can’t you come with me?”
“You know why.” His jaw set, he closes his eyes, his grip on you tight. “I have to stay with the king.”
The room spins, a fuming, gravelly voice in his mind urging him to stop talking, to leave before he slips up. He shakes his head, kissing the top of your head reverently. “Take all the gil in my wallet, pack what you need, and get out of the city.”
“Will you meet me? Call me?”
A tear runs down his cheek as he nods, cradling you closer. “Of course, I will. I’ll move heaven and earth to be by your side.” You sniffle, clinging to him as if letting go will sever a mortal tether. He rubs your back tenderly, his large hand smoothing out the folds in your nightshirt, memorizing every curve and valley. “I love you. More than anything in this entire world. I need you to remember that. No matter what you hear. No matter what happens. Do you understand?”
Titus tips your chin up, his eyes glassy as he looks over your tear-streaked face. “My heart beats for you. Only you.”
You move his hand down, holding it against your chest, your heart thrumming in its cage under his palm. “Only you,” you whisper, your fingers twining in the short hair at the base of his scalp. He captures your lips in a searing kiss, every touch careful, worshipping you as one would a goddess of porcelain and lace. Leave her. She is useless now.
He ignores the voice, desperately kissing away each tear as it falls down your cheeks, laying you back down on the bed with a gentle rumble in his chest. Titus, enough. You’re only going to make this more difficult to end.
“Let me have this,” he murmurs, trailing his lips along your jaw.
“It’s yours. It’s always yours,” you reply with a moan, biting your lip when he slips your nightshirt over your head, greedily moving down between your breasts, hooking your legs over his shoulders.
You foolish vessel.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Titus mutters, his chest tight as you writhe under him, pure ecstasy scrawled across your face as he licks a stripe along your inner thigh. I understand weakness, Titus. And that is all she is. A slick-thighed chink in your armor.
Titus groans deeply as he tastes the essence glistening at the apex of your thighs, watches as you arch up against his expert tongue, your eyelids fluttering, his name a prayer on your lips. His gaze is thick with lust, the sound of blood rushing in his ears almost enough to drown out the whispered threats. You’re mine, Captain. I’ve sunk my claws into you and no one can save you. You know what you must do. You know who must die.