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In the end it had been maddeningly simple.
Kaz took a deep breath of the Ketterdam night air, his bare hand clenched around the top of his crow’s head cane as he strode along Grafscanal. Newcomers hated the acrid soot and sewage stench of the city, but the familiarity of it soothed him.
He exhaled sharply, his breath fogging in the damp chill of November. Maddeningly, infuriatingly simple. But of course, it would be.
He’d been haunted by the memories for years. The cold water of the harbor. The numbness of his body. The horrible, slick press of bloated flesh beneath his fingers. Memories that flooded his mind and filled him with revulsion at the slightest touch. In spite of his best efforts, he hadn’t been able to shake them, so he’d made them part of his myth. Dirtyhands, who wore gloves to hide the bloodstains that wouldn’t come off.
He cut through a narrow passage, barely wide enough to call an alley. Best efforts. He grimaced, the irony of it all clear to him now.
In the end, it came down to something so blindingly obvious it still irked him. He’d needed to let go. He’d needed to move on from the past. But he hadn’t been able to do that, had he? Not until he’d taken down Pekka Rollins, brick by brick. It was only then that he’d finally been able to lay Jordie’s ghost to rest. Say goodbye. Once he had, the memories—the harbor, the cold—had begun to recede. Not overnight, but over time.
He turned a corner, and his eyes caught on a particularly dense shadow on the gabled roof across the alley. He tried vainly to ignore the way his heart stuttered. Inej was back.
With a start, he realized he was grinning like a pigeon ready to be plucked. He immediately schooled his features into their usual impassivity. Lest anyone think the Bastard of the Barrel had lost his mind. Or worse, his edge.
He remembered the night he’d finally told Inej the truth of it. The whole truth, not just the bits and pieces he’d been willing to part with before. It was agonizing.
When he’d finished, she said nothing for a long while. Just looked at him with her dark eyes. Her hand still outstretched to scatter the last of the breadcrumbs for her crows. He was struck with the notion that she was seeing him for the first time. Or maybe he was being seen for the first time. He’d finally looked away only to stare at his desk, his body coiled tight with nerves.
At length she’d slid off the windowsill in his attic room, coming to stand before him. “The Suli have a saying.”
His lips twisted sardonically. “A saying for every occasion.”
She’d silenced him with a glare, then her gaze turned serious. He felt the brush of her fingertips against the back of his hand and a jolt ran through him. He froze, but he didn’t pull away. He’d told himself he wouldn’t. Not from her, not anymore.
Slowly she guided his hand up, until his fingertips just barely hovered over the pulse on her neck. Close enough that he could feel the jump of her heartbeat beneath her warm skin.
A familiar wave of disgust roiled in his stomach, even as his heart pounded in anticipation. A part of him wanted to snatch his hand away, but another part wanted to slide his fingers across her nape and stroke the hairs that had escaped the braided coil of her hair.
“While the heart beats, there is still hope.”
He’d choked out something like a laugh. “Hope doesn’t bother with barrel rats.”
She shook her head. “It just means there’s still time. Room for possibility. A chance for—”
She broke off with a surprised gasp when his thumb brushed her collarbone. He hadn’t meant to, but she was pulling him in, like magnets, like gravity. She was a fiery planet and he was her cold, dark moon. Murky water swirled around his ankles. His head swam.
“Sorry, I—”
“It’s okay. I…” she exhaled slowly, her gaze determined. “I want you to. If—if you want to.”
He’d nodded, eyes fixed on the lithe curve of her neck. Carefully, he allowed his finger to skim over her bare skin. Allowed himself to touch. To feel.
The cold tide sucked at his heels, trying to drag him under, but he focused on the heat of her skin. The rapid pulse fluttering just under the surface. The delicate shift of muscles as she let out a shaky breath. She was alive. He was alive, and he was here. He didn’t want to be anywhere else.
When his finger finally reached her chin he tilted her face up, studying the decadent arch of her lips. Committing it to memory. If this is all I ever get.
“Kaz,” she whispered, and his eyes snapped to hers. “Kiss me.”
She said it so softly it was almost a question. Could he? He wanted to. He’d wanted to for what felt like an eternity.
Taking a deep breath, he lowered his head until he was so close he could feel the warmth of her on his lips. Then, feeling like he was diving headfirst into the drink, he pressed his mouth to hers.
A pop of gunfire brought him back to the present. Idiot. The Barrel was his now, and rare was the skiv dumb enough to take a shot at him, but that didn’t mean he should be walking down the street lost in daydreams. He shook his head. You’re going soft, Kaz.
But that didn’t stop his heart from quickening when the Slat finally came into view. His window was open. Of course, she’d beat him there.
“It’s done boss,” Rotty growled from his post by the door. He nodded brusquely at him before heading up the stairs, resisting the urge to take them two at a time.
He took a deep breath when he reached the door to his room. Why was he so damned nervous? Much as he’d like to, he couldn’t blame his shortness of breath entirely on the exertion of four flights of stairs.
He yanked open the door, and there she was. Perched on the edge of his desk, bronze skin aglow with the bright moonlight coming through the window. Smiling at him like he was a Saints-given miracle.
Ah. That’s why.
***
“Hi, Kaz.”
After nearly six months at sea, Inej drank in the sight of him. Dark hair swept neatly back, tailored coat all rigid lines and sharp angles. His long lockpick’s fingers made quick work of the buttons. Saints, she’d missed him.
“Inej.” Their eyes met for a moment, and she wondered why he look startled when she knew he’d seen her coming. He always knew.
She watched as he shucked off his coat and hung it on the hook by the door. But when he crossed to the bathroom to wash, peeling his shirt off as he went, she blushed and looked away.
She bit her lip in irritation. You’ve taken down slave ships from Fjerda to the Southern Colonies, but you can’t look at a shirtless boy?
But it wasn’t modesty that forced her gaze away. It was the memory of the last time she’d seem him bare. A memory that had set many a cold night on The Wraith ablaze in the months since.
It had been this past summer. She’d returned to Ketterdam for Jesper’s birthday. Wylan had thrown a lavish party in his honor, and they’d all spent the evening drinking champagne and dancing at the Van Eck mansion. Well, she and Nina had danced. Jesper had draped himself over Wylan as he played the piano, and Kaz had settled into an armchair, a faraway look in his eyes.
“Is that—scheming face?” Nina had stage-whispered, and they’d collapsed into giggles.
She’d intended to share the guest room with Nina, but Nina had fallen fast asleep on the settee and cursed at her in three languages when she’d tried to get her up. So instead, she and Kaz had dragged themselves up the stairs.
When they'd reached the guest room, she belatedly recalled the absence of a second bed. Apparently she’d had enough champagne to insist he share with her instead of sleeping on the floor.
“Looking out for a poor cripple?”
“Something like that."
The room was far too quiet as they peeled off their outer layers, backs turned to one another. It amplified every rustle of fabric, every rasp of cloth over skin. Her cheeks heated when she heard the sharp clink of a belt.
Hair undone and clad only in her underthings, Inej slipped under the covers. “You can look now.”
Kaz seemed to brace himself before turning around. He swayed slightly when he saw her, mouth ajar. Then he blinked and tore his eyes away. His mouth snapped shut with an audible click.
“Are you coming?”
“Imminently, Wraith.”
But he’d stood there for a moment longer before he crossed the room to the bed and laid down on top of the covers.
They lay like that for an interminable length of time. The rhythm of their breathing rising and falling like the tides. Separate at first, and then slowly falling into sync. In spite of the late hour, she felt wide awake.
“Are you asleep?” Inej finally whispered, rolling onto her side.
“No.” Kaz turned his head to face her. His bitter coffee eyes were nearly black in the moonlight. He studied her for a long moment, the barest hint of a frown creasing his dark brows.
“What?”
Instantly, his eyes went blank. “Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
“No, it’s not.” He turned away, studied the shadows on the ceiling instead.
She waited, heart in her throat. This is the moment he tells me it wasn’t real. I saw what I wanted to see. He never actually meant—
He closed his eyes. “It’s…hard. Me being here. You being everywhere else.”
She swallowed, her throat gone dry. “I see.”
“Do you?” Kaz turned back to her, and for a moment a look of desperate longing flashed in his eyes. “All those months at sea. New ports, new countries. New people. Do you ever think of me?”
She opened her mouth to answer—yes, Kaz, every Saints’ cursed night—but he continued. His fists clenched tight above the bedspread. “Because I think of you all the time Inej. There isn’t a thing in this damn city that doesn’t remind me of you. You’re everywhere.”
He looked angry, and her heart lurched painfully. She tore her eyes away. Her fingers worried the embroidered edge of the coverlet. “Would you rather—would it be better—if it didn’t?”
“Sometimes I think it would,” he muttered darkly. “But what does that matter? Ketterdam would sooner fall into the sea.”
“The merchers would never let that happen.”
“No. Nor the Tides.” The blunt certainty in his voice warmed her.
Inej took a deep breath. She wished she still had the giddy, liquid courage of champagne to help her, but that had faded hours ago.
“I do think of you, Kaz. Often.” And before she could consider the implications of what she was saying, “Especially at night, alone in my cabin.”
A wicked edge instantly appeared in Kaz’s voice. “Is that so?”
“Not like that! You podge.” She blushed furiously. “Well, yes like that, but not every time.”
She glared at the smirk threatening to appear on his mouth. She continued on in a quieter voice, “Sometimes I imagine you’re in another cabin on the ship, and I can just slip in and you’ll be there, reading or figuring the accounts or working out your latest scheme. I’d tell you about the deckhand who’s smitten with the first mate, or Specht’s secret penchant for licorice.”
“That’s no secret.”
Inej huffed. “What I’m trying to say is…I miss having you there.”
Kaz tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, so deftly she didn’t feel the brush of his skin. “I might know something about that.”
Her fingers tightened on the coverlet. “And do you…think of me? At night?”
He paused, hand hovering above her cheek. “What do you think?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Yes, Inej. I’m not a monk.”
Her cheeks heated. “Oh.”
“Do you ever touch yourself?” He said it lightly, almost indifferently, but she could hear his desire in the low rasp of his voice. Liquid fire pooled low in her gut.
“Yes.” It was easier to admit these things in cover of darkness.
“Would you show me?”
Her pulse jumped, and she answered as bravely as she could. “I will if you will.”
“The sea agrees with you.” She blinked back to the present. The roughness of his voice was like tumbling rocks above the quiet sounds of water splashing in the sink. In the back of her mind, she was replaying the rapt way he’d watched as she made herself come. As though he was cataloguing her weaknesses, working out the precise way to make her fall apart.
She hummed, eyes skimming the documents stacked neatly on the desk. Old habits die hard. Plus she needed something to distract her from thoughts of Kaz, head thrown back and brow furrowed as he— She shifted on the desk.
“Being King of the Barrel agrees with you.”
“Bastard of the Barrel,” he corrected, toweling off. “The Barrel doesn’t need a king.”
“No?”
“No,” he said firmly, reaching towards his dresser for a clean shirt. “She makes her own decisions.”
“Wait.” She said it on a wild impulse, and he turned questioningly towards her, hand still hovering over the polished wood of the drawer pull. “Leave it,” she said shyly.
Slowly, he straightened. He arched a dark brow at her. “Leave it?”
She nodded and slid off the desk, coming to stand before him. Her eyes traced the map of scars on his chest, souvenirs of a lifetime spent in the Barrel. They hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights, and the moonlight limned his pale skin with an ethereal glow.
She lifted her hand until it hovered just above the long scar that cut across his collarbone. When she looked up at him he nodded in answer to her silent question.
Slowly, she traced the thin scar. “You’ve been busy.”
“Have I?” Kaz’s voice was a low, steady rasp in her ear, warming her blood.
“In the last year, nearly every establishment in West Stave has had their clientele lists published by De Ketterdammer.” She followed the scar up to his shoulder, feeling him shiver beneath her touch.
“A scandal considering their supposed anonymity. I hear business has nearly ground to a halt.”
She paused at the junction of his neck. “Indeed. Not to mention the Black Tips and Dime Lions have both been robbed. Strangely, the thief didn’t empty their vaults. It seems the amount stolen exactly matches their earnings from the pleasure houses.”
“A bizarre coincidence.” Kaz’s breath was coming faster now, and she watched his pulse flutter inches from her fingertips.
“Indeed. But most shocking of all—” she slid her hand around the back of his neck, watching as his eyes grew dark, pupils dilated “—rumor has it that Kaz Brekker has the entire City Council in his pocket, and is single-handedly reforming Kerch law on indentures.”
“Come now, Inej,” and suddenly he was grinning wickedly, the same boyish grin that had stolen her heart in the first place. He bent to put his mouth to her ear, his voice teasing. “Surely you don’t believe that? I’m a selfish, greedy man. A ruthless monster. I never do anything unless there’s something in it for me.”
“And is there?” Her heart was speeding now, her pulse racing against his.
“Is there what?”
“Something in it for you?”
He straightened, pressing a kiss to her cheek so that she blushed furiously. “Only the pleasure of serving you, dear Wraith.”
She scoffed reflexively, but it died on her lips when she saw his face. The Kaz she knew played things close to the chest. He always had an ace up his sleeve. But at that moment he was an open book. She could read the raw desire in the dark glint of his eyes, the ragged catch of his breath. I know your tells, Kaz.
Suddenly, she felt bold. “And will you?”
She pulled him closer until her lips brushed his when she spoke. “Will you serve me?” Kissed him softly, teasing. “Will you take pleasure in it?”
He groaned. “Inej—yes. If you’ll have me, yes.”
“Saints, Kaz—yes—” she’d barely gotten the words out before he kissed her. Hungrily, hands coming up to tangle in her braid. Pressing into the curve of her spine until she could feel every inch of him against every inch of her.
She tugged her shirt off impatiently, startling when she felt the ends of her hair brush against the small of her back. He’d undone it without her noticing. Before she could lose momentum, she slipped out of her trousers, stepping out of them and towards the bed.
He froze when she slipped away completely, shifting until she sat on her heels in the center of the mattress. He stared at her for a long minute, a look of utter surprise on his face. As though he hadn’t thought this far ahead. As though somehow Kaz Brekker hadn’t seen this coming.
“Will you join me?” Saints curse the insecure wobble in her voice.
Kaz took a deep breath. “You should know. I’ve never—”
“We don’t have to—”
“I want to—I want—” his hands moved to his belt, and heat throbbed between her legs as she watched him undress. Then he knelt in front of her on the bed, eyes intent on hers. “I want you. I’ve wanted you for so long.”
She felt as she did on the high wire. The rest of the world fallen away, her entire self focused in the moment. She could never disappear, not with Kaz. Words stuck in her throat, a million things she wasn’t ready to admit to him, much less to herself. She swallowed thickly.
“Lie down,” she said instead.
He did as she asked, leaning back against the pillow to watch as she slipped out of her underthings. Taking a deep breath, she placed her hands on either of his shoulders and straddled him.
“Fuck,” he said eloquently. His eyes dragged over every inch of her bare skin, followed closely by his hands. They slid up her thighs, grabbing her ass for a moment before skimming over her stomach to cup her breasts.
She tipped her head back, biting her lip against a moan as he teased her nipples. Of course she knew academically that he was good with his hands, but feeling it was another thing entirely. It had taken hardly any time at all for him to learn the intricacies of her pleasure.
He was hard against her inner thigh, and she snaked a hand down between them to take him in hand. He bucked reflexively against her palm. “Fuck.”
His hands flew to the wrought iron bed railing as she brought them together, his length just notching against her entrance. He was gripping the rails so hard his knuckles were white and bloodless, his whipcord thin muscles stretched taut with tension.
“Is this okay?” Her voice sounded unfamiliar to her ears, breathless with desire.
“Yes,” he rasped.
She let herself slide an inch further, and he groaned, face pressed into his bicep, eyes squeezed shut. He held himself rigid as she sank down all the way, a small huff of pleasure escaping her when their hips finally met.
“Look at me.”
“I-I can’t,” he gritted out. “I’ll never last.”
“Please.” I need to see you. I need to know you see me.
He wrenched his eyes open and her breath caught at the molten heat in them. She felt him twitch inside her and she gasped at the feeling. She was spiraling higher and higher, on the cusp of something.
“Kaz.” She said his name like a plea. “Touch me.”
His clever fingers found the bud at the top of her opening, delicately circling the way he knew she liked best. Saints. She was so close.
“I can feel you—” the burn of his voice was rough and low, his hips finally canting against hers as she tightened around him, spiraling so close, so close—
“Inej.” He said her name like a prayer.
And then she was crying out as she fell, mind blanking and senses overwhelmed as she came, dragging him along with her. She clung to his hand as though he was her tether. He gripped her hand just as tightly.
***
Saints be damned. That was…
No, bless Inej and every last one of her Saints. He’d gladly pay homage to anything and everything that had brought him to this moment.
Kaz shifted slightly to give Inej a bit more room, not that she seemed to mind either way. She’d fallen fast asleep mere minutes after coming apart in his arms. She was now drooling peacefully on his pillow. He’d give his last kruge to have this every night (no one said he couldn’t get more after he’d given it away), but that wasn’t how this was going to go, was it?
No. Inej would go back to her ship, and he’d be here. Replaying this night until the memory was seared into his brain. Until he was so hard he couldn’t think.
Gently, he combed his fingers through her hair. The dark strands like swirling ink stains against the white sheets.
“Kaz?” she mumbled sleepily.
He stilled, hoping against hope that he could stay in this moment a second longer. The day was breaking outside, and he knew what she’d say as soon as she woke up.
“I have to go back to The Wraith.” Her voice was rough with sleep, her dark eyes regretful when they finally blinked awake.
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. What would he say anyway?
“I’ll come back,” she promised.
“The deal is the deal,” he agreed.
And for now, that was enough.