Not that it was a hardship, watching her husband sleep. She had thought when they first became engaged that she would lie beside James at night, hearing his breaths even out into slumber. When she had realized they would have separate bedrooms, it had felt like a loss of that dream.

She would have liked to say the real thing was a disappointment. But it would have been a lie. She had watched him toss and turn and finally fall asleep, his free arm bent behind his head, his cheek resting almost in the crook of his elbow. The lines of worry on his face had smoothed out into clarity and innocence. His cheeks flushed with his dreaming, his black eyelashes fluttering against his high cheekbones. Watching him, she thought of Majnun from Ganjavi’s poem, a boy so beautiful he illuminated the darkness.

When he moved in his sleep, his thin shirt slid up, showing the ridges of his stomach. She had blushed at that, and looked away a little, before asking herself fiercely, Why? She had kissed that soft mouth, the lower lip fuller than the upper, dented slightly in the center. She had felt his body all up and down her own, the heat of him, his muscles straining to pull her closer.

She knew he wanted her. He might not love her, but from the moment she had asked him to kiss her—to teach her—he had desired her, and she had felt powerful. Beautiful. She was a paladin, a warrior. When he told her he had kissed Grace, she had felt shock and hurt, and then an absolute refusal to cry. She would not be weak. She would demand a kiss, demand that he show his desire. They could not always be on unequal footing.

It had worked better than she had ever imagined. So well she knew it could easily have gone on, have tumbled over the edge of restraint into territory that was unknown, irrevocable. And though she had wanted that, she had been the one to pull away in the end, to put a stop to it.

Because you know it would be the end of you, whispered a small voice in the back of her mind. Because if you fell even a little more in love with him, the fall would break you.

It was true. She knew that if she gave even one more bit of herself to James, she would go up like a bonfire lit by a thousand torches. There would be nothing left of her but ash. In desire they could be on equal footing, but in the matter of love, they were not.

Something had been brightening at the edge of her vision for some time now: she glanced out the window and saw the faint seashell glow of dawn. Relief flooded through her. They were safe, for the moment. It was morning. The sun was rising and nothing had happened.