“You like it?”
“Of course I do. But—”
“Then let me be with you. Thymara, please. I want you so badly. I know you want me.”
“I’m afraid—”
“I’ll be gentle, I promise. You can trust me.”
“Let me speak. You keep interrupting!”
He pulled back from her without letting go of her. “Fine. Talk then.” His words were brusque, but he didn’t release her from his embrace. He still pressed himself against her thigh, and she could feel the throbbing urgency there. She was the one who disentangled herself and took a step away from him.
“I’m not afraid of you, Tats, or of joining myself to you. I’m afraid of getting pregnant. Look at Jerd and how miserable she is, vomiting every morning. She’s always weepy now, or angry, or both. She barely does any of her duties. I heard her dragon complaining. Sylve actually did some grooming for her the other day, around her eyes. I don’t want to turn into that.”
“You don’t want children?” His words seemed almost accusing.
She bridled incredulously. “What? Now? Of course not! Do you?”
He moved one shoulder. “It wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Not for you, perhaps! But even if my pregnancy were easy, I can’t imagine having a baby now, while we are still trying to find Kelsingra. Have you even thought about what you just said? About nursing a child, or finding something to use for its napkins, or a blanket for it? Where is Jerd going to sleep after the baby is born? Greft still claims her, but he spends less and less time with her since she turned him out of her bed. Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s no secret! She sleeps badly and can scarcely keep food down. How would she be interested in sex with him?”
Tats had half turned from her. “It would be different with us. I care about you. If I got you pregnant, I wouldn’t abandon you.”
She spoke with sudden certainty. “You’re only saying that because you know how unlikely it is for me to get pregnant. So you’re willing to take a chance.”
“Well, everyone was shocked when Jerd caught a child. All I’ve heard from everyone is how surprising that is.”
“Well, if you talked to the girls about it, you’d hear how alarming it is.” Thymara shook her head and made a sudden decision. “Tats. I’m not going to mate with you. Not while we are still journeying like this. I…” She wanted to tell him that she still wanted to be able to kiss him, to touch and be touched by him, but that seemed so unfair. Until he spoke.
“Then I don’t see how we can go on at all.” There was hurt in his voice but also a shadow of a threat. That angered her.
“Oh. I see.” She bit the words off sharply. “If I let you mate with me and you get me pregnant, you care so much for me that you’ll stay at my side through thick and thin. But apparently you don’t care enough for me to stay with me if I’m not willing to mate with you! Does that makes sense to you?”
For a moment he was silent and uncomfortable. Then, “Yes,” he blustered. “It does. Because it would show that you cared for me as much as I care for you. Right now, what we do, it’s like teasing me. I feel like a fool when you suddenly stop me and say no as if I’m a child begging for another sweet. When people love each other, one doesn’t say no to the other.”
His absolute certainty took her breath away. “Married people say no to each other all the time!” she insisted, thinking of her parents’ frequent quarrels. Then she stopped, wondering if that was so. Her father and mother had disagreed often, but was that true of other long-married folk?
“I’m tired of you making a fool of me, Thymara.” Tats turned away from her.
“I’m not trying to make a fool of you,” she hissed after him. “I just don’t want to get pregnant! Can’t you understand that?”
“I understand that you don’t care enough about me to want to take a chance. We both know it’s very unlikely I’d get you with child. But you don’t care enough about me to risk even that small chance!”
She drew breath to speak, and then wondered what she could say. It was true. He was right. She liked Tats, even loved him a little, and his touch sent her heart racing and warmed every inch of her skin. But when she weighed that pleasure against the chance that she’d get pregnant, her blood cooled and her belly tightened with dread—as it did now. She tried to find something to say, some way to tell him what she felt.