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“And you didn’t think I might be able to do that job better and faster if I had even the slightest clue what I was up against?” My anger raises me up on the balls of my feet, leaning towards him.
If I’d known, maybe I would be closer to an answer by now. Maybe I’d even be home, with Dad, sure he’s safe and looked after, if Ruskin had treated me like an equal instead of a pawn to be moved about the board.
He just brushes past me, crossing to the table like he’s trying to walk off my accusations.
“There are things you don’t need to know,” he says, voice tight with irritation. “Things much bigger and darker than anything you’ve ever encountered, Gold Weaver. You’re better off not knowing. You’ll sleep better at night. Why can’t you accept that?”
“Because if I’m working with you—not for you, by the way, a deal goes two ways—then you have to let me in! I can’t do this for you if you keep me in the dark.”
When he answers it’s with a harsher kind of anger in his words, and he looks at me with fierce, shadowed eyes. “I’ve survived this long without letting anyone in. Why would you presume to be the exception?”
That stings, but I channel the pain to fuel my anger further. I want him to know all his masks and moods don’t intimidate me, that I’m immune to his tricks and games. I storm right up to him.
“Because you need me!” The words are out before I remember I’ve said them before, in another context—last night when pinned against him. Rage flickers inside me, but another heat awakens in my body too. “You’re so selfish,” I bark out.
He leans over me, closing the inches between us.
“Selfish? I’m doing this for my kingdom. To save it. That’s my duty. Your duty is to do what you’re told. The rest of it is none of your business.”
“It became my business the moment you kidnapped me.”
“Then free yourself,” he says with a sneer, leaning back. I find I don’t like the distance between our bodies. “Solve it. You don’t need to have all the damn answers to do that.”
“What’s my alternative? Just let you pull on my strings like some puppet until I’ve done exactly as you ask? I’m not one of your subjects, Ruskin, and I’m not a fool to be pushed around.”
His brow folds into a glower, my words finally biting at him.
“You could’ve just trusted me,” his says, his voice dropping an octave. “You could’ve just believed me when I said I had my reasons.”
I scoff, turning away at his words, but then the answer comes to me. I round on him, but he’s closer than I expect and my nose nearly brushes against his chin. I tip my head up to meet his gaze.
“How could I,” I say, my voice low with bitterness, “when you haven’t given me a single reason to trust you?”
I can feel his breath on my lips, coming fast like he’s run a race, and his perfect, uncompromising face is too much for me to resist any more. I do what I wanted to do earlier, and take his jaw in my hand. This time he lets me, the argument destabilizing his barriers, knocking down his walls. His eyes flare with want as I lean up and kiss him.
Chapter 21
He responds at once, crushing his mouth against mine, even hungrier than last night. Perhaps he’s been waiting for this like I have, thinking about it since the moment I walked away. He spins us around so that my back is pressed against the edge of the table, putting one of his hands at my waist, the other finding the bare skin where my dress scoops down at the back. The touch of his hot, strong hand against my flesh sends a shock through me, and I press deeper into the kiss.
This is a bad idea. I’m only doing this because I’m angry.
And because I want to. Desperately.
Ruskin chases all reason from my head as he flicks my upper lip with his tongue, then lowers his mouth to trace my jaw and my neck with his teeth, grazing the skin there, then lapping at the spot where he’s already made my nerve endings sing. I release a ragged gasp. I want that tongue in other places; I want his hands all over me.
He pulls me harder against him, so I feel the solid weight of his desire at my thigh. With frantic hands I push his coat off his shoulders, letting it slip to the floor, then use what few inches remain between our bodies to shove aside the fabric of his shirt, trying to get my hands on the sculpted, perfect flesh there that I’ve admired since the day I met him.
He laughs, a deep, low sound, as I pull the hem loose from his pants.
“Eager, aren’t we?”
I don’t answer other than to slip my hands up under the fabric, tracing my palms across the toned planes of his stomach and the trail of thick, dark hair running from his navel.
That shuts him up, and he turns his focus to the laces on the back of my dress. I freeze, his body still pressed against mine. I know once he undoes those ribbons and I feel him against my bare skin, I won’t be able think straight anymore, maybe won’t even remember my own name. The prospect scares me, but in spite of that, I still want. Still need. But need or not, I’m not about to let him think he can run this show entirely.
He senses the shift in my demeanor, his hands stilling at the base of my neck, a question in his eyes.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Ruskin.” I let my nails drag lightly across his chest. He closes his eyes and makes a low sound in the back of his throat. “You will tell me what I want to know, no matter what tricks you have up your sleeve.” My fingers dip down to run along the waist of his pants, my thumbs brushing against the hardness there, but never dropping lower.
