I turned, approaching him slowly, and when I was just in front of him, I stopped. "I would argue that is the only good reason to do anything. Because you want it badly enough."
I laid my hand against his chest and felt him flinch from the chill of my fingers. He did not move to stop me as I looked up at him.
But when I moved my hand, sliding it across the smooth, broad plane of his chest, feeling the fine black hairs beneath my palm, he reached up to catch my wrist.
"It must be a fine world to live in where you would only need to regard your own wants, but we do not live in that world, Sera."
He held my wrist still, but his hold was gentle. He slid his hand down to cover mine, pressing it against his chest. "You must be mindful of your future. Mindful of your duty to the crown and what chaos would follow in the wake of anyone finding out you were even in my rooms."
"So, you're concerned with my future?" I asked, still staring up at him with that unaccounted-for ache inside me.
"Of course I am," he replied.
I looked down. His admission warmed some part of me, even as it annoyed me to no end.
I reached my other hand out to slide it around his waist, letting my fingers trail around to his back.
He moved quickly then, gathering both my hands and stepping back with a wry grin. "Sit, Sera." He indicated the chaise lounge at the foot of the big bed.
Fine, I thought. I would need to work a little harder to make him realize that I was not a maiden who needed protection. I had no doubt that he wanted me. The moments in the manor house at that damned party told me that much.
I wanted to kill them for looking at you,he'd said.
The memory of it made me turn to liquid heat inside. If we had not been interrupted, I knew he was moments away from being inside of me. I could make him remember that.
I took a seat on the leather chaise, pulling my legs up to curl beneath me under the cloak.
He sat in a chair pushed out from the writing desk, where it looked like he’d been working before I interrupted him. Papers were strewn across the surface, perhaps letters to his brother, the king, regarding the battle with the dead things.
I watched him as started writing again. The scrape and scratch of his pen was the only sound in the room until I spoke. "Tell me, Io—."
His pen stopped, and his eyes shot to mine. He always seemed to react when I used his name.
I could capitalize on that, I thought, even as it made me feel slightly guilty for fighting a bit dirty. He was waiting for me to go on, so I did. "Whenyou take a woman to your bed,Io, does she concern herself with your future?" I leaned back against the rolled cushion of the chaise lounge.
He narrowed his eyes but didn't answer. He didn't need to. Of course she did not concern herself with his future.
"Well then, why must you concern yourself with mine? Unless you think me less capable of safeguarding my own interests than you are of yours. I am an adult, accustomed to making my own choices and living with the consequences. Which in this den of viperous men, is no small feat to have accomplished."
He smiled a little, though the tension did not leave his shoulders. "I have little doubt that you would run roughshod over them all if you chose, Aelia of Windemere."
I smiled, inordinately pleased with his compliment, even if my strong and independent act was a farce of epic proportions. I had no power except over this choice. At least, that was how it felt as I looked at him, seated at that desk staring back at me with those wickedly sharp eyes.
I could see a bit more of his back from that angle. Sharp lines of black ink ran down the center of it. Scales and wings and talons—a massive dragon—Veles, I assumed, drawn on his back by some artist's very talented hand.
He surprised me by rising and stalking across the chamber until he was standing just over me. He looked down at me with an inscrutable expression.
I sat up, sliding my legs over the side of the lounge and rising in the small space until I was staring up at him. I was not a short woman, but his height made him tower over me. We were so close our chests nearly touched.
I reached up and unclasped my cloak. He surprised me again by sweeping it off my shoulders, letting it fall to the floor.
"I think you are capable of anything, Sera."
I smiled again as his hands came up to cup my face, thumb gliding over my bottom lip. My heart thundered as he looked at me, still somehow assessing.
His answering smile came quick and breathtaking, sending my already racing heart into the heavens.
And then he kissed me.
