“How about you stay here,” he said against my ear. “I can draw you a bath. Then you can clean up while I throw together some breakfast.”
I shivered from both the warmth in his voice and the feel of him pressed up against me. “O-okay,” I agreed, not at all feeling like myself.
Maybe this is a dream after all, I mused.A heated fantasy fueled by the hot climate, perhaps.
It would be so easy to move in his arms and kiss him, to take the fantasy to the next level.
But his heat left my back in the next instant as he maneuvered me back onto the bed, placing my head on the pillow and my shoulders against the mattress.
He stared down at me for a moment, his hands braced on the bed, caging me beneath him.
Several beats passed, his gaze going from my eyes to my lips, the intensity seeming to spiral into a dangerous vibration of forbidden desires.
My throat worked, making me wince again at the reminder of my time in the trials.
Ajax observed the motion, his own throat working. Then he reached over me to the nightstand and grabbed a bottle of water.
I nearly lifted my hand to take it from him.
But he was already unscrewing the cap and bringing it to my lips.
The blues in his irises darkened to match the black center as he watched me swallow, his chiseled cheekbones appearing that much sharper with the change.
Handsomeseemed too bland a word to use for Ajax. He was so much more.
And not just because of his features, but because of the hint of his soul staring at me through his darkened gaze.
It was as though I could see the real him.
The tortured Ajax beneath the cocky veneer.
The heart that tried futilely not to beat yet couldn’t seem to stop thriving.
So much seemed to pass between us, an odd sort of understanding snapping into place.
This was the true Ajax. The one who’d suffered incredible loss, the one who had given up on fate and choices and had decided to pursue his own path into the darkness to outrun his pain.
He let me see everything.
“Ajax…”
He watched my mouth as though he expected me to say more. And when I didn’t, he set the bottle to the side, then slid off the bed. “I’ll let you know when your bath is ready.”
With those words, he left the room.
I stared at his bedroom for a moment, still stunned that this wasn’t a dream.
I found this shift in Ajax’s behavior to be immensely unsettling. Mostly because of what it evoked inside me.Intrigue. Desire. Yearning.
All things I could not afford to feel.
Not when I still wanted to escape.
Nothing about this is right, I reminded myself.Even if my libido says otherwise.
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
CAMI
