“What is this?” I hesitated to ask but did so anyway.
“I was becoming tired of you complaining about being cold.” He glanced back up at my eyes.
“Hypothetically, if I had an attentive lover”—I leaned up toward him—“my bones wouldn’t chill so easily.”
“Is that so?” His tone was nearly a sneer. Even in anger, he couldn’t help a glance at my lips while I spoke.
I expected to offend him, but he took it as a challenge.
“I’ve known warmer flasks,” I mocked, my final word sharp.
“Have you now?” He withdrew from me, studying the floor he walked on as he approached the window.
He opened the window, the fresh, cool breeze puffing some snow powder from the windowsill into the room.
He came to the side of the bed, cocking his head. “How is the temperature?”
“Fine.” I swallowed, clutching the fur over my body.
He snared the end of the cloak I was holding, yanking it down and exposing me. My hands flew to my chest, legs crossed. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I said firmly, unable to help a tremor when the wind whistled through the window again.
I was surrounded by fur, either too stubborn or too scared to grab one for cover. He was waiting for it, waiting for me to give in. This was his game—to make me depend on him.
I straightened my back, chin held high. My body shook from the cold or from a small dose of exhilaration.
“Now you don’t have a reason to complain; you have something in every color.” He tossed the rest of the pile onto the bed. “Not that you have much diversity in your attire.”
“I don’t need them.”
He yanked my ankle, dragging me toward him through the fur. His knee dipped into the lush mattress.
There was something scandalous despite the tameness of the scene around us. This man had chased me, hunted me, and used me as food. Now he wore everything but the coat, starched and pressed like he had some important business to attend to, yet he was here, looming over me while I was rather indisposed. Sometimes the lines between what I would entertain and what I enjoyed were becoming a singular line in the dirt.
I did not give him the pleasure of squirming, kicking, or yelling. I relaxed back into the scene, arching my back as I became comfortable.
“For someone who refuses to be spoiled,” Silas began, reaching down and tracing his finger across my hip bone, slowly across to the other side, “you sure seem to be enjoying yourself this morning.”
“You won’t get a rouse out of me any longer. You are harmless, we’ve established this.”
“To your body, reasonably.” He flattened his hand on my abdomen, smoothing it up between my breasts. “Your ego is never safe, though.”
I glanced at his hand, then back up at him. The light from behind him made him look like some gloomy premonition. “Neither is yours, as we have learned.”
His hand slid further, resting on my neck, the tips of his fingers pulsing with anticipation, a reminder of our positions.
His other hand moved on my thigh.
The wind from the window blew infrequently. As his fingers trailed over my skin, I could feel goose bumps rise just with the slightest touch, even in anticipation, like being touched by a ghost.
The hand on my neck did not frighten me. No, it was the softer touches that posed a far more intense terror, one of accepting that I might want such tenderness from the monster that haunted me.
He was gentle, his hand hovering between my legs. I could practically imagine the warmth the touch would hold, only to be deprived of it. Sharp shivers rippled through me.
I finally looked up; his eyes weren’t even looking where his hands were acting; his eyes were on only me.
“I am not scared of you.” Another shiver.
