For a moment, I think a line forms between his brows, but when I blink, it’s gone.
“A kindness.”
It’s probably a bad time to tell him that while I appreciate the thought, his execution needs work.
“That’s it?”
“Yes. But you’re here now,” he says, studying the crowd. He turns those eyes back on me, and I realize exactly why there’s so much space separating us from anyone else—like there’s a barrier physically stopping them from stepping too close.
There’s a lethal dexterity in those silver-spun eyes that’sgutting.
“Why are you here, Orlaith?”
I swallow, looking away before my insides spill. “Sucker for punishment, I guess.”
His fingers pause.
The silence stretches while he carves my cheek with his icy blade of perusal, before he grunts and looks away, allowing me to finally draw a half satisfying breath as he begins painting those circles again.
“And what did you do with the bluebells?” I stab my stare at the side of his face, though he continues to survey the crowd. “Toss them over the balcony or hang them up to dry?”
“Neither,” I bite out. “You’re not as smart as you think you are.”
“They’re on your pillow, aren’t they?” He meets my stare and steals my breath for a haunting moment.
How does he know?
“I don’t miss much, Orlaith. Certainly not when it comes to you.”
A gasp slices into me ...
“I know every glimmer in your eye, every rapture that makes your soulsing. I know that right now, your spine is locked not by your own accord, but because my fingers have you wound like a puppet on a string,” he says, tightening their delicious swirl and making me throb in places that ought not to throb.
Not for this man.
He leans closer, his breath an icy assault on my ear, and I find myself arching like a flower—reaching as if he’s the sun and not a bitter frost that’ll likely leave me ruined.
And I’m angry.Soangry at myself, because I’d probably enjoy it. Being ruined by Rhordyn would be better than never drinking the sips of his affection again.
“I know that your cheeks are flushed because you’re embarrassed by the dull ache between your legs. By the wetness you can feel smeared between your thighs. You’re worried I can smell it. I can.”
My heart slams against my ribs, his stare flaying me, then picking at my insides.
“I know you’re fighting some internal battle, because although I can smell your arousal ... I can feel your anger licking at my skin like aflame.”
A beat passes—sweet, innocent limbo. A peaceful, stolen moment that’s doomed to die a grisly death.
I know it. Can feel it in the air, like the ocean drawing a watery breath.
When his beautifully carved mouth opens, I almost reach up and slam it closed.
“Let the anger win, Orlaith.” His fingers stop their circles, that door slamming shut between us again. “Let the anger win.”
And then he’s gone, leaving me alone at the wall, crushed against it by his parting words.
A terse reminder that I may be his, but he’llneverbe mine.
Atear darts down my cheek, and I bat it away with a swift hand, as if it doesn’t hold the weight of my fractured heart in that one tiny bead.
