I blink, spilling tears I smear over my cheek. With a sigh, I look away, foraging through my dresser for something to sleep in.
The sound of heavy footsteps blasting up Stony Stem has me sucking a sharp breath, tugging my robe across my breasts moments before the door flies off its hinges and skids across the floor.
A whimper escapes me as Rhordyn pours into my room with eyes shaded black. He slams into me, corralling me against the wall, locking me between what feels like two unyielding sheets of ice.
I swallow thickly, all too aware of the tensed panes of his powerful body. Of the way his head’s dipped, nose grazing my neck, his cold breath an assault on my prickling flesh.
“You deny me,” he snarls, tone menacing.
Wild.
“I—”
“It wasn’t a question,” he snaps, and my spine locks.
His smell is a drug clogging my throat, stopping me from drawing a deep gulp of air lest I get high and pass out.
“I ... I forgot.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Two sharp points punctuate the thumping flesh of my neck and I gasp, mouth dropping open. The pressure increases, as if he’s about to break the surface and bite into me.
Spillme.
Something has me tipping my head to the side, like a flower exposing her brittle stem to a pair of clippers.
He makes a low, rumbling sound that stays trapped in the tomb of his chest.
My lids flutter closed.
His every breath pushes him closer, and I find myself timing my own just to lessen that slice of space between us, allowing me greedy sips of his body—equally as foreign to me as my own.
But where he’s hard, I’m soft like butter and so damn vulnerable. Right now, he could tear me to ribbons, and like the supplicating creature I’ve become in the shadow of his presence, I wouldn’t even fight.
Suddenly, almostpunishingly, the sharp pressure abates, leaving nothing but the tender chill of his lips against my carotid. “Tell me the truth,” he murmurs, catching my breath.
The truth ...
“Now.”
“I—I was jealous.”
“And why were you jealous, Orlaith?”
The question skates over my fervid flesh like the smooth slide of a blade, dropping my thrashing heart into my stomach.
“Because in the gardens, when I first saw you ...”
I pause, knowing I shouldn’t say what I want to say. Knowing that’s crossing a line that should be left uncharted until I draw my last breath.
“Go on,” he commands, and the simple slash of it almost brings me to my knees. Probably would if I weren’t tethered to the way his lips move against my skin every time he speaks.
“I saw yousmileat her ...”
His body locks. Though it only lasts a fraction of a second, I revel in the brief drop of his shield.
“Greedy girl,” he whispers, voice akin to the wind shaking my window panes in the dead of night. “You want them all to yourself?”
