Page 216 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“What ever do you mean?” She took off her long gloves slowly, several black bands of oaths beneath. It struck me in the chest each time I saw a band, but I refrained from saying anything.

I took of her crown, setting it on the dresser and then her heavy earrings, and all she did was stare at me. She was painfully beautiful, I could not concentrate. I began removing her diamond pins one after the other and her black silky hair spilled over her shoulder, making my work torturous. I ran my fingers through her hair in attempt to straighten it and her eyes drew shut.

“Done.”

She puckered her fiery red mouth. “The lips too.”

I blew a long breath while staring at the soft flesh. “Evil woman.”

She smiled and reached over the table for a cloth, and I felt her flinch while she stilled afront the mirror. I knew it was one of the things she hated. “What do you see me as, Kil?”

I realised it was not mirrors she hated, but what they reflected. And then I hated why she saw what she saw. “You are all I see. I cannot compare you to anything else.”

Her eyes lost in her reflection. “I see dark…and terror.”

I didn’t want her to see herself as what she though others saw or what others forced her to be. I pulled her round to face me, and gently tried to wipe the red from her lips though I liked the colour on her. “No one is but light, my love, it would be such a vain world of bright.”

“I still don’t want you to see me like that.”

“I live to see you like that,” I said, moving her hair to the back to kiss her shoulder. “You’re the night sky I am so desperate to paint. A deep cave I’d cower to safety. A shadow of shelter in scorching summer. Smoke of lames that never tasted warmer. The most beautiful dark.” It was darkness that made shine, not light.

She bloomed a sunny smile and it made me melt. “I’d never before wanted a man’s lips to speak me pretty words more than kiss me.”

I moved a strand of hair back. “I’d never before wanted to see those lips curl in such a beautiful smile more than kiss them.”

She sighed. “I still want to kiss you more.”

I smiled. “Me too.”

“It was for dramatic affect.”

I nodded. “It was.”

“We were being romantic.”

I pressed my lips just outside the corner of hers and she gasped. “We were.”

Her chest rose furiously. “It wasn’t awkward at all.”

“Not one bit.” I ran my finger over her neck and shoulders. “How will you torture me next?”

“My dress,” she said, standing. “Since you love undressing me.”

I drew out a long frustrated exhale. “Horrible woman.”

I began unlacing the back and slowly it peeled of her body, pooling at her feet. She remained in the thinnest, shortest slip my eyes had ever seen. It hid nothing, if not accentuated her chest and their hardened centre needing for my touch. Too lost there to pay mind, she sat back on my lap and I began growing dizzy.

Her fingers stretched exploring my chest and then up to my neck. Leaning over my ear she whispered, “I thought I could feel something sharp down there.”

Fuck. I dug my hands on her hips to stop her from moving. “Cruel woman.”

She threw her arms around my neck and pressed her forehead to mine. “I am, but you’re a cruel man too.”

I rounded her tight in my embrace, pressed against my chest till we breathed the same loud pace. My hands trailing all over her. I wanted to remember every curve and dip. “I would have devoured you.”

She smiled and kissed the bridge of my nose. “You already have.”

Chapter 40