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Jyss looked like she had been slapped, her head rearing back as she looked at him oddly. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t rejected her before, only resorting to avoiding without words when he hadn’t been interested in whatever she had to offer.
“Are you sure?” Jyss tried again, struggling to catch up with the new dynamics. At Rick’s firm nod, she gathered her shoulders, no longer posing to show off her chest, and walked away in a huff. The Fae bumped Emerald’s shoulder, not acknowledging her.
Emerald kept her gaze on him. When she remained silent, he snatched the dress shirt back and began re-buttoning it.
“You don’t know how to reject people,” she concluded after a while.
“I reject people all the time.”
“I meant advances from women.”
“I…” He trailed off, trying to recall all the times women approached him with something specific in mind. “I never had to.”
“Which was why I was a novelty. Someone who didn’t easily fall for your charming act as most people did, including your folks.”
“I have female friends,” he said, a tad defensive. “It’s not all about flirting with women for me.”
But a part of him acknowledged that, like Jyss, it had been his default in most situations he found himself in. Dealing with Lily the giant had been proof of that, and what would have been a normal interaction now bothered him.
“We were friends before that night in the tower,” he added. A memory of that moment flashed, squeezing him with a different kind of discomfort before he stomped it down. “I didn’t flirt with that mermaid.”
“Hmm.”
“Speak your mind, Em,” he said when the silence became unbearable. “Don’t let my wonderful presence deter you.”
It was the right call as it snapped her out of what might have been pity. He loathed pity.
“Is that a common occurrence?” she asked. “Jyss coming into your dressing room and just putting her hands on you? Other females doing it?”
“It used to be,” he admitted.
“So, you just let her flirt with you all the time?”
“It used to be more than flirting. It wasn’t exclusive to her, but…yes. She was the most frequent one I took to bed. Or wherever it was convenient.”
“To sate a need.”
“Yes. To sate a need. To have fun. To avoid boredom.”
Shallow reasons, but that was him. That had been him, and he didn’t want to lie to her about it. Rick braced for the judgment now, the scathing words that put him in his place and told him she wouldn’t be like them. But she wasn’t like them, not in the least—not when touching her had felt like he was diving headfirst into the unknown and nothing about it felt perfunctory, hollow, or fun. Fun had been the last thing on his mind when she had driven him insane with the sounds she made and the way she came apart…
“Your shirt’s askew.”
“What?”
She pointed at his untucked shirt, not offering to fix it for him. Breaking out of his whirlwind of ruminations, he began to understand she was offering a truce, not judging. His shoulders eased.
“Tuck in,” Yu piped in, peeking from behind a mirror after hiding at Jyss’s entrance.
“Yes—”
“I can’t stay here for long.”
The announcement had the two men staring at Emerald, who was no longer paying attention to him.
“I know that,” he said. “But you need to stay here to gain at least a little bit of their trust, including my sister’s. Otherwise, they would think you were a spy and wouldn’t let you leave.”
She nodded, not fighting his reasoning but still restless over it. The idea of her leaving sent a pang to his chest, where he fought the itch to rub.
