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Rounding through the nearby archway confirmed my suspicion. Malyr sat on the bench in front of the wall of windows that overlooked the upper market, the trees in front of it naked, though he refused to have them cut down just yet. Knife in hand, he broke the old wax seal of a yellowed scroll, his sweat-glistening chest bare, his breeches untied.
I looked over at the large metal-cast tub, the water not even steaming anymore, then back at him. “Did you let yourself get distracted again?”
There was a heavy sigh, but that didn’t keep him from meeting my gaze as his lips lifted into a smile. “Every day, I try to read over at least five accounts that my father left behind. Sill, at this rate, I won’t be done before I sprout my first gray hair.”
I held on to his shoulder, picked up the train of my green silken dress, and sat astride his lap. “Watching you grow old was one of the many things I dreaded I might never experience in that throne room. Read more scrolls. Maybe they’ll sprout faster.”
Scroll and blade lowered onto the red cushion beside him, he ran his palms along my waist. “Did I neglect you today,anoaley?”
“Yes.” Spring seedings. Ravens returning to Valtaris with century-old claims to lands or homes. Plot divisions and assignments. Kingly things kept him busy while I looked after the human affairs—none of which was the source of my frustration, though. “Did you notice that the hallways are strangely empty and the servants’ quarters quite noisy at the moment?”
I lifted my arms and ran my fingertips through his open strands, loving the way it caused him to release a long, freeing exhale. Then I kissed him, deep and drinking, rolling my cunt over his engorging flesh unabashed. I wasn’t usually this forward and lusty, but then again, I’d never suffered through spring with myanoaintact before.
As expected, Malyr grabbed my waist, his hands trembling as if tempted to push me down on his hardening cock… only to stall my motion completely. “I should get into the water before it gets cold.”
I tried rocking my pelvis, but his hold on me was solid. “It’s gone cold already.” I knew it; he knew it. “How much longer are you going to do this,anoaley?The rejecting?”
“I am not rejecting you. Look at me.” His hand shot up to my chin, forcing my gaze to meet his gray-brown stare, which was a promising start. “I amnotrejecting you. It’s just… you are still healing.”
“I meant, how much longer will you reject yourself, keeping me at arm’s length out of fear that you’ll hurt me.” Denying his urges. Denying my needs. Denying us the intimacy of our bodies coming together in pleasure and pain. “I’ve been healed for weeks.”
A breath barreled out of him, his face bleak, as if he was coming to the realization that I wasn’t as oblivious as he’d hoped me to be. “It is spring…”
“As we all know.” I ran my fingers down along the chiseled line of his jaws, over his throat, and lower to where a soft sheen glistened on his scarred chest, even though he’d already bathed once today. “All the more reason for you to abandon the premise of cold water and take me to our warm nest. I miss you. I miss feeling you against me. Inside me.”
“I am… worried that I might not be able to control myself,” he said. “Not to mention that I haven’t syphoned into you for days now.”
Three, to be precise, since I’d been‘feeling weak’. “Who says that I want you in control?”
An excited glint flickered across his eyes, here one second, extinguished under more shame and doubt the next. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Oh, I knew.
I rocked my pelvis as much as he let me, which was enough for my neglected, needy clit to throb. Goddess help me, the way he pulsed beneath me, eager but holding back. It had been so long since I’d had his hard cock inside me, driving me wild with pleasure!
“Stop,” he said quietly, as if he didn’t dare speak up out of fear his voice might break, revealing his crumbling resolve. “It’s difficult for me to be gentle on my best days, and today is not one of those days.”
Yes, I’d made certain of that by closing my void to him, letting his shadows accumulate. If I’d learned one thing about Malyr, it was that his temper grew shorter in direct relation to the increasing amount of shadows he had to contain. How to get him to unleash it? To smack me, choke me, bite me… and see that I would come out of it alive, satisfied, and filled with bliss?
My eyes wandered to the knife.
That might work.Of all the things I’d witnessed strip him of his control, little was as effective as causing him pain.
“The thing is, Malyr…” I took the knife, the tapered bone handle thick and smooth in my palm, and brought the blade to his chest. “I don’t want you gentle. Never did.”
“That was before…”They hurt you, he didn’t say as he glanced down at the knife, his next inhale lifting his chest higher, letting the blade press precariously into his skin. “Whatever enjoyment you might find in it now will forever be tainted.”
No, because I wouldn’t let it.
Helet his past makehimfeel tainted.
“I have no interest in denying myself the joys of life or the pleasures of love over a few people dead in the ground, Malyr.” It was surprisingly easy, gliding the blade slowly down his chest, letting blood rise from the cut before it collected and ran in a crimson droplet down his stomach. “Why would you let them rob you of the things you enjoy, hmm?”
He let out a hiss, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t move an inch, aside from how he stared down at the bloody cut. “What are you trying to achieve here, little dove?”
Oh, he knew, I could tell by the way he smirked when his gaze met mine once more, but I only shrugged. “A flower, maybe. I would promise you to make it pretty, but I’m afraid I’m not nearly as artistic as you are.”
“Mmm. How about a dove? Surely you can manage a faint likeness?” He leaned back, lowering his arms to his left and right on the bench, as if offering himself up as a canvas. Calm, entirely too calm. “Go ahead. I have dozens of scars, but this one, I will treasure.”
