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“Alarie,” I said, leaning against the arm of the large leather chair she sat in, her legs curled up underneath her.
I gently took the book out of her hand, setting it on the wooden end table next to her. Then I enveloped her small hand with my own. She looked up at me, her green-and-gold eyes curious.
“Alarie, I don’t want you walking around the Court by yourself, especially not at night anymore,” I said. I phrased it as a request, but my tone made it plain that I was telling and not asking.
“Jay, I’ve gone around alone just fine my entire life. I don’t need—”
“No, Alarie, you’re going to listen to me on this,” I demanded.
I appreciated her feistiness most of the time, but I would not entertain a discussion on this, not when it came to her safety. I gently stroked the top of her hand with my thumb to soften my stern tone.
“You can’t possibly know the things I know about these people at the High Court, dear. The things they’re capable of. This isn’t the first body to show up in its halls and is not half as dark as some of the things I’ve heard,” I said.
“Whenever I am out of town, you’re taken care of. You don’t have to worry about that,” I reassured her. “But promise me, Alarie. You will not go wandering around by yourself. Stick with me or Luke, or even Rhett.”
I knew she thought I was being overly protective. But she had no clue about the things, the people, I’d already lost because I wasn’t protective enough before. I would not make the same mistake with her.
“I…” she hesitated.
“Promise me, dear,” I demanded.
She squinted her eyes in consternation. “Yes, Jay,” she finally promised.
I liked the way her sweet little mouth looked wrapped around those two simple, perfect words.
11
Jay
Ashadow of a smile danced across her beautiful face as I entered the library that morning. I’d been out of town again. It had been days since I’d seen her gorgeous face light up with a smile.
“Did you just get in?” she asked as I settled down next to her at the long, dark mahogany table we always shared in the library.
“No,” I replied. “I got back around ten thirty last night.”
A delicious flush rose in her cheeks, and I knew why. It was the same reason my hand itched to wrap around her leg that was pushed next to mine under the table.
She got up from her seat, pushing her chair back with the bottom of her heel. Alarie walked to a nearby bookshelf, standing on her tippy toes in her high heels to reach for the book she wanted. I allowed my eyes to rake over her backside, then cleared my throat like that would help me clear my head of her.
The new wardrobe I’d picked out for her was working out well,too well. Alarie was embracing the style of the High Court and wearing the tighter, slinkier items I’d purchased for her, and it had been pure torture for me every single day since.
It wasn’t like me to get hung up on something young and pretty. Before the Summer Ball, it’s true that I’d had to ramp up the visitors to my bed to distract myself from the fact that Alarie was just right down the hall from me most nights. Then, after my slipup at the Summer Ball, I’d picked back up with a string of women, redoubling my efforts to avoid another lapse in my control. But, despite my best efforts, she was thoroughly in my head. I couldn’t get her out of my mind, even when I was with the other women who, before Alarie stepped out of that carriage and into my life, had been entertaining enough to pass most nights.
My affliction regarding the young fae didn’t end outside of the bedroom, either. I’d restructured my daily routine, when I was in town, to maximize the amount of time I could be near her. Before Alarie, I worked out of my private study. But after Alarie’s first lesson, I’d just stayed in the library. And every day since, I brought my work to the library, at the same table, sitting right next to her.
The lady of the House was not the issue. We had an understanding, the lady and I. We’d married during the war for mutual political gain, and there was never love, or even lust, between us. Just duty, which after so many years, Elizabeth and I usually bore without too much chafing.
Alarie’s age wasn’t even an issue, although she was quite young, not even twenty-four until spring.
The real concern was her position in my House as liaison and the fact that she was living in the manor with just me most of the time. As she made her way back over to me, my eyes tracking her the entire way, I tried to convince myself it would just be too complicated.
That’s why I’d kept my distance from Alarie since the Summer Ball. And it seemed that she agreed. Without having discussed it, there was a silent agreement between us that a repeat of our exchange at the Summer Ball was a bad idea. But seeing Alarie, after what I’d heard the night before when I’d come home, I didn’t know if I cared if being with her got complicated.
Her thigh brushed against me as she sat down. We’d silently agreed not to let it happen again, but that didn’t stop her from teasing me every opportunity she got. Even though the library was huge and had many tables and the table we sat at was the length of many chairs, we invariably sat in the same two seats right next to each other.
Sitting so close to her that I could smell her soft, feminine floral scent, I tried not to think about what I’d come home to last night—my name, gasped in urgent little breaths so quiet that only I could hear. Standing at the top of the staircase between my room and Alarie’s, I focused in on the tiny little gasp and was surprised to find that, similar to the time when my power had been more robust, I could chase the whisper down to its owner. Following the whisper in my mind’s eye, a picture of the west wing of my manor came into sight.
And then I saw her, a beautiful flush to her cheeks, lying partially hidden under the crisp white sheet in her bed. Her legs were splayed out, creating two perfect little tents with the sheet. Her breasts heaved, and the strap of her silk nightgown fell off her shoulder as she moved her hand to grip the top of her gray tufted headboard. And then I’d trailed my eyes to her other hand, where it pumped underneath the sheet between her legs.
