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“On the table.” Although it’s technically a question, the tone she uses makes it sound more like a statement.
Smart-arse.
A low chuckle rumbles in my chest, catching me off guard. Eve’s head tilts in surprise before a small smirk tugs at her lips, and she hitches herself up on the table. For such a petite thing, she has long, shapely legs that would feel as good as they look wrapped around me. Just as her smart mouth would feel sublime with her choking on my cock. If I were to fuck her, which I won’t. There’s no way I’m touching her, even if my cock is throbbing in its regard for my thoughts.
Not going to happen, I assert to myself, rolling my shoulders back to stretch out the tense heat coiling in my muscles.
“I’m sitting,” she tells me with a haughty cock of her brow.
“Would you like a medal?”
“Like yours?” Eve nods at my chest, where my military and dignitary decorations are pinned on my black dinner jacket. There’s a bitter edge to her question that gives me pause as I turn to fetch her violin. “Come on, it’s not like you actually went to war and earnt them, is it? You have people to fight your battles for you. Don’t you? When was the last time any of you aristocrats and princes actually fought for your country?”
The remark twists at my insides. With the political climate we’re in and the plots to abolish the monarchy by any means possible, it strikes a dissonant chord, reminding me that there’s no such thing as safety, not even within these walls.
My hand grips her instrument tightly as I return to my seat, pulling it back a few feet to put enough distance between us so that I can see her fully. I want to take in her whole picture, to see through her as she seems to see through me.
“And what do you actually know about any of it? You’re just a fucking child. A naïve one at that.”
An acerbic snort twists her face. “My childhood ended when my dad was killed fighting for you lot. I stopped being a child when my brother died fighting your war.”
“And here you are, serving us lot like they did.” She scowls at me with her jaw clenched so tight that the lines of her soft features sharpen. When she makes to stand, I warn, “Walk away from me and you won’t make it out of these walls.”
“I’m not serving you.”
“Why are you here, then?”
“A means to an end.” Eve shrugs, shuffling back on the table until her legs are hanging over the edge. The stones on the straps of her shoes cast rainbows between us every time the light hits them. “It’s part of my scholarship at the conservatory, and it looks good on my résumé. I’m not serving you; I’m serving myself.”
The honesty burning in her eyes fills me with an intrigue that overshadows the need to break her indignation with my bare hands. Tears glitter heavily on her lashes like precious pendants begging to be plucked. Something about her grief warms me. It sings to my reverie. Like the patter of rain lulling the thunder in a storm, Eve’s visible sorrow fuzzes my roaring rage. I’m not sure I like it, but the distraction silences the storm in my mind, making it possible to think past my hunger for revenge and my thirst for blood.
An eerie quiet engulfs us as she stares down at her lap, allowing her long hair to curtain her face. I watch as she picks at her short nails for a moment, observing the way her right index finger is always slightly bent away from her other fingers. Years of being on the bow would do that, but she still has childlike, small hands that show she is young, contrary to her buxom hips and tits.
“How old are you?” I ask, plucking the middle string of her violin with my thumbnail.
Eve tucks her thick, golden strands behind her ears while glancing up at me from beneath dark lashes. The spirit she possesses shines from the depths of her gaze. An unspoken challenge. There’s a wildness in her that I don’t know if I want to tame, spur, or break.
How far can she be pushed until it breaks? My thoughts meander with the flutter of her lashes, and my pulse stutters in time with the motion. How long would it take to break her?
All that relucent life within her taunts me the longer she stands strong. I’ve never wanted to touch something as much as I want to touch her. To feel the warmth of blood and the velvet of soft skin.
“Nineteen,” she answers.
A bratty teenager. “Definitely not fucking you,” I scoff out loud, even though I’m telling myself.
“I don’t want you to fuck me.”
“I’m not going to.”
“Do you want another medal?” she growls with a roll of her eyes as she looks around her to allude to the nature of the place we’re in.
Fuck! I want to punish that mouth of hers until all that sass she owns is streaming from her eyes, pleading for mercy. I’ve never felt this unrelenting, unshakeable need for anything like I do for her. And I know that if I give in, we’re both fucked. I’ll destroy her, and I’ll ruin myself. But worst of all, I’ll enjoy it more than I crave it.
Glancing at the mantel clock as it chimes midnight, she brushes her hair back into a high ponytail, holding it there for a beat. Her skin is flushed as warm as I feel, and when I extend her violin to her, she has a moment of pause before she takes it with a confused expression.
“My mother is the patron of your school.” It’s a pointless remark, and I don’t know why I made it, except for the fact that it shows her to be even more at my mercy, in some way that I haven’t quite figured out yet.
“Means to an end,” Eve repeats. There’s pride in the upturn of her nose and the tip of her chin. “We’re not all born with a silver spoon in our mouths.”
