Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
His eyes closed as his hand came to rest on my collarbone. When they opened, his pupils had dilated once more. There it was. Him, his want, the real unvarnished Dorian. The fae who looked at me with more reverence than he did the Sylvanwild queen.
His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “I’ve thought of this so often.” His fingers slid over my collarbone to the open flaps of my shirt, then lower. “You with those leathers off.”
The words were a shock. Heat swept through my belly, fast and encompassing. “You lie.”
He shook his head, brushed the side of one breast as he passed toward the hem.
Goosebumps followed his touch. He lifted my shirt until my torso came exposed, but he paused before revealing my chest. I hated how my breath caught when he moved his hand, as if my lungs had made a decision my mind hadn’t.
My eyes lifted. “What about me with this undershirt off?”
The faintest curl appeared at his lips. “That, too.”
I lifted my good hand to the twine of my messy braid and tugged. The braid unraveled, and I shook my hair loose. “Then what are you waiting for?”
The words came so easily, I hardly knew whose mouth was speaking them.
Who was she, this woman? Not Eurydice Waters of the Dip.
But they felt right—like me. Like the Eurydice who had lived inside me all along.
The girl who’d run toward the wall at night.
The one who’d seen a shadow moving through the trees.
Who’d fought off those fuckers in my bunk.
Now I knew I was two people, two Eurydices living inside the same body. Human, fae—changeling.
“Good question.” He raised my shirt higher and slipped it off over my head, taking care to help me slide out of the left sleeve. He pulled it off me… and stared, lips parted.
I had a human instinct to cover myself. I resisted it and stared up at him.
“Fuck, Eury.” He let the undershirt fall to the floor like he’d forgotten he was holding it.
“Like what you imagined?”
He blew out a breath. “My imagination is painfully underdeveloped.”
I couldn’t help my laugh—or the jolt of warmth through my core. The sight of him staring at me with that hunger sent a fresh feeling through me. Power. I felt it again, magnified.
A man that capable. A fae that powerful. He wanted me.
His hand passed over my bare skin, up my belly and alongside the curve of my breast. I exhaled with the touch. I’d never been exposed quite like this. Never felt so vulnerable, but it came threaded with a new feeling of want as his fingers moved over me like I was something precious, divine.
“Stand,” he said.
The command ricocheted through me. I fucking loved it.
I stood. He sat forward and undid the tie of my leather pants as my hands rested on his shoulders. His fingers moved with surety, and he eased my pants down over my thighs and calves. I stepped out of them, and he slid them aside.
I stood above him in only my underwear, fingers still on his shoulders. I knew I must smell like the dungeon and worms and earth, but he stared up at me like I’d descended from the sky.
“Wildmother,” he whispered. “You’re perfect.”
I didn’t know what to say; no man had ever called me that. I didn’t know if it was the liquid I’d drunk or my own arousal, but need expanded in my core, sudden and warm.
He stood. In one motion, he’d pulled off his shirt.
It was only the second time I’d seen him without a shirt on. The first time we’d been in Thalassa’s hovel, and he’d been dying of poison. The light had been poor. But here…
He was like no man I’d ever seen. His arms and torso were layered in muscle; the ridges of his abdomen shifted under the crystal light as he bent to pull off his trousers.
I barely caught a glimpse of what lay between his legs—thick, hard—before he stepped forward and swept me into his arms. This was the decisiveness I knew, but he’d never applied it to me like this.
My arm went around his neck as he stepped over to the tub and into it. He lowered himself into the water, and me with him, taking care not to submerge my shoulder.
The water was so hot it burned. After three days in the endless-cold dungeon, it felt like one of my dreams.
He settled me against his chest, his legs bracketing me, his hardness against my lower back. Now that I hadn’t felt in the alcove. The feeling of him there—and his chest behind me, his arms wrapping around me—made the blood in my center rush downward.
I made to turn toward him, but he stopped me with careful hands on my shoulders. You’re not in control here, his hands said. Some part of me wanted to resist, and some part of me relished his strength.
His fingers trailed up my arms, raising goosebumps as he traced his way up to my hair. “I promised you a bath. Let me clean you, Eury.”
No one had ever done that for me besides my own mother. “Dorian…”
“I want to. Will you let me do that?”
He wanted to. He wanted to clean me, care for me. Let him. Why shouldn’t I let him? In the Eldermaze, he’d told me his promise was keeping me alive. Like a penance I didn’t know the sin for.
I swallowed, nodded.
And so he did. He cupped water in his hands and poured it over my head. He unwound the tangles and snarls from my hair with gentle slowness. His fingers pressed into my scalp, and a long breath quaked its way out of me.
I had never been massaged. I had never known how good it would feel.
When he finished with my hair, he moved downward. His large hand came around my neck, over my collarbone. Again, I wanted to turn toward him; again, I knew he would stop me.
Resisting my urges only made them stronger. Only made my need grow.
And maybe that was what he wanted.
He was methodical and careful with my left shoulder and paused when I hissed at the pain.
“Keep going,” I said. “Please.”
He resumed, circling the wound without touching it. Then his hands drifted lower, over my arms, my wrists, down to my fingertips. He briefly clasped my hands, then trailed back up, fingertips brushing my sides and breasts.
I shuddered with want so strong, it almost scared me.
He was too good at this. A jag of uncertainty went through me. “Dorian.”
“Yes?” His voice was a rasp.
“How many lovers have you had?”
He let out an amused breath. “Are you telling me I’m skillful?”
My lips curled. “Maybe.”
His hands slid down to my ribcage, right beside my breasts. “So you like this.”
I sucked in air. His fingers slipped under my breasts, plumping them, his thumbs circling close to my peaked nipples.
“I—”
“Yes, Eury?”
I barely recognized my breathy voice. “Please.” I wanted, needed his touch. “More.”
His thumbs kept on circling, and I arched toward them, desperate to shift the angle, just enough—
When one thumb brushed my pebbled nipple, I gasped, an electric jolt spearing down my middle.
His other thumb followed—another jolt, another gasp. My head tipped back against his chest. A sudden, yawning emptiness had opened up inside me, and all I wanted was for him to touch me everywhere.
My right hand found his. I guided it down the center of my belly. When he reached the apex of my thighs, I pressed his hand lower.
He kissed the shell of my ear, his breath tickling as his fingers slid lower. My legs opened at his touch, and he traced my inner thighs, came maddeningly close to where I wanted him before his fingers darted away, along the crease toward my hips.
I let out a sharp breath. “Are you trying to torture me?”
“We Sylvanwild don’t call it torture,” he murmured by my ear. “More like thoroughness.”
I can do that, too.
My lips curled, and I turned over in the tub before he could stop me. We were face-to-face, steam rising between us and nothing else. My good hand came to rest on his abdomen beside his cock, the head of which pulsed just below the water.
I stilled, taking in his expression. He looked like he could barely restrain himself; the muscles in his neck were taut.
So this was what a man looked like when he wanted you this badly. Not like the day guard I’d slept with once—his eyes alight—but dark like a predator. Like he would devour me.
It thrilled me. It scared me.
My whole life, I’d walked toward frightening. Climbing the wall, joining the guard—
I wanted what I feared.
I slid my fingers along his abdomen, tracing down toward his thighs and back up again. Avoiding, circling.
A low growl rumbled from him. “Keep doing that and we won’t be in this tub long.”
Good. I needed him wrapped around me like those nights inside the Eldermaze, needed his weight pressed over mine like he could anchor me back to my body. Like he could remind me what it meant to be held.
After three nights in that dungeon, he was the only thing that felt real. My tether. In his eyes, I saw myself as no one had ever seen me.
Smart, sure, capable.
He stared back, his breath shallow, jaw clenched like he was holding something behind his teeth. Water clung to his chest and shoulders, the ends of his hair curling damply at his jaw. His gaze moved over me as my fingers moved over him, slow and reverent.
Something passed in front of his eyes. A cloud of uncertainty.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, voice ragged.
I pressed myself up against him, arms wrapping around his neck. My shoulder throbbed, and I didn’t care. His erection pulsed hot and thick between us, and when I looked down at him, my fingers threaded into his hair. His lips parted for me, and I kissed him.
He groaned into my mouth, his hips jerking involuntarily under the water.
“If you don’t carry me to that bed right now,” I whispered when I pulled away, “I’ll never forgive you.”
A flicker passed over his face—need, yes, but also anguish. Hunger knotted with restraint. His hand came to the back of my neck, warm and steady.
Then he crushed his lips to mine, and it was all heat and need. One fluid motion brought us both out of the tub, water cascading around us. I locked my legs around his waist as he stepped over the rim, carrying me.