Chapter Fourteen The Artisan
Chapter Fourteen
The Artisan
“Where did you put the body?”
“Does it matter?”
“Would I ask if it didn’t?” Petronille’s voice rose from across the dining room table.
I clenched my jaw nearly as hard as my grip on the cutlery, slowly dragging the knife across the rare piece of sirloin. Not only did I not answer her, but I lifted a piece to my mouth and chewed.
“Is this venison?” I asked, the words making their way through my teeth between bites.
“No.”
“I must have poor taste, I’m usually good at guessing. Pork?”
“Answer me.”
“Thank you for the meal, by the way. I really didn’t believe you ate anything savory until now—”
“Arkady!” Her voice was strained.
“Petronille.” I gave a taut smile. “Being so loud at the table is unseemly.”
Her face grew red, like she would burst at any second.
As I returned my attention back to the supper, I could hear her dainty footsteps light against the carpet as she approached.
Then a knife came down into my steak. The juices crept around the new crack in the fine porcelain.
“A tantrum isn’t the way to get my attention. I thought you figured that out last time.”
“It is the only way to get your attention,” she hissed.
I took a deep, meditative breath as I placed my cutlery down, folding the napkin from my lap. When I looked up at her, her gaze was as sharp as a tack.
“I need to know where the body is.”
“You don’t need to know anything, dearest.”
“The commissioner visited me.”
“You get many visitors, it seems.”
Her palm smacked against the side of my head, and I grabbed her wrist. Even so, she did not flinch. Though the slight tremor in her hand told me everything I needed to know. “I also received a visit from our mutual acquaintance.”
“What did you tell him? What did he say?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“We killed someone.”
“You killed someone.” I squeezed her wrist.
“You disposed of him.” She swallowed. “You’re complicit.”
“I am.”
“Yet you don’t regard our situation with any sort of haste.”
“Mistakes are made swiftly if you’re not careful.”
She only continued her glare, twisting her wrist in vain.
“What were you thinking?” I stood from my seat.
“What do you mean?”
“You stuck a letter opener in a man’s throat. What were you thinking?” I lowered my voice, closing the distance between us. “If you were thinking at all, that is.”
She didn’t answer me, which was an answer in itself.
“Petronille.” I backed her against the table. “What would you do if I told you?”
“For my safety, I want to know all the information.”
“I think you like it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I smirked, placing my hands on her waist, letting one drift down over her hip. “Does it excite you, thinking about what I did? What we did?”
“No.”
I could practically feel the heat coming from her blush. Those supple cheeks were so expressive, so telling.
“Do you ever wonder,” I began, gently bunching her skirts, “if I’m capable of doing something to you, Petre?”
The sound of a less formal name made her straighten her posture, leaning back on the table slightly.
I lowered my face beside her ear. “Would it get you hot knowing what I would do for a sweet thing like you? To know someone is hidden away, deep in the ground, because you cut the fox’s tail and sent your hound to chase?”
“No, it doesn’t!” she hissed, but her darting eyes couldn’t give me any confirmation that her words were true.
Under her skirts, her silk stocking caught slightly on the scars of my worn hands; such a lovely fabric was nearly as soft as she was. Her thighs were trembling. They were also incredibly warm to the touch.
I felt between her legs. Wet.
I chuckled in her ear. “What did we say about denial?”
“Get off me!” She shoved my chest hard.
I threw her back, pinning her to the table, the plates and cutlery chiming together as the tablecloth dragged.
“You know very well which word I respond to.” I towered over her, leaving a gentle kiss on her collarbone. “I’m well trained.”
“The hell you are,” she bit out.
“Already bored of your pet?” I began to undo the gown. The garment alone must have cost two weeks’—no, three weeks’—wages. Though, no matter how expensive the pelt, I was more interested in the meat. “You wound me, Petre. Here I thought I was becoming one of your favorite playthings.”
As the buttons popped open, her flushed skin was exposed to me.
I expected to count the beauty marks on her skin, feel every dip and rise of her form, but it revealed something better.
Yanking her gown down her torso revealed these strange markings. A littering of birthmarks resembling brushstrokes that spiraled in different ways across her stomach, straight through her sternum.
Blaschko lines, a rare pigmentation of the skin.
“You hide so much from me. Every time I open you up, I discover something new,” I taunted, but admittedly, I was distracted by the patterns.
My fingertips brushed against the trail mindlessly.
It reminded me of a mosaic, or patterns on fancy pet birds.
I leaned down so my lips could replace my fingers, tracing the unique finish on the expensive porcelain of her skin.
Her breasts rose and fell with her harsh breathing, but she only watched me.
Say the word.
The buttons ran out, and I pulled the gown away from the form I so desperately wanted to see. I must have been jaded before to not look closely, but she really was a specimen of symmetry, of good composition.
Say it before I lose myself in you.
Her breasts fit perfectly in my palms, but that seemed to be a theme all around. The anatomy of her muscles and tendons let her physique shine. They framed her body perfectly; I could see every movement under the skin, a lean animal in prime shape.
She somewhat reminded me of the skittish little things they let run at the derby. All muscle, little to spare.
I can’t stop . . .
My disillusioned state shattered as I looked lower—and I could see bruising, more and more as I followed the length of her legs.
I nearly forgot she was a dancer. I never expected such elegant creatures to be marked so brutally by the sport.
A jolt of something disgusting flipped in my stomach, souring at the back of my throat as it threatened to manifest. Could it be jealousy? The feeling dissipated as I thought of replacing those bruises with marks of my own.
“You’re just cruel.” Her words were angry, her eyes something more like mortified.
Why would you look at me like that?
I glanced up at her, but she’d already gathered her dress, slipping out from under me, and her rushed steps sounded along the whiny stairs.
“Petre!” I shouted before the inevitable slam of a door.
Perhaps staring was not the most mannerly.
Now whenever I closed my eyes, the map of her body spread before me. Every freckle, every curve, every inflection of a muscle, that exact deep pattern across her torso.
The perfect muse. The one you can’t forget. The one I didn’t want to ruin.