17. Chapter 17 #2
I exhaled before I could stop myself. Slow.
Measured only because centuries of discipline refused to abandon me entirely.
My shoulders dropped by a fraction. The beast in me, the king, the mate, the man—all of them had wanted the same thing with such violence that I had not trusted myself to name it.
She had named it. Not as desire. Not fully. Not yet. But she had opened the door.
“Of course,” I said.
Only that. If I said more, I might ruin the courage it had taken her to ask.
She nodded once, then opened the door herself. I followed her inside.
Her suite lay in the eastern reach of my wing, near enough to my rooms that I could hear if she called, far enough that no one could accuse the household of presumption.
Tilden had prepared it with his usual merciless competence.
A low fire warmed the hearth. Lamps softened the corners.
The bed had been turned down, white sheets beneath a dark coverlet, pillows arranged with enough precision to reassure a soldier.
Along the far wall stood a large sofa upholstered in deep gray velvet, wide enough to serve as a bed if one had no imagination and a very strong commitment to self-denial.
Grace looked around as if she had forgotten, for a moment, that rooms could be beautiful without being traps.
“I’ll change,” she said.
I inclined my head. “Take your time.”
She disappeared into the en-suite and closed the door.
I remained where I was for three breaths. Then I moved.
My own rooms lay close enough that I could have crossed to them blind. I changed quickly, removing the suit that still held Obsidian’s scent and the faint trace of her hand from where she had gripped my arm during the demonstration. I left on only black silk pajama pants, tied low at my hips.
I paused before returning.
The mirror showed me nothing I did not already know.
A fighter’s body maintained by discipline older than many nations.
Lean muscle. Scars silvered and pale across skin that had known blades, claws, fire, sanctified steel, and the teeth of creatures long dead.
The double scar on my jaw. A mark across one rib from a battle I never discussed.
Other damage history had failed to make beautiful but had made mine.
I did not put on a shirt. This was not accidental.
I could have told myself it was comfort.
I could have claimed haste. I could have wrapped vanity in practicality and called it restraint.
I did not insult myself that way. Grace had seen monsters take.
She had seen bodies used as weapons and appetite called entitlement.
If she looked at me, I wanted her to look because she chose to. But I also wanted her to look.
A man could be honorable and still wish his mate to want him.
I returned before she emerged.
The suite remained quiet except for the muffled sound of water in the en suite and the small shift of firewood settling in the hearth. I took a blanket from the carved chest at the foot of the bed, then a pillow, and carried them to the sofa.
I had nearly finished smoothing the blanket when the en-suite door opened. Grace stepped out.
For one moment, my blood fell silent.
She wore a soft gray cotton nightdress that fell to mid-thigh.
Nothing elaborate. Nothing designed for seduction.
Its simplicity made it more devastating.
Her hair was loose over her shoulders, dark red in the lamplight.
Her bare legs looked steadier than they had any right to be.
The marks on her throat had faded but not vanished.
Her body had been restored by blood and death and my desperate refusal to let her go, yet there remained something new-made about her.
Her gaze found me. Then dropped.
Chest. Abdomen. The old scar over my ribs. The line of muscle disappearing beneath black silk. Her breath caught.
I heard it.
Her eyes snapped back to mine, pupils widened before discipline narrowed them again. Prosecutor. Survivor. Woman. Mate.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I looked down at the blanket under my hand. “Preparing a place to sleep.”
“On the couch.”
“Yes.”
She stared at me. I kept my expression solemn.
“You left the room,” she said.
“I did.”
“And came back like that.”
“Like what?”
Her eyes narrowed. Color warmed her throat. “Do not start. You know exactly what you’re doing.”
The laugh escaped me before I could convert it into something more dignified. A real laugh. It startled both of us.
I had laughed with family many times over the centuries, dryly, sharply, in those brief ways men like me allowed when humor passed through armor without requiring removal. This was different. It moved from somewhere unguarded and left me lighter in its wake.
Grace stared as if I had performed a magic trick.
I spread one hand slightly. “Look, can a man help it if he wants his mate to think he’s attractive?”
Her mouth opened. Closed.
The flush became more pronounced, and desire threaded through the room in a scent so subtle I would have missed it if my entire being had not been tuned to her.
“You are impossible,” she said.
“So I am told.”
“Frequently?”
“By family, enemies, employees, and one demon who owed me money.”
“I’m sure he was right.”
“Likely.”
That drew a smile from her, reluctant and lovely. Then she crossed the room. Each step altered the air. She stopped in front of me and held out her hand. I looked at it. Then at her.
She took my hand because apparently I had become too stupid to accept what was offered. Her fingers closed around mine, warm from the bath, steady with intention.
“You’re not sleeping on the couch, Highness.”
“Grace,” I said carefully.
“No.” She tugged once, not because she could move me if I chose not to move, but because she trusted I would come if asked. “I asked you to come in. I didn’t ask you to stand guard over upholstery.”
“There are practical considerations.”
“I’m a lawyer. I can out-consider you.”
“I am centuries older.”
“And yet you were about to sleep on a couch in your own wing while half naked, so age has not saved you from questionable choices.”
I allowed her to pull me toward the bed. It was not that she overpowered me. It was that refusal became unthinkable.
She released my hand only when we reached the turned-down sheets. Then she climbed in.
I waited until she settled on her back, beneath the coverlet, head on the pillow, hands folded over her stomach. Her eyes remained on the ceiling.
Only then did I get in beside her.
The bed was large enough to hold empires between us. I left space. Enough that our bodies did not touch. Not enough that either of us could pretend we were alone.
I lay on my back, arms at my sides, staring into the dim canopy above.
The fire whispered. Grace breathed beside me.
For a long while, neither of us moved. The darkness gathered above the bed in soft folds, and beside me Grace lay so carefully still I thought perhaps she was falling asleep.
I did not touch her. Her hands lay flat on the blanket. She stared upward when she spoke.
“Outside of what Lucian did,” she said, voice level by force, “I’ve only had two boyfriends.”
I turned my head slowly toward her. She did not look at me yet.
“Both brief,” she continued. “Both fine in the way people call things fine when they don’t want to explain that fine can still be lonely.
” Her fingers pressed into the blanket, smoothing wrinkles that did not exist. “They weren’t cruel.
Not like that. They just weren’t very interested in anything beyond themselves. ”
A cold anger entered me. I did nothing with it.
Her truth did not need my rage stepping in front of it.
“I’ve only had sex with a man on top of me,” she said. “That was it. That was the menu. I didn’t know enough to ask for anything else, and they didn’t care enough to wonder.” A pause. “No man has ever gone down on me.”
My fangs pressed low in my gums. Not from hunger. From restraint.
“I gave oral sex,” she said, quieter now.
“I hated every moment of it. Not because of the act, maybe. I don’t know.
Because I didn’t want to do it. Because I didn’t love either of them.
Because it felt like something expected, and I was young enough to think being a good girlfriend meant not making things awkward. ”
Her breath trembled once. Only once.
“Then later, Lucian...” She stopped, and mercy kept her from naming all of it. “I thought desire was ruined. Or maybe that my body was ruined for wanting anything at all.”
“Grace,” I said.
She turned her head on the pillow and looked directly into my eyes. The courage of it stole whatever words I might have used.
“But now I find I want to do everything,” she said. “With you.”
The bond pulled taut between us. Not a chain.
A bridge under sudden weight.
“Because you care enough not to make me do anything,” she continued. “Because you keep waiting for me to decide what’s right for me. And that makes me want things I don’t know how to ask for.”
My hand curled once against the sheet. I wanted to touch her hair. Her face. Her throat. I wanted to cover her with myself until memory could not find her. I wanted too much.
So I listened.
“I want some of what I saw tonight,” she said.
“Not necessarily the pain. I don’t know about that.
Maybe not. Maybe never. But the letting go.
” Her eyes searched mine as if my face were the only thing that mattered.
“The part where he knew what to do. Where he guided her. Told her what to do. Held the boundaries so she could stop having to decide every single thing.”
Her voice lowered.
“I am so tired of deciding every single thing.”
That broke me more cleanly than any plea would have.
“I want to go slow,” she said. “But I want you to guide me. If I get unsure. If I don’t know what to ask for. I want that.”
“You may have it,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended.