Chapter Five
I walk through the door to my hut and deposit the new clothes on the small wooden table near the window. Invictis comes out of one of the small bedrooms and cocks his head at me. He folds his arms over his thick chest before he mutters, “I think I deserve some praise for not interfering in that terribly awkward discussion you and that Frederick had.”
Even now, the way he says Frederick’s name, makes me feel like he has to be more than a weapon.
He sounds annoyed, and maybe even a little jealous, just like he did when he was nothing more than a tattoo on my wrist and I kissed Frederick out of loneliness.
I scoff, “I’m not praising you for not being an asshole.”
“Why not? It’s very hard for me to hold back, you know, especially when—”
“Just shut up and put these on.” I pull out his new clothes from the pile and throw them at him, and he catches them with a frown. I watch as he studies them, then flicks those bright blue eyes at me.
Ugh. This would seriously be so much easier if he wasn’t wearing such a hot face. He’s an asshole. He’s a killer. He basically killed everyone—including my mom—and tried to kill me on multiple occasions. His sexiness shouldn’t matter one bit.
Invictis doesn’t have any witty retorts. He simply drops the new clothes on the floor and reaches over his head to pull off his shirt in one of the manliest movements I’ve ever seen.
Fuck. It really has been a long time. I’m thirsting for something that’s not even human, practically drooling over the way he took off his damn shirt. I need therapy or something. You can’t get more messed up than that.
Once his shirt is on the floor, he doesn’t hesitate to continue undressing. He kicks off the boots that are a size or two too small for him, all while never breaking eye contact with me, and then he unties the string on his pants and pulls them down. Before I know it’s happening too, so I get an eyeful of dick.
I don’t know what I expected.
I avert my eyes and hold up a hand to block out the thing dangling between his legs the same moment I mutter, “You could’ve warned me.”
“What? You said to put them on. I had to take off the stolen clothes before I could put the new ones on.” Invictis groans in annoyance. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, Rey. I don’t understand why you’re acting so… so… modest.”
“Modest?” I laugh out the word. “Please. I just don’t want to see your dick swinging every which way.” My eyes are averted and my hand is still up, but out of the corner of my eyes I can see him pulling on his new pants—a dark gray color that I hope fit him better than Frederick’s pants.
“There,” Invictis states. “It is hidden. You can gaze upon me now without having to see my, as you put it, dick swinging every which way.”
When I lower my hand and glare at him, I find him smirking at me. Smirking and still oh so shirtless, every muscle on his torso and arms on full display. The golden tattoo that matches mine seems to sparkle out of nowhere—and that’s not to mention the alluring V-shape pointing to his crotch and the dick now safely tucked away behind his new pants.
And yes, these ones do fit a lot better, even if the string is undone and I can see a little bit of his happy trail.
“Put on the shirt,” I huff out before grabbing the other clothes on the table and storming around him. My goal is to reach the bedroom I claimed as my own, but when I try to slam the door, a strong arm stops it from moving.
I don’t turn around. I know if I do, I’ll come face-to-face… or face-to-chest with a still shirtless Invictis who is taking way more pleasure out of this than he should.
“You and I are bound,” Invictis’s voice speaks behind me. Or over me, you know, since he’s so damned tall. “We share everything, as much as I hate to admit it. Putting a door between us seems a little… silly, doesn’t it?”
A forced laugh comes from me. “Are you saying you want to watch me change, Invictis? Careful. That’s an awful human thing to want.” My hope was to mock him enough that he’d pull back and let me go into the bedroom, but it doesn’t work out like that.
The opposite, in fact. Sadly.
“Until you go mad and unbind me, I am trapped in this human form,” he whispers. “So, if you think about it like that, this is all your fault, isn’t it?”
I close my eyes and slowly turn around to face him. He stands so close to me the arm that holds my clothes brushes against his bare abdomen. I tilt my head back before I open my eyes and meet his stare. “Sorry for not wanting to die,” I whisper. “Then again, the one time you almost killed me, you ended up healing me, so—”
A muscle in his jaw tenses, and his smirk morphs into a frown. “A momentary weakness.”
I want to ask him how a weapon could be weak, but instead I say, “I could force you to step back and let me go through that door. I’m the one who holds all the power now, remember?”
“Ah, yes. How could I forget?” Invictis moves his tattooed arm between us, its golden form a mirror image to mine, glittering on his tanned skin. “I’m your weapon now. You could force me to step back and let you change your clothes in privacy. You could even make me roll on the floor like a worm, too—”
“What a good idea.”
Invictis glares as he lowers his arm. “But where’s the fun in that, hmm?”
Where’s the fun in that? Honestly, I don’t think any of this is fun, but as we stare at each other, practically breathing the same air, the command doesn’t come. I don’t tell him to step away and give me room, to let me put my new clothes on in peace.
What do I do? I play the same game he is. I’m the least modest girl around, and I’m going to prove it.
I duck under the arm he still has on the door and return to the small table in the front of the house. I set down my clothes on the corner of said table. When I turn around to face him, I see he’s still watching me, his haughty gaze narrowing, as if he’s unsure what I’m about to do.
I slip off my shoes, and I don’t do it fast. Every move I make is slow and deliberate, and I never break eye contact with him.
This is a challenge. He’s challenging me, and I can’t back down. Using our bond to force him away would be cheating. I can handle this asshole without resorting to cheating, can’t I?
I pull at the bottom hem of my shirt and take it off, letting the old, blood-stained garment fall to the floor. My bra has definitely seen better days. Women around here don’t even wear one, but I’m not going to give that up until it breaks.
The next thing I undo is the button on my jeans and then the zipper, and once they’re both undone, I bend over as I tug the pants down. I straighten up before stepping out of them. I step forward, one foot closer to Invictis.
He still stares at me, watching, waiting, not saying a single word. He knows he doesn’t have to.
The tailor made me new panties, although he called them undergarments. Frederick left long before we got to that point—a good thing, because I think the man would’ve exploded in embarrassment.
Invictis thinks he’s making a point, but in reality, I’m gonna be the one who’s making the damned point.
Without breaking eye contact, I reach behind me and take off my bra even though it doesn’t have to come off. I make sure to give him a quick smirk when it loosens and the straps fall off my shoulders. I pull it off me and let it drop onto the pile.
He doesn’t move. His gaze remains zeroed in on my face.
I hook my thumbs through my panties and loosen them until they slide down my legs on their own, and then I’m standing a few feet away from him, naked. Also the very opposite of modest, thank you very much.
I’m skinnier than I was before, more toned, with a few new scars to boot. A result of constant travel and fighting in combination with eating less processed food and less food in general. But it’s clear I’m still a woman. I have the hips and the tits to prove it, not to mention the lack of a dangling dick between my legs.
I don’t know how long we stand there, staring at each other’s face, before one of us breaks eye contact. And, hint: it’s not me.
Invictis’s blue gaze drops to my feet, slowly traveling up my naked body as he takes in my clothe-free appearance. He takes his time, too, studying me with a bored expression that starts to change into something else. I hear his breathing get harder, his bare chest moving a little more each time. He takes me in, all of me, every single bare inch of me, and he says not a word.
Out of all the things I could say, it’s like every smart remark refuses to surface, and the only thing I can do is stand there and feel his gaze on me. A flushing heat creeps up my cheeks, I don’t know why. It’s not… I mean, I’m just doing this to prove a point to him, that’s all.
He’s the one who breaks the spell. He steps forward, and in less than two seconds he’s in front of me, still locked on everything below my collar bone. Invictis says not a word, but he doesn’t have to.
He doesn’t stand before me as an ungodly weapon. No. As much as he’d deny it, he stands before me a man, a man who’s struggling with himself each and every moment to contain himself.
Let’s just say my face isn’t the only thing that’s hot now.
Invictis lowers himself to the floor. He finds his shirt, but his eyes never leave my body. The way he bends down, he gets even closer to me, so close I can feel his hot breath on my skin, and I fight with myself to not move a muscle, to not react the instant I feel his breath on my outer thigh.
He’s slow to stand, shirt in hand, and when he does, he leans even closer to me, his head tilted to the side, eyes on my chest. He stands as close to me as he can without touching me, his chest all I can see if I stare straight ahead—but I don’t. I watched him drop to the floor and stand up again, my eyes glued to his face.
After what feels like an eternity, Invictis’s stare meets mine. I’m not the only one who normally has a constant smartass streak; he does, too. Right now it seems we’re both at a loss for words, like I called his bluff and now we both don’t know where to go from here.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, so close and yet not touching, but it feels like an eternity. Neither one of us says a word. Neither one of us moves. We’re stuck where we are, frozen, caught in a sea of uncertainty and trepidation.
Invictis is the one who finally pulls away first, breaking whatever spell is between us. He gives me his back before he puts his new shirt on—very similar in fit to my old t-shirt. It hugs his body a lot better than the shirt I took from Frederick.
Of course, he’s not fast enough, and what I mean by that is I totally see the bulge in his pants before he turns around.
Right. He’s just a weapon, ain’t he? I already know the answer. It’s an answer I’ve known since I first met him, since he was nothing more than a magical tattoo on my wrist. Some might think he’s a weapon, and in a sense they’re right, but that’s not all he is. Invictis is more than that.
There’s no reason for a weapon to get a boner.