29. Henry
HENRY
H arlow doesn’t even pretend to like her wedding present. She just stares at the small room with her nose wrinkled, like I’ve gifted her a shoebox full of rats.
“It’s a—closet?” Harlow says.
In her defense, it’s not much to look at. Dark gray walls that soak up the meager light from a sunstone atop a simple wood table. The only other furniture is a velvet reading chair directly across from the doorway we’re standing in.
She purses her lips. “The chair is nice.”
I shake my head. “This room was blessed by Holly with unique and powerful protection magic. It’s a safe room, and its protection can be transferred to the person of my choosing. I’ve made it so that you are the only one who can get into it.”
She eyes the space with the kind of skepticism that suggests she’d never trust any space to be safe. Her mouth twitches in a hint of a smile. “I noticed the door the other day. I was wondering what was in here.”
“I bet you were.” A locked door inside my bedroom closet would have been impossible for her to ignore. I knew she’d poke around the first chance she had.
Blood drips from her finger onto the floor. I snatch her wrist and curl my hand around the wound. The cut from the lock on the door isn’t deep. It only takes a moment before it’s healed. She looks at me expectantly until I pull out a handkerchief and wipe her skin clean.
“If this is something she could do, why not do the entire house—the entire fort, for that matter?” Harlow asks.
It’s a clever question. Truthfully, Holly did protect the front gate as well as the central gates of each level of the fort.
“It took her a tremendous amount of magic just to protect this small room. There are a few other spaces in the fort she protected this way. She would have done more if she’d had the time, but as you know, anyone with holy fire spends a good deal of their magic on that.”
She hums in agreement, then places a hand on my back. “Thank you.”
She sounds so sincere that my guard is immediately up.
She shoves me toward the door. I slam into the invisible magic boundary, like I’ve been shoved into a brick wall. My teeth sink into my lip.
When I turn to face her, she grins and reaches up to swipe her thumb over the wetness there.
Her hand comes away from my mouth bloody, and she holds my gaze as she licks the stain from her finger. The look in her eyes is a dare, same as the one I saw in them yesterday during communion. She doesn’t understand that the more she shows me her claws, the more I want to feel them.
“Just testing for a lie,” she says, bumping my shoulder as she steps across the threshold into the one place in Mountain Haven where I can’t follow her.
The silk clings to her ass as she adds an extra sway to her hips. The draping in the back dips low enough to show off the lace bustier she’s wearing beneath. The dress is sinful. It was stupid of me to make her wear it.
She lowers herself into the chair, and I don’t miss the way she sits gingerly.
“A bit sore, wife?”
She leans back, her knees parting, and her lips tug into a wicked smile. “That would please you, wouldn’t it? To know you’ve left me aching.”
Deep animal satisfaction surges through me .
Her fingers scrunch the silk until the slit over her right thigh is high enough for me to see the little ribbon stays attaching her thigh-highs to the lingerie I picked for her.
I close my eyes for a moment, imagining the red against her pale skin.
When I blink my eyes open, her hand has migrated higher, moving lazily under the thin silk.
“What are you?—”
“Enjoying my new private space, husband.” She sighs and pushes her lips into a pout. “Are you sure you don’t want to help?”
This is the real test. She didn’t believe me crashing into the magical boundary, so now she’s trying to push me. I loathe that it’s working.
Harlow places her heels on opposite arms of the chair and pulls her undergarments to the side, baring herself to me obscenely. My mouth goes dry as I watch two of her slick fingers circle her clit and then push inside her pussy.
My cursed sharper senses call up the taste of her and the feel of her soft skin effortlessly.
She moans. She’s throwing down a challenge, and I want to punish her so badly. Last night was a soft thing. Sitting gingerly isn’t enough. I want to slap her fine ass and fuck her until she’s too sore to sit for a week.
I pace the closet a few times and then press my hands against the doorframe. “Come here,” I snap.
“Make me.”
I freeze. But her face is fixed in defiance. She’s just playing games to see if I can get to her. It’s tempting to try to find some way around the boundary, but there’s only one I know of, and it would require manipulation magic.
I look around the closet for anything that might lure her out, and my gaze falls on the box wrapped in a large ribbon. The other part of her wedding gift.
“We have toys, you know? Books to get you in the mood as well.”
She pauses her movement. “Toys?” The interest in her eyes is a dangerous thing.
“Yes, as is customary for any new Mountain Haven wife, I have another gift for you if you come out.”
She cocks her head skeptically. “But I’m so enjoying this gift right now, and this seems like a trick to get me out of this room. ”
“No tricks. The toys really exist. As do the books. I could read one to you if you’d like.”
“Your voice is grating. I’m much more likely to come if you’re silent,” Harlow taunts.
“That wasn’t the case last night.”
She looks away but continues to move her hand between her thighs. I want to tie those hands to my headboard and make her pay for teasing me. I want her screaming and writhing and coming, and I?—
I stalk away, rolling out my shoulders to try to rid myself of the restless desire pounding through me.
Divine-dammit. The blessing from Kennymyra is going to be the death of me.
I’m practically panting for Harlow, and she’s going to hide in her safe room forever.
This was supposed to make her feel some sense of security, but I clearly miscalculated.
I grab the gift box, yank the large satin ribbon free, and walk back to stand in front of the doorway. I tilt the box so she can see what’s inside it.
She stops her ministrations immediately, her gaze fixed on the toys. I wonder if she’s ever used something like this. They’re a bit prudish for such things in the city, but Harlow has shown an interest and some knowledge of our rituals.
I run my fingers over the thick, bumpy glass shafts.
“These go inside you.” I lift the silk ties.
“These shorter ones are used to fasten your wrists, and these longer ones for your thighs or ankles. Or I have a room with a bench I could strap you to if you are worried about silk burns on that pretty pale skin.”
She licks her lips, transfixed by the items in the box.
Watching her reactions is making me crazy. The second she leaves that room, I’m going to make her pay.
When I lift the small riding crop from the box, she flinches. It’s barely perceptible.
“I didn’t know about your preferences when I purchased this,” I said. “I thought I had you pegged as a woman who would like a little sting.”
As soon as I toss it to the side, she resumes her movements, but I know what I saw. That flinch, combined with my knowledge of her scar, fills me with infernal anger. I want to say something, but it’s going to take a lot more to get her to open up and confirm my suspicions .
That seems unlikely to happen, considering that I can’t even get her to leave this room.
She lets out a low moan. “And the book?”
“It’s handwritten stories. Some of the fort storytellers’ most requested tales.”
She licks her lips. “People request explicit stories in public?”
I grin. I have her. “They do at the Raining Star Bar. It’s the fort’s storytelling bar.
So much of our history was passed down through stories told around campfires, but not all of those tales are factual.
Many of them were purely for entertainment purposes.
The tradition remains alive and well for lore of all kinds. ”
There’s genuine curiosity in her eyes.
I shake the box lightly. “I knew you would like your gifts. Now, why don’t you come out here and I’ll make sure you enjoy them.”
Finally, she surrenders her game, and an annoying prickle of excitement sparks to life in my chest. She rises from the plush chair.
As soon as she steps over the threshold, I’m going to drag her to the bed by her hair. I’m going to do everything I would have done last night if I weren’t so focused on disarming her with gentleness.
She crosses the small space and pauses a few feet from the doorway as if she’s afraid I’ll somehow reach in and snatch her.
A wide smirk spreads over her face when she realizes I can’t. “This is a really generous present, my wolf. The perfect gift. How unfortunate that you can’t enjoy it yourself.”
She lifts the fingers that were just inside her to her mouth and sucks them clean with a look of obscene pleasure on her face.
Then, she slams the safe room door in my face.