Chapter 30
AVELINE
"Iam perfectly capable of handling a blade," I inform the expanse of the kitchen, bringing the knife down onto a thick carrot. The vegetable doesn't slice; it splits with a loud, aggressive crack, a jagged orange missile launching off the wooden island and bouncing across the stone floor.
“How the hells does one cut something that wants to ROLL AWAY!” I shout, stamping my foot in frustration.
"Clearly, you are perfectly capable," a deep, rugged rasp echoes from the arched stone doorway. "If your strategy is to bludgeon the carrot into submission, you are succeeding magnificently, Aveline."
I don't turn around.
I keep my grip tight on the handle, ignoring the way my pulse instantly skips a beat at the sound of his voice. The cooling feel of his presence immediately floods the room, completely overriding the scent of spices. "I’m simply intimidating the ingredients. Surely you’ve heard of my technique."
"It looks closer to a public execution," Malakai murmurs. His boots make a deliberate thud against the stones as he closes the distance to me. "And your grip is entirely wrong. You are holding a knife like a broadsword, Aveline."
"Well, considering my stepfather never permitted me within fifty yards of the castle larders, you should be impressed I haven't done any permanent harm," I say, finally cutting a glare over my shoulder. “To carrots or myself.”
“The last thing I want is you to harm yourself, permanently or not,” he says.
He’s discarded his heavy coat, wearing only his thin linen shirt and dark trousers.
The sight of his broad chest, the sheer, imposing width of his shoulders in the dim kitchen light, makes my breath catch in my throat.
But it is his eyes that rattle me. There is no smug arrogance in his gaze.
Instead, the dark embers of his eyes are heavy.
Exhausted, and with an almost desperate yearning.
The intensity of it hangs in the air between us, thick and heady.
He looks at me like a man who has been banished to the dark and found the only light left on Earth. Me.
"Let me?" he asks softly.
Before I can formulate a suitably biting retort, the keep decides to intervene.
The wooden island beneath my hands shifts a fraction of an inch, and the stool beside me slides into my shins, forcing me to take a step back.
Right into him.
My back collides with the solid, burning-hot wall of his chest. I suck in a breath. The sudden full-body contact sends a shiver through me, to the core he petted only last night. Heat breaks out across my face that has nothing to do with how hard it was to light the damned oven.
Malakai doesn't step away. He closes the trap, molding his massive frame flush against mine until there is no space between us, none at all.
"Malakai," I breathe, my voice a ragged whisper.
"Focus, Aveline," he murmurs against the shell of my ear, his hot breath sending a lethal shiver down my neck.
His large, calloused hands slide down the length of my arms.
I bite back a moan, every nerve lighting on fire.
The physical weight of his touch is overwhelming, his thumbs lightly tracing the sensitive skin of my wrists before his fingers slide over mine, casing my hands entirely within his grip.
He shows me how to hold the heavy knife correctly, his knuckles pressing hard against the tops of my hands, guiding the blade again and again until the carrots are done for and the celery is the next victim.
I have to remember to breathe.
"The movement comes from the wrist." His voice is a vibrating rumble that resonates directly through my spine. I lick my lips. "A smooth, rhythmic rocking. Like this."
He presses down, and the blade glides effortlessly through the vegetable.
But I can’t think about the celery. I can’t think about Lila’s recipe.
I can’t think about anything but the feel of his body against mine.
Every time he breathes, his chest rises against my shoulder blades, the frantic, stampeding rhythm of my own heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
The scent of him cloaks me entirely. The desire radiating off his skin is a physical, pulsing current, a silent request louder than any noise he’s made.
I want him to make the request out loud.
My hands tremble beneath his, the gold light of my magic sparking faintly beneath my skin, reacting to the shadows licking up his forearms.
"Are you paying attention, Aveline?" he rasps, his grip tightening on my hands, pulling me back just a fraction closer against his lap.
"I am... trying," I choke out, my breathing growing shallower, more pathetic by the second.
The need to see his face, to witness the intensity of his gaze, overrides every shred of my restraint.
Slowly, deliberately, I tilt my head back, looking up over my shoulder.
Our faces are inches apart.
Malakai’s dark eyes are completely dilated, practically black with a feral, terrifying hunger that strips away every illusion of the patient fiancé.
His jaw is tight, the coarse stubble of his sleepless nights catching the firelight, his lips parted as his chest heaves in ragged breaths against shoulders.
I like him like this.
He’s like this… for me.
"Aveline," he groans, a raw, ruined sound of absolute defeat.
"To hell with the pie," I whisper.
Malakai lets out a low, predatory growl against my mouth, and the knife clatters uselessly from our fingers. He slips his hands past the edges of my shoulders, his huge hands cradling my jaw, tilting my face up as his lips crash into mine.
It destroys me.
Any walls I tried to put up are torn down by his touch, by the way he kisses me.
This isn’t slow, careful courtship vanishes into the ether.
It never has been.
Malakai devours my mouth with a hunger that steals the remaining air from my lungs, his tongue sliding against mine with a lawless heat that makes my knees buckle.
I don't care. I tangle my fingers frantically into his dark, braided hair, pulling him closer, demanding more of the kiss.
More of him.
Before I can even register the movement, his huge, burning hands slide beneath the heavy drape of my dress, locking it around my hips. With terrifying, supernatural strength, he hoists me clean into the air.
I let out a breathless gasp into his mouth as my legs instinctively wrap around his muscular waist. Malakai drives me forward, lifting me entirely onto the high wooden island.
I let out a moan as his hard length presses against the apex of my thighs.
He sweeps an arm across the counter, and with a series of loud, dramatic crashes, the entire morning’s labor is violently obliterated.
The heavy ceramic bowls shatter against the stones, the cutting board flies sideways, and all the vegetables go clattering and rolling across the kitchen floor, completely forgotten.
Neither of us looks down.
“You made a mess,” I say, tilting my head back so he can kiss me, oh yes, right there.
“I don’t care,” he snarls. “I want you to be a mess. I want to undo every inch of clothing you wear. I want to kiss you all over, I want to watch you unravel.”
Malakai pins me to the edge of the wood, his mouth sliding down the sensitive column of my neck, his teeth lightly grazing my collarbone until I am crying out against his shoulder.
His velvet shadows surge upward from the floorboards unbidden, boiling around our tangled limbs, caging us away from the winter storm, away from the castle, away from the rest of the universe.
I grip his broad shoulders, my nails digging hard through the fabric of his shirt into his solid muscle, completely lost to his mouth.