Chapter 16 #2
I tried to shift closer to Rei so that he had to give me more room on the crate, but he sat solid as a barnacle on the underside of the ship. Fine then. If he was going to continue to be an ass, I was absolutely going to make him pay.
“Rei-ven,” I sang. “You're cheating, aren't you?”
“Prove it, Blue.”
I took a sip of hot, sweet tea to hide my smirk. “I don’t need to. But I’ll make a bet with you that Ashkade will win this game, despite your underhanded tactics.”
He smugly agreed to my bet with the condition that the loser had to obey the winner’s orders for the rest of the night. Endless wicked ideas of how to torture him when Ash won flooded my mind, each one better than the last. I tried not to overwhelm myself with all the possibilities right away.
As play continued, I carefully watched Reiven's cards.
It wasn't until he was down to four that he had no other choice but to bluff, yet he remained as confident as ever.
I could practically feel him oozing with spite from his self-assured victory—until I rested my hand on his thigh.
The muscles in his neck tightened and his eyes went wide, but he pointedly didn't look at me.
Rei almost dropped the card he was about to set down, stuttering the wrong number in surprise.
Calinia and Ash blinked at each other. “Deception,” they both said at the same time.
Of course it was a deception, and a glowering Rei had to gather up the entire pile of cards and add them to his hand.
I allowed myself a quiet snicker as they continued to play, and it wasn't long before Ash crowed at his victory. I fluttered my eyelashes at Rei. “That makes you my servant, Reiven. I hope you're prepared to bow to my every whim and jump at every order.”
He grimaced, but I thought I saw a sparkle of amusement in his eyes.
Meanwhile, Ashkade shot the two of us a dirty look. “I'm the one who won here. Why don't I get to boss Rei around?”
“You already do, kid,” Rei fired back at him, before turning to me. “What the hell do you want?”
How evil should I be?
The last rays of the sunset dyed us with warm orange light as I considered every wicked option at my disposal.
The Maiden groaned at a swell that forced the ship into a pitch.
Unsecured boxes and barrels below decks slid and shifted with the sudden lurch.
Ash and Calinia seized the crate we were using as a table and attempted to save the cards and cups from falling off it, but I wasn’t so lucky.
Since I was already barely sitting on the crate, the moment the ship keeled, I fell.
Or at least, I would have if Reiven didn’t jump up and lunge for me.
He caught me by the waist and yanked me back against his chest. I flung my arms around his neck to keep my footing as the ship settled.
That classic arrogant smirk flickered across his face as he stared back at me, still holding me far too close. “You’re welcome.”
No man had made me speechless before.
Ashkade piped up as he rescued a handful of fallen playing cards from the wooden boards of the deck. “Zephra, can you order him to punch himself in the face? I reckon that’d be real funny.”
“Don’t you give her any ideas.”
But I had a flash of brilliance, and besides, I liked Rei’s face without bruises, so Ash’s idea was off the table. I smiled up at Rei and fluttered my eyelashes again. “Call me ‘mistress.’ And you can carry me to our room so I don’t have to spend my precious energy walking down the stairs.”
He softly chuckled, his warm breath grazing my cheek. Rather than let me go, he obliged me all too quickly, sweeping me up into his arms with laughably minor effort. “Yes, mistress.”
Well, we may have rigged the game to win, but I think it was worth it.
We headed off to our rooms, Ash babbling the entire way about how he was going to work on another ring now that he had the symbols down. With a conspiratorial wink shared only with me, Calinia left for the galley.
Rei didn’t set me back on my feet until we made it back to the cabin we shared, but being in his arms for that brief journey was enough to warm the blood rushing into my cheeks.
He lit the lantern we kept on the hutch while I dug through my meager selection of clothes, trying to find my nightgown.
I shook the wrinkles out of the sheer nightdress and met Reiven’s eyes across the room.
He was in the middle of unbuckling his belt. It was really too distracting, how deft his fingers were, and I could’ve sworn he slowed down the moment I started watching. He gave me a cheeky smile and slid his belt free, dropping it to the floor with a thud. “Think you’re very sneaky, don’t you?”
I ripped my eyes away as he unbuttoned his trousers to exchange them for the cotton pants he wore to bed. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Ash won fair and square.”
“That boy can’t keep his face straight to save his life. I saw the little tilt of his lips after I came back from bringing the tea and he started winning.”
Shit. I should have realized that he’d know Ash too well to be blind to our cheating ways. But it was too late for him. Ash had already won.
Rei laughed. “I was still desperate to win, but I didn’t expect you to thoroughly distract me.
Well played, mistress.” He faced away from me, but that only gave me a better view of his taut back muscles as he peeled off his shirt.
What would it be like to dig my nails into those muscles?
Probably amazing. He’d probably arch into my touch with a breath of gratefulness, only to lock eyes with me as the warmth of his fingers grazed my lower lip.
Damn it, he claimed I had distracted him, but now he was the one stealing my attention. I was so busy watching him out of the corner of my eye that I completely forgot to change my own clothes. I huffed and shimmied out of my skirt and top.
“Sure you don’t want me to do that for you, mistress?” he drawled.
“You wish.” I pulled my ponytail free after I slipped into the nightdress, but stopped myself from taking out the plain black ribbon I had tied it back with. “Ah, here you can help me with this.”
He rolled his eyes, but sauntered over and untied my ribbon, so my hair fell in dark blue waves, like the nighttime ocean that whispered outside the porthole window. After he carefully worked out the strings of pearls I always wove into my ponytail, I gave him his next order. “Comb my hair for me.”
I expected him to grab the wooden comb I stashed with my things, but Reiven seemed to enjoy surprising me at every turn.
He dug his fingers into my hair at my temples and dragged them down without so much as a shrug, as if this were a nightly routine for us.
His expression didn’t even shift as he continued to finger-comb my hair.
Every time his fingertips skimmed my scalp, a warm, tingling sensation washed over me, urging me a half step closer to him until we were barely an inch apart.
I rested my hands on his bare chest to keep myself steady.
One side of his lips pulled into a grin. “You like this, don’t you?”
A breath caught in my throat, because it was so damn absurd that he was right.
He slowed down, as if he wanted to savor the feeling of my hair between his fingers. Just once, I wished he’d take his gloves off, so I could feel the warmth of the entirety of his hands.
“Keep…combing,” I murmured, shutting my eyes to drink in the pleasure.
“Yes, mistress.”
It seemed he would just continue to comb through my hair if I didn’t tell him to stop, and I almost didn’t want to.