Chapter 21
GRACE
Her question stunned him. Grace saw him flinch, and his fingers let go of her chin.
The carriage pulled up at their house. The footman opened the door, and Drasko helped her out, never having said another word.
He didn’t wait for her either, just strode toward the house, letting her follow him, Nina and Tripp walking behind her like prison guards.
Grace didn’t understand his reaction, the way he had withdrawn into himself. She preferred his banter and clever jokes. Even mocking. Anything! But not the silent treatment, the sudden haunted look in his eyes.
Twice a month …
That was reasonable, though already she was nervous at the thought of being so close to him, in one bed. She needed to play the piano to clear her head. Yet, she was afraid to give away her emotions.
Grace had played for hundreds of people. Him? She felt vulnerable in his presence, as if he could see through her music, dissect the chords, read her emotions and thoughts. And what she thought about lately the most was him.
That was why she would stop playing when she sensed him behind the music room door. Why she couldn’t sing when he was around. Why she would never let him read her lyrics, because he was making his way into them.
Grace went up to her room and walked circles around it for some time, trying to come to peace with what she had done today.
Perhaps, she needed to apologize. She had to, yes. She had hoped that Charles would be her chance out of the suffocating claws of her guardians. Turned out, she had been heading for another trap and was saved…
The realization made her eyes burn with tears.
“Where is my husband?” she asked her maid.
“In the grand bathing room, ma’am.” Eden motioned toward the adjoining room. “Next to the master suite. He is taking a bath.”
So, her husband took baths—that intimate detail created visuals in her head that were most scandalous.
Suddenly, an idea came to her. If they were to spend nights together, surely her husband wouldn’t mind her talking to him while he… Took a bath, yes.
Grace dismissed the maid and knocked on the adjoining door.
No answer came.
She turned the handle to find the door unlocked.
Invading his privacy was a dare, if only with herself. Grace smiled despite her knees weakening with trepidation as she walked into his room.
She studied his dark bedroom, only lit with a sconce by his bed. Modest furniture, barely any. No carpet and a giant wardrobe, yet not a single personal item around, as if he didn’t live there.
A strip of light sliced across the floor—the door to the bathing room was slightly ajar, the sound of splashing water spilling out.
Curious, Grace tiptoed toward it, halted at the door, and peeked through the thin gap.
The giant bathing room was cast in a warm glow. It glided off the lavish marble flooring, decorated sink basins, a toilet, and a bidet. The room was framed top to bottom with mirrors on two sides, and in the center of the room stood a giant marble-rimmed bathtub.
Steam rose above it.
Her husband lay facing away from her, his head resting on the rim. His arms hung on each side of the tub.
It was quiet. Grace had intended to barge in for a conversation. Yet, the scene seemed so intimate.
He brought both hands to his head and smoothed his hair.
She retreated into the shadows, but only a step, unable to take her eyes off him. She caught a peek of the leather bracelet around his wrist, a red thread, and metal rings on his fingers.
A loud splash startled her, spiking her heartbeat.
Her husband rose to his feet, his tall powerful figure towering above the bath. The candlelight flickered, making the shadows on his muscled body shiver.
Grace couldn’t look away.
She’d never seen anything so majestic, so frightening, so sexual. Her husband stood in the bathtub, his back to her, his naked body on full display as he smoothed his wet hair in slow motions.
Grace couldn’t breathe or move, paralyzed by the magnificent sight of him.
She had never seen a man of such physique. Where would she? Perhaps, in books, the Greek male sculptures or the drawings of the Spartans.
The candlelight flickered again, sending shadows rushing along his body, his muscles vivid and rippling in the light.
She held her breath at the sight of his back. A monster stared at her—a tiger, its fangs bared, a vicious expression on its face. The tiger had his green eyes.
A monster, just like in her dreams…
Except this monster belonged to him . As Drasko moved, so did the tiger. The longer Grace studied the ink, forgetting herself, the more she wanted to come over and touch it, run her fingers along the lines, down, down, down…
Her face caught on fire as she stared at her husband’s buttocks.
He moved again, turning, so as to step out of the bathtub, and she took a step aside, into the shadows, away from the slice of light, then darted to her room, her heart poundIng.
Back in her room, she sat on the edge of her bed, unable to think of anything but her naked husband. The images of him were haunting, chasing her with a sweet longing that made her crave his nakedness again.
Two nights a month wouldn’t be so bad, she reasoned. Heat gathered inside her at the thought. She would like his body close to hers, closer than ever before. She would like to play with that tiger, touch it. Make it roar?
Her cheeks heated at the silly fantasies.
And then a word came to mind, the one slipped by Elias the other day. The word that now sounded almost sinister.
Rakshasa .