Reverie considered it, an evident surprise stretching over her features. But she didn't ponder it long. Her hand tightened around her cup. "No," she decided. "But I wonder if you are."
His eyes met hers for a long time, long enough that he almost forgot he was packing his pipe. "Have you given more consideration to our deal?"
"Why is it you thought you ever had to offer that deal?" she asked. "Do you not think people will follow you of your own accord? That you need to strike such deals to make people do what you need?"
"Are you saying you would follow me without one?"
Reverie set her cup down. "You fought in those trials, not as a Prince of Promise, not even as a son of Arbina, and certainly not for your own life. You fought forthem. You came to this town looking for acceptance and an alliance. And you found it."
Dorian tossed away the stem of the herb he'd just plucked from. His feet kicked up, landing on the tabletop, and he leaned against the stone wall at his back. "You didn't answer my question."
"What question?"
"If you would follow me without the deal."
The gaze she stared at him with made his movements pause.
"I think I would follow you into my village," she finally said. "I would watch as you commanded respect from every person… Faced down the lies and the shouts of treachery, all to prove yourself a worthy King and savior of our realm. And I think I would find myself between you and them, your Second at my side, protecting you from the rope they would try to place around your neck."
If he'd been standing, he'd have grabbed her and kissed her.
But all he could do was gawk and try to process the progression of her feelings towards him.
"So you'll take the position?" he asked.
She looked like she might smile. "I'll not be calling you my King. Not yet. Perhaps not any time soon. But I would like to keep you alive long enough to see you earn the title and crown."
"That's fair," he agreed.
Silence rested between them as he finished, and he lit the herb with his finger before drawing in a deep inhale and holding it. His gaze flashed over Reverie sitting opposite him on the top of the table, allowing his eyes to rest on her hips and hands wrapping around the cup. For a moment, he remembered the feeling of those hands wrapped around his cock, and his mind wandered to how it would feel to taste her, her thighs squeezing his face as he devoured her...
The exhale of herb left him, and he met her lilac eyes. A faint smirk rose on his lips as he cleared his throat.
"You should get some sleep," he said, knowing he would take that image with him to whomever's bed it was he would be in later.
"Pushing me away for once?"
He took another long inhale of the smoke, eyes fluttering as he began to feel the swim of it. "Unless you've finally decided to give in to this little dance and allow me to bring you to your end here on this table, I suggest you walk away."
She swung around, legs falling over the edge of the table at his side. "Tell me what would happen if I didn't."
Fire flashed in his eyes.
The bench crashed on its side at the rate he rushed to his feet. She didn’t have time to protest before he’d pushed her legs apart and pressed himself between them.
Her knife met his throat the moment his hands met the wood on either side of her. The press of the cold iron against his skin made him smile and his heart thud. He could smell the fire of the forges in her hair as he leaned his head towards her, his nose brushing her cheek.
"Do you still want to know?" he asked, both aroused and wary by the knife at his throat.
Her feet tucked behind his knees just so, chin tilting as her gaze fell upon his. "Yes."
He moved deliberately. His nose brushed her cheek, his hair entwining with her bangs when he shifted across her face, their lips grazing but not consuming. He felt her suck in a breath when his lips dragged across her jaw to her collar. He paused at the spot beneath her ear, only to flick his tongue on her earlobe.
Lower, he went. He stilled again upon reaching her supple breasts, his lips whispering over her shirted nipple.
"If you stayed, I would edge you from here," he breathed against her breast. "Watch you grip this table and my hair, hear my name beg from your lips as I took you and held you at your end for so long this table would begin to shake."
He watched as the goosebumps rose on her arms, and he didn't stop. His lips brushed her stomach. He kissed down her front, feeling her chest and belly rise and fall with every jagged breath.
