“Give me the pen back, Elysia.”
She clutched it to her chest like it was gold and grabbed the replacements he kept within arm’s reach, tossing them to the winds. The pens clattered against both the hardwood and rug-covered floor, and the fire in his eyes turned to a slow, simmering burn as he pushed his chair back, angling it so he could spread his legs wider. Grabbing the knot of her robe, he swiftly jerked her, so she stumbled between his knees. His hands slid back around her waist, holding her to him. Pulse flying, she kept the fountain pen clutched to her chest.
A muted sound of surprise escaped her when he tipped forward, his forehead crashing against the softness of her stomach. Warm breath against the fabric of her nightgown, the hard sound of his voice sent a rush of blood through her body.
“Either give me my pen back and leave, or I’m going to spread you across this desk and work this out on you.”
“I don’t believe you,” she murmured, clipping the prized fountain pen onto the plunging neckline of her nightgown. If he wanted it, he could take it, but he didn’t move as she brushed her hands over him. Rhythmically, she repeated the motion, sweeping her hands over his back and shoulders, pleased at how his tension dissipated under her touch.
Aidan groaned, slumping even heavier against her before he finally lifted his head, his sapphire eyes now aglow with the dare of her quiet challenge.
“And why is that?” He forced himself upright, plucking at the ties of her robe.
“Because I’ve realized you’re obsessed,” she said simply,allowing Aidan to relieve her of her robe, his scarred hands smoothly pushing it off her shoulders to fall to the ground.
His sharp grin glinted in the lamplight as he leaned back, his gaze roving over her as she stood between his legs. “Obsessed, am I?”
Elysia brushed back his dark hair. “Yes.”
“And what exactly am I obsessed with?”
Her smile was small. “When I first met you, I wondered what it would be like to feel the weight of your intensity onme.” She laughed, and Aidan’s eyes flared brighter.
His hands grasped her soft skin, running up over the backs of her thighs, pushing her nightgown up to rest his hands just below the curve of her ass. His gaze remained on her, his rich voice as serious as the grave.
“I’mobsessedwith finding a way to keep you. I’mobsessedwith having you until immortality runs dry and we both finally cease to exist. Tell me how that equates to letting you walk out this door instead of throwing you down on my desk.”
Forcing herself to speak, she unstuck her tongue and slipped her hands over his half-buttoned shirt, the firm muscle flexing beneath her touch.
“Sometimes I believe that. Sometimes I think I could have been anyone—any random girl, selected by the fates we now work against.”
It was a careful probing comment. A fear that lingered, ready to taint the fragile, newborn alliance between them. Harshly beautiful, she gazed down at Aidan’s sleep-deprived face and how he lounged confidently beneath her. Her fear didn’t know how to believe him. It pushed her both to run away and to wait here in his purgatory, not knowing if he would rip her heart out or pull her into his current so they could finally drown in the tension she had tried and failed to ignore.
Her throat worked as she waited, the thorny stems of anxiety in her stomach piercing up through her chest and heart. His mouth parted to answer, and she stayed there in the tenderdiscomfort of his hold because, for the first time, an almost painful longing rose in her. Shewantedit to be real. Shewantedto lose herself in the possibility that spurred him on to fill ledger after ledger in the middle of the night.
A new, different kind of fear sprung up as soon as she acknowledged this desire. That if he managed to convince her of his love, of his loyalty, that she would do terrible, unspeakable things to protect the seedling of what grew between them.
A thick band of soot clamped over her mouth just as she made to speak again, and Aidan’s thumb caressed her thigh. “I find myself unsure of how to prove to you just how untrue that statement is.”
Disappointment coursed through her, her body curving as she fought against his hands to take a step back, but his voice swept out again as dark and soothing as the soot-stained mist of Relaclave.
“I could tell you how the first time I saw you I thought you were beautiful and sweet, making art in such an ugly world. Or how the second time I saw you, it was relief in my bones as you sat on the roof of your home, quietly crying after you sent a poor boy to the gallows because I knew you would understand the complexity of a life intimate with death. Or how I grew to admire your tenacity and cleverness and how you loved your sister no matter how many times she showed up empty-handed asking for more. And then you changed, and I loved how you grew angry and violent as you found the undying rage that tore the wool from your eyes.”
Elysia tried to speak against the band of soot, but it gently tightened.
“I’m not done,” he growled, the sound rekindling the slow smolder of heat inside her. He began again, holding her gaze steady. “Then you showed uphere, in my world, against all odds, and asked your fates-destined partner to make you a deal, so you could save the kingdom you have every right to want to raze from history, still wanting to return to a man who had betrayed you,and I agreed, knowing damn well I didn’t deserve you either, not after everything I’d done.”
Vulnerability shone in the fires of his eyes, and his grip shifted, lifting and settling her on the cool wood of his desk as he stood. Two more soot bands solidified around her wrists, keeping her arms in place. Mouth covered and hands bound, her heart threatened to burst in her chest. He studied her, watching the rise and fall of her pebbled skin, how her pulse battered in her throat, and a flush crept up her chest.
“Are you uncomfortable?” He knocked her knees out, standing between her legs now, one hand on her inner thigh and the other making a slow ascent up over her nightgown-covered stomach to brush over her breast. “Do you want me to stop?”
Drunk, she shook her head, dark hair tumbling over her shoulders.
He smiled. “Good. Because the last thing you need to know is the day you crashed into my throne room and almost died in my arms, I made an oath. I took the Deathlands dirt, your blood and mine, and I promised that if you didn’t survive the death voyage neither did I. I called upon the realm and the rivers and prayed for the Deathlands to protect and receive you as their queen before it was your time. Caught between life and death, your soul responded, answering my oath and agreeing. I no longer cared if I deserved you, only that you would have me, and if you would then I would do everything in my broken power to assist and protect you on your path, wherever that may lead. I have watched every version of you—the conniving survivor to the cautious but learning woman—and I want them all.”
His hand moved over to where her heart labored beneath his touch. “Do you believe me yet?”
Her gag disappeared, and the words spilled out before she could stop them. “You stupid, stupid man.”
