His eyes narrowed and thin tendrils of shadow gathered beneath his skin before they emerged to surround him, weaving and swaying like serpents.
“Are you saying you’re going to share your body with other men?”
The question sounded as though it were dragged from his chest. His voice had dropped so deep that he sounded nearly demonic.
“No,” she answered, shaking her head. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
His blue eyes were dark, nearly as black as the shirt still clutched in his hand. “Then what did you mean by that?”
Dominique put her hands on his chest. The shadows dancing atop his skin, curling around her fingers. She could barely feel them, like the brush of a butterfly’s wings. “I’m not yours, Ronan. You made it very clear that our marriage will be temporary. That the entire reason you chose me for this…this…arrangement was because neither of us could nor would get attached. I promised you I wouldn’t take other lovers while we are together, but that doesn’t mean you own me.”
Ronan’s hands moved from the drawers behind her, up her back. He cradled the back of her skull in his hands, his fingers thrusting into her hair, and his thumbs ran down the side of her throat beneath her ears. If he hadn’t been staring at her as though he wanted to strangle her, she would have thought his touch was tender.
“But what if I want to own you?” he asked.
Dominique had no reply for that. None. Her mind went utterly blank as his gaze locked on hers.
“You—” she began.
A crisp knock at the door interrupted her.
Thank the gods. Dominique snapped her mouth shut, grateful to the dressmaker for showing up because she had nearly told Ronan that he already owned her. The only thing more foolish than falling in love with the prince would be to tell him how she felt.
“We’re not done discussing this and I won’t be leaving you alone with the godsdamned dressmaker, so don’t even bring it up.”
With a sharp nip to her bottom lip, Ronan bent to pick up his T-shirt from the floor. He must have dropped it at some point.
“Put those on,” he commanded, gesturing to her underwear. “But you’d damned well better wear the robe over it until you have to take it off.”
Speechless, Dominique watched him prowl out of the closet. Her legs weakened and she sagged against the wooden structure behind her.
What in the hell just happened?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ronan clenchedhis teeth as he watched the dressmaker and his two apprentices flit around his fiancée. His arms were stretched along the back of the couch in his room as though he were relaxed, but his hands were balled into fists.
The only reason he hadn’t ejected them all from his room was that both apprentices were female. They were also the ones who helped Dominique into the dress while the dressmaker busied himself with gathering his supplies, his eyes deliberately turned away from Dominique’s nearly naked form.
Another man, one who knew his fiancée loved him, would have left the room then, confident that nothing untoward would happen, but Ronan couldn’t bring himself to walk out.
You don’t own me.
Dominique’s words echoed in his mind, making his jaw tighten further as he ground his molars together. It was a perfectly reasonable phrase, one he would have agreed with if it had been any woman other than her.
But hearing her say it tohimmade anger fire in his blood. She’d promised herself to him. He knew she didn’t love him yet, but she would. He just needed time. Time with her. Their sexual chemistry was off-the-charts. She intrigued and entertained himwith the way her mind worked and her wit. She would see how compatible they were. That he was the kind of man she could love.
He may have fucked up in the beginning, but he could make it up to her. He was sure of it.
The first step in that was not grabbing the royal dressmaker by the collar of his perfectly tailored shirt and seat of his tight pants and throwing him out the window of the bedchamber.
Ronan forced himself to relax after the younger of the two apprentices glanced at him apprehensively again. The shadows of his magic were threatening to burst out of him due to his possessiveness.
He closed his eyes and focused on taking a deep breath, pushing the tension from his muscles with his exhale. When he opened them again, he forgot why he was upset in the first place.
Dominique stood with her back to him, her golden hair piled on top of her head and secured with the clip she’d grabbed before their shower. Her curvaceous figure was on clear display in the clingy dress. Her upper back was on full display, the garment cut in a wide vee that ended beneath her shoulder blades. Just above the bottom point, he caught a glimpse of something dark and curled on her skin. It looked like a tattoo.
How could I have missed that?he wondered.
