“You shouldn’t ogle other men while you’re with your husband.” Radven’s honey-smooth voice was in my ear, his lips brushing against my skin. “What will everyone think?” Apparently he’d recovered himself, but despite his sultry tones, his voice was still thick with repressed amusement.
“A girl can look, can’t she?” I replied lightly, enjoying the sense of power I felt by playing along and teasing him right back. “Men check out other women all the time. But don’t worry,husband, I’m not going to fall in love with the innkeeper, no matter how luscious his beard is.” I straightened, remembering a more pressing issue. “By the way, what’s all this about us sharing a room?”
“What did you expect?” He raised an eyebrow. “That we’d play a husband and wife only to come in here and request separate lodgings?”
“No, I just…”didn’t give this enough thought.And frankly, the idea of sharing a bed with Radven, no matter what the pretenses, brought up all sorts of tingling physical reactions that I knew spelled trouble.
“Don’t worry, butterfly,” he said, his usual wickedness shining through his colored contacts. “Your virtue is safe from me.” He leaned close once more. “Unless you don’t want it to be, of course.”
My entire body went hot, then cold, and I reached up to push him away, just to give myself space to think straight again. I was mid-shove when I glanced up and found the innkeeper staring right at us.
“My husband is handsome, isn’t he?” I blurted, quickly turning my shove into an awkward stroke. “I can’t keep my hands off him.”
Radven was grinning. “Now you see why we want our supper brought upstairs.”
“Of course, sir. Madam.” The innkeeper was clearly a professional, because he didn’t even blink at our ridiculous display of affection. “Sylvie will take you up to your room.”
Radven and I followed a girl about my age up a narrow, creaking flight of steps to the upper story of the inn. The sounds of revelry in the common room followed us, not at all muted by the layers of wood between the levels of the building.
“Here ye are,” the girl said. “Yer supper will be up shortly. Don’t hesitate to say so if we can get ye anything else.”
The room was, to my dismay, even smaller than I’d feared it would be. The bed took up a good eighty percent of it, leaving barely enough room to even walk around the edges, and the only other piece of furniture was a rickety table wedged in the corner. A single small window overlooked, I assumed, the street below.
Radven strolled right in, kicking off his boots and flopping back on the bed in a single, graceful motion.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making myself comfortable,” he replied, propping his hands behind his head. “And you should, too.” One side of his mouth tilted up in a wicked grin. “Settle in, wife. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
21
Secrets Shared in Other Ways
“Youreallyexpectbothof us to sleep on…that?” I was so flustered I couldn’t even remember the word for bed.
Radven’s smile widened, his eyes flashing devilishly.
“Oh, believe me, butterfly. I have no intention of sleeping tonight.”
When I imagined how I was going to lose my virginity, I’d always pictured something cheesy and romantic—a nice dinner with a man I loved, a trail of rose petals leading to the bed, a long night of sweet, soft kisses and whispered words.
I definitely didn’t picture it happening in a suspiciously lumpy bed in a tiny room at an inn in a magical, faraway land—with a man who was clearly, by every definition of the word, a rogue.
My body, however, clearly hadn’t gotten the memo, because it was getting way too hot and tingly. I needed to shut this down,now.And that meant laying down some boundaries.
Still standing in the doorway, I crossed my arms, trying to slow my heartbeat back to its normal rate. “I told you not to get any ideas.”
Radven, meanwhile, was clearly very amused at my expense.
“Ideas have been had, I won’t deny it,” he told me. “But that’s not what I meant about not sleeping. Alastor and Oak will be joining us here as soon as they’re able, and I mean to wait up for them.”
“Oh.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t be opposed to some recreational activities in the meantime…” he began, then raised his hands defensively when he saw my face. “You don’t have to give me that death glare. It was just a suggestion. Believe me, butterfly, I enjoy my women willing. You have nothing to fear from me.”
I wasn’t sure it was entirely true that I had nothing to fear from him—I was still pretty certain this man wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if he ever saw me as a threat to himself or his brothers—but inthisarea, at least, I found that I believed him.
It’s not him I’m worried about, I was forced to admit as I stepped further into the room.It’s me.These last couple of days had been such a whirlwind that I wasn’t sure which way was up anymore, and it felt like all my senses and all my emotions were right at the surface, just waiting to break free. It was like there was a charge building up in my body that had nowhere to go, that desperately needed release.
