Taran had a small, puzzled frown on his face, like I’d done something inexplicable, even though many women wore their hair loose every day. He picked up one lock and wound it through his fingers, but it was just hair—there was no magical seductive power in it, or I wouldn’t be the sole frustrated virgin at this party.
When he didn’t say anything, I put my hands behind my neck to coil it up again, but he kept his grip and concentrated on the lock he held. I cleared my throat, and he finally recognized my quizzical expression and blinked, seeming to come back to himself.
“I meant I’d like to see it spread across my pillow,” he said belatedly.
At my nearly audible eye-roll, he pulled my resistant body toward him, almost into his lap.
“It’s true. Everyone who heard you sing is imagining the exact same thing, except they’re afraid I might be concealing a stone knife and a jealous streak,” he said in a more conversational tone,wrapping one arm around my shoulders with his fingers still woven into my hair. The tug on my scalp made a spark catch low in my belly, a small curl of desire I might still decide to fan into flame.
“Really?”
“Yes. Unfortunately for you, they’re right.”
It had never occurred to me that anyone but Taran would be interested in me, and I scanned the crowd as though I might somehow be able to confirm it. People had been watching us, openly and covertly, but I had assumed that was about Taran’s beauty.
“Then why would I choose you? No one else has tried to trap me into ironing his clothes forever,” I said, still not convinced this was about his straightforward interest.
“Oh, I’ve heard it’s a remarkable experience, if you’ll accept the recommendation of people who knew me while I was serving Genna. I don’t remember, of course.”
There was an edge in the flippant words that made me sure there was something more he wasn’t telling me. I continued thinking out loud. “Why ask me though? Because you think I won’t tell anyone if you’ve completely forgotten what to do…?”
“I havenot,” Taran said, looking like he would have liked to haul me out of the performance hall before someone overheard us. Unfortunately for him, I was in the corner, which meant I couldn’t escape but also he couldn’t easily make me be quiet.
“Is that it? Then what if you’ve chosen poorly? Maybe I’m terribly indiscreet. Maybe I’d get up tomorrow and gossip to Lixnea’s court that Taran ab Genna is all elbows and knees in bed, and he snores too.”
I’d missed teasing him, even if I never would have dared on this subject, and I grinned until he pulled up one corner of his mouth in a reluctant smirk.
“Again, I donot,” he said, tightening his grip on my hair untilhe held it in his fist. “If I disappoint in any way, you have my permission to ruin my flawless reputation.”
My chiding look bounced right off his determined face. He didn’t let go.
“So?”
“So? This doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with me.”
I wanted to hear him say he was overcome with desire for me—and more than that, say something to make me think he always had been.
“Of course it’s to do with you,” he insisted, but he turned his face toward the wall behind us. It took him several reluctant breaths to speak again, voice low when he finally continued. “Fine. I’ve heard a lot of things about myself tonight, and it’s not pleasant to be the most ignorant person in the room on that subject, but I’m trying to catch up. So I was just…thinking. While watching you on the stage. About the light on your hair, and your hands on the lute, and your lips while you sing—anyway, I was thinking how much I wanted to take you to bed, and that seemed like a good reason to ask you, but it occurred to me that I don’t know if that ever was a good enough reason before. I don’t know if that was ever even one of my reasons before, or if it was always for Genna’s power.”
My smile faded, and after a moment, Taran reluctantly let go of my hair.
“That’s awful,” I said quietly, which made him scowl and shift in his seat.
“I don’t know if it was or wasn’t. All I know is if there was ever anyone I wanted for myself, they weren’t waiting for me when I got home.” He ran one careful knuckle along the curve of my shoulder. “But you—I’d know.”
He exhaled and finally met my eyes, honest and piercingly lovely in the lantern glow. I twisted my hands together in my lap, caught between regret and desire. I wanted to smooth the hard edgeof his mouth with my thumb, kiss the line of his jaw to softness, tell him that I’d never doubted he could be good to someone in every way one person could be to another.
I held myself back.
“I’m not sure that wanting to prove something to yourself is a good enough reason to go to bed with someone.”
“Not just that. I said—”
I sighed. “Yes, even with my hair, and my voice, and everything else that you can see right here.”
“What is a good reason, then?” he asked, sounding curious.
“You’re asking a maiden-priest?”
