“I brought it for you,” I admitted, reaching to give it back.
But Tol clamped a hand down, pressing the handle to my flesh. “Keep it,” he instructed, squeezing once. There was a possessive edge to his voice. “I like seeing my blade on you.”
He placed his hands back where they’d been resting between my legs, smiling smugly when I released a slow breath.
With everyone else Tol had been with he’d likely used this anticipation to his advantage—coaxing them to the point of no return until they threw themselves at him. If I was any other person, I’d be tilting my head to the side, begging him to press dangerously slow, open-mouthed kisses to my skin. To drag his teeth across my collarbone. Wanting his fingers to slip from where they rested against my thighs up beneath my skirt.
Angels, a part of me did want that. To feel his hands exploring my body, his lips claiming mine…the image ignited something within me.
But this was us. And as well as he knew me, I knew every tell he had.
He may be wrapped in promises of pleasure and teasing smiles, but it was all to distract from what he was really feeling. Beneath the surface he bubbled with want rivaling the heat coiled within me. Itwas in every near-silent hum of approval rumbling within his chest, every move laced with the tension vibrating off him.
As I allowed myself to relax further into Tolek, Malakai flashed through my mind. The Bind pulsed, and the memory brought a pang of the shame I’d grown accustomed to. Was I wrong for considering indulging this need within me? Even now, weeks later, thoughts of Malakai still echoed with sorrow, but it wasn’t the deep grief I’d expected.
It was a reluctant understanding.
Malakai and I had been over long before I’d said those words to him—as over as we ever could be with the Bind marking our skin. Perhaps we’d ended the day he walked away from Palerman, hands tied and lies sealed, and it took us over two years of fighting and torment to see it.
Did that mean I should turn my back on what was before me now—on the choice I had to be happy? Though I was still repairing myself, I was whole enough to know the answer to that question.
So, I did my best to dismiss that guilt and lean into what I had here. The promise of feeling whole and happy. Of justfeeling.
In the subtle shifts of our posture and tightening of limbs tangled atop Sapphire, this had become a game between Tolek and me. There was no way in the Spirit-guarded hell I was going to let him win.
I scooted back against him until I could feel everything. He bit back a groan, his desire impressively evident. But then, he laughed at the challenge.
“Okay, Alabath.” His words caressed the shell of my ear.
It wasn’t meant for me to respond to. Instead, I sat up straighter. And I didn’t pretend not to like it when his arms tightened around me.
“What was that about?”I asked Sapphire when we dismounted, Wayward’s warm windows glowing in the late hour. She exhaled, nudging my shoulder toward where Tol walked into the inn, my pack in hand.
If my damned horse could have chuckled, I swore that’s what it was.
It had taken her longer than I anticipated to get us here, and all the while Tol’s heat burned into my body. I eyed Sapphire, her crystalline stare bright and innocent.
“Was that pace on purpose?” I accused, hands on my hips.
My fucking horse walked away, sending herself to the stables down the block. I frowned at her swishing blue tail, sighing as I turned to follow Tolek inside.
A nice long bath, a warm meal, and perhaps a moment alone to calm the heat that coursed through my body on the ride—the list wrote itself as we climbed the rickety staircase to the room I’d rented in Wayward. We’d taken an indirect route to the inn, heading south first then looping back north. I prayed it was enough to avoid being followed.
The idea of a mattress—even a hard one—and a moment to breathe between four walls rather than looking over my shoulder at every crack of a stick was enticing.
But when I pushed the door to our room open, I quickly lost any hope of solitude. The room was small at best—a chest of drawers and a desk on one side, a bathing area without a proper door or partition on the other. And in the center, demanding attention like a star falling from the sky, one bed.
“They didn’t say there was only one,” I murmured, walking to the window and throwing it wide, inviting the crisp air into the stale room.
“I think it’s the only option in a place like this.” There was a smirk in Tol’s voice.
“And what’s so funny?” I spun toward him, but my jaw popped open when I saw his handcuffs now sitting on the bed. “How did you do that?”
“Don’t worry about it, Alabath.”
“You got out of them on your own?”
My favorite smirk curled his lips. “It’s not my first time.”
