Malice’s heated gaze follows the sudsy shower sponge as it drags over her body, lighting Aerin up as if it’s his hand. Up her stomach, around one breast. Across her chest and around the other breast. Her nipples tighten from the abrasive sponge despite the silkiness of the body wash. She wonders if he can see them, through the steam.
His ice blue eyes flick up to hers, looking torn. He is torn. Aerin can tell, can feel it herself. He swallows hard, shaking his head a bit, his brain finally catching back up.
“You changed someone into you?” Malice connects the dots.
Aerin nods, dragging the sponge from her neck between her breasts and down her stomach. Lower and lower. He stirs. Leans forward. Lust blooms from their connection. Aerin relishes in it.
She wonders, idly, how long it will take for Malice to crack. Her favorite game to play with him, evidently. How long will it take for him to bed her? To get tired of her teasing and follow through on the rough, possessive, heated sex they both seem to crave?
Aerin’s core tingles and tightens around nothing at the memory of his body against hers. Of his lips, abrasive and biting. His hand gripping her jaw. Aerin lets loose a shaky breath as the sponge brushes against her most sensitive skin.
Malice’s chest is heaving with restraint. He’s holding onto the counter even tighter now, like it’s the only thing keeping him back.
Speaking through his teeth, he says, “All the mornings, when the tabloids had photos of you, it wasn’t you?”
“Yes,” Aerin says softly, almost too quiet to hear over the water, over the ringing in her ears. “Do you forgive me for tricking you Malice? Do you understand that sometimes I must lie?” Aerin is almost begging him to understand.
“I’m not sure,” he says it distractedly, as the sponge travels back up Aerin’s body. She circles it around her sensitive nipple, sighing as she does.
“I can make it up to you,” Aerin all but whispers. Aerin keeps the sponge at her chest but lets her other hand fall between her thighs. The smell of her arousal permeates the room as she drags her fingers through her soaked core until they reach her clit. Even the small brush of pressure has her knees ready to give.
“Let me make it up to you,” Aerin implores, more moan than words. More pleading, than asking.
As if slapped, Malice tears his gaze away. He shakes his head violently, like he could shake out every lustful thought of her.
“No,” he growls.
The coldness in his voice causes Aerin to drop the sponge. It splats against the tiled floor loudly.
“Don’t do this again. Any attraction I have to you is just the bond.”
Aerin knows it’s a lie, but it hurts anyways. She watches him storm out of the bathroom, breathless.
She really hadn’t expected him to reject her. Dropping into a squatting position, holding her head in her hands, Aerin tries to breathe. A rush of emotion she can’t stop washes over her.
Reaching for that seed of Malice inside of her, Aerin walls it off. She doesn’t want to feel any part of him right now. And she sure as hell doesn’t want him to feel just how much that hurt her.
23
MALICE
It’s been six days since Malice underwent the blood-bond and became Aerin Tolvare’s bonded-mate. Aside from occasionally feeling something trickle through the bond that ties them, not much has changed. Malice has avoided being alone with Aerin as much as possible since the shower incident. He shadows her during the day, keeps his distance, and keeps her safe.
That is what he is meant to do. Nothing more.
It’s gotten easier since they both realized they can control how much flows between them down the bond. Malice is certain they could go so far as to speak in each other’s heads and share their magic, but they haven’t tested it. If anything, they are actively trying to minimize the blood-bond as much as possible. Pretending it isn’t there.
Despite everything that happened, blood-bonds, Dragons, and fights with her siblings, Aerin acts as if nothing occurred. By Sunday she’s back in the library working on her final paper. She turns it in to her professor on Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday, she attends a pool party at a rooftop bar in the skimpiest bikini Malice has ever seen, even with the sheer dressshe wears over it. Malice swears his muscles were sore from the force it took to hold himself still as he watched her. As she laughed with Vyx and Quinn, took shots with random Shifters, and flirted with that same Jaguar from the club. The one Maliceknowshas slept with Aerin in the past.
The party was maddening, an exercise in his self-control. But he held his ground. He followed her home. All the way to her bedroom door. Just when he was about to crack, about to say something, anything, she shut the door in his face.
As Malice follows Aerin on her jog home from the gym, he wonders, not for the first time, what the fuck he’s doing. They can’t go on like this, planets orbiting one another. And in any case, he still has a lot of questions for her. Questions he needs answers to. Reassurances that need to be made.
Just as Malice starts a running list in his mind, Aerin veers off her usual course. Malice turns the corner to follow, only Aerin is nowhere to be seen. He scans the street again, but her neon sports bra and blonde hair have vanished. Even when he homes in on her scent, there’s nothing.
He thought they were done with this game, at least. Aerin hasn’t ditched him since they became bonded-mates.
