Long.
Dragging my eyes away before he caught me gaping, I lifted my chin.
“If you’re woundedthere,” I infused ice into my voice, “you’ll have to find someone else to tend you.”
“Pity,” he said.
I didn’t respond, though it took effort to keep my mouth smooth and my cheeks from flushing. He pulled the tunic over his head with a wince and let it fall to the floor.
Fates.
Golden skin stretched over a chest sculpted by war and discipline. His broad shoulders were dusted with old scars, but hisabdomen—tight, carved muscles—rose and fell too fast. Deep gashes marred his side and chest, red and angry.
I gently washed the wounds, trying to ignore how he winced. I carefully blotted the deep gouges and applied the ointment, leaning across his lap to work on the back side. His thigh muscles tensed, and his exhale warmed my neck.
The jagged, silent story carved into his skin made my chest ache.
I looked up, and for the first time, I didn’t see the king but the man beneath.
Bruised. Wounded. And trying so hard not to flinch under my gaze.
When he leaned forward for me to wrap the bandage around his torso, his hiss shot out.
“Sorry I’m hurting you,” I whispered.
“It’s alright.”
No one else could touch him like this. Not his soldiers. Not his council. Maybe not even his lovers, if he’d had any. But me? He let me come close. Trusted my hands. My care. It didn’t make sense, but the truth settled low in my belly like a brand.
He didn’t flinch from me. Only for me.
Pausing while tying the bandage ends in a knot, I looked up, meeting his pupils that were much too blown for a man in pain.
My eyes drifted down to his mouth.
His throat worked in a swallow, and wild heat flickered through his eyes. My fingers remained on his skin, and I could feel the tension coiling through him.
I cleared my throat and looked away, focusing on my task.
I finished wrapping a second bandage around his ribs, trying not to brush against anything raw. “You’ll need to keep these clean. Wash the wounds twice a day with boiled water. And apply fresh balm.” I held the small tub of it out to him.
He took it from me and set it aside. “Thank you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. We weren’t friends, not even allies.
But I didn’t want to leave his side.
“What happened?” I asked again, climbing back into his lap. Such a vulnerable position. So why didn’t I take the chair opposite the low table where I wouldn’t have to feel the heat of his skin, the fire in his gaze?
He stared at me for a long while. I began to think he wasn’t going to answer. “I was protecting someone very important to me.”
My throat tightened. He must meanme.
His body was a canvas of strength and ruin, broad shoulders sloping into arms I could easily imagine wrapped around me. My gaze lingered too long on the stretch of his abdomen, the V-shaped lines disappearing into his waistband. The rise and fall of his chest. The curve of his neck. The shadows cast by the fire across all that bare, golden skin.
The bandaging done, I started to shift off his lap.
“Stay?” he asked.
