“And that is?” I snapped again.
“That I will be remaining here tonight, and the sooner you come to terms with that, the sooner you will relax,” he replied, and my eyes widened at the nerve of him! Because the audacity of that statement was almost impressive…almost.
“Okay, fine…” I said at last, folding my arms tightly across my chest as I turned toward the still-open doorway. My voice carried just enough sweetness to make it obvious that it absolutely was not sweet at all, and this was as far from fine as you could get.
“I hope you enjoy your bedchamber… alone!” I continued, already stepping toward the door and with the full intent of walking through it. At least I would have, had I not barely taken two steps when the door was suddenly slammed shut.
The sound cracked sharply through the room behind me. The heavy wood struck the frame with a quiet but unmistakable force before the lock turned with a resounding click.
I stopped dead before slowly turning back to face him.
“So that’s it, you kiss me, and yet, I am still your prisoner!?” I asked in outrage.
“If the pretty shoes fit.” Was his infuriatingly smooth reply, one that continued,
“Now stop wasting all your energy on being angry and relax.”
“Relax! Are you serious, right now?” I shouted, making him grin, before he turned his back to me.
“I could kiss you again, if you think that would help?” he replied, granting me a wink over his shoulder. I swear my huff of annoyance was so loud I was surprised that smoke hadn’t blown out of my nostrils. But before I could swear at him and start calling him every name under the Goddess sun, I realized what he was now doing. Which meant every insult in my vocabulary swiftly left me in sight of him now undressing.
“Wh… what are… you… you doing?” I stuttered embarrassingly, but he didn’t look back. No, instead he continued to free himself of his shirt, letting it slip down from one of his shoulders as his torso twisted.
“I believe that should be obvious,” he said calmly as more of his muscular body came into view.
The fabric slid lower.
And that was when I saw it.
At first, I thought the shifting light in the room was playing tricks on me. That the faint patterns moving across his back were nothing more than shadows caught along the contours of muscle as he moved. But the longer I stared, the more I realized that wasn’t the case at all.
They were markings.
Not ink.
Not scars.
Something else entirely.
They traced across his skin in intricate lines that seemed far too precise to be accidental. The markings curled and branched in elegant, unfamiliar shapes that ran along the powerful span of his shoulders and down the center of his back. Some of them were sharp and angular, almost harsh in their geometry. Whilst others curved in flowing patterns that looked strangely beautiful. As though someone had woven two entirely different languages together and etched them beneath his skin.
And that was the unsettling part.
Because they weren’t on his skin.
They were beneath it.
The faint lines were only just darker than his natural pale skin tone. Subtle enough that I might have missed them entirely if he hadn’t moved. But now that I had seen them, I couldn’t unsee them. They pulsed softly with the movement of his muscles, appearing almost like dormant veins of power that had chosen that exact moment to reveal themselves.
They looked ancient.
Alive.
My irritation evaporated somewhere between one breath and the next as my gaze followed the patterns down the length of his back. I now noticed how they shifted and caught thelight differently depending on how he moved. The effect was strangely hypnotic. As though something far older than either of us had been written across his body in a language I had no hope of understanding.
“You’re staring,” he observed mildly, making me jump. My eyes jerked upward just in time to catch him glancing at me over his shoulder. And right there was that same, infuriatingly sexy smirk as usual. Which only made it worse that he had caught me staring.
“I am not,” I said far too quickly, which prompted him to raise a single brow at me.
