“Fine!” I huff, rolling my eyes with exaggerated surrender. I reach behind me, snatching the heavy velvet and yanking it across the glass. The room plunges into candle-streaked darkness, the silver light choking off to the distinctive, confident click of his boots on the wood.
Just as he looms into range, I grab the fabric again and whip it back—not all the way. Just a sliver. Just a gap. Just a bright, sharp blade of moonlight carving skin and meat off his bony finger.
The way he curls the digit into his meaty palm with arthritic clicks rips a strange sound from my lungs.
It’s a laugh, low and throaty enough that Vale narrows his eyes at me with exactly the anger I expected. But there’s something else swirling in the golden specks of his irises. Confusion. Perhaps even a flustering.
Until he shakes his head, as if physically dislodging his shock, and sidesteps the beam of light with predatory grace. Before I can twitch, his hand clamps around my wrist, letting the velvet drapes fall shut with a heavyswooshthat plunges us back into orange shadow.
“Glad to be of amusement,” he grinds out, the words vibrating against my skin as he uses the momentum to spin me, slamming my back against the wall beside the window. “Married for less than two days, and already, I’m starting to understand why husbands avoid their wives and seek the company of whores instead.”
“Spoken like a man who is oh-so fond of lies and deceptions,” I snarl. “Truths aren’t nearly as comfortable, which wives don’t bother to serve anything but cold.”
“Truth?” In one smooth motion, he pins my captured wrist high above my head, his body pressing into mine, heavy and hot and overwhelmingly close, trapping me between the cool plaster and the solid, angry warmth of him. “The truth, little wife, is that you’re no closer to breaking the curse. You think shackling me with this marriage was a victory?” He leans in, the green fire in his eyes burning with ancient, bitter amusement. “You’ve merely shackled yourself to a corpse that even the ground refuses to swallow. This plan of Kael’s that you’re trying to bring to fruition is questionable at best.”
“Oh, trust me, I did question it plenty,” I spit back, refusing to shrink away from the volatility of his stupid temper. “It did cross my mind that seduction was a doomed strategy forsomething that apparently never touched a woman before. Who was to say you even had a taste for women?” I tilt my head, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Perhaps you’d prefer ahusband.”
He doesn’t blink, doesn’t bristle. The taunt slides off him like water off oiled silk, his expression one of bored indulgence.
“But then,” I continue, keeping my voice light, casual, “I remembered the tower. You pushed inside me and spilled within five strokes. And in the grave? It didn’t take much more than that, did it?” I click my tongue sympathetically. “Deathisa lover…just a poor one.”
His pupils dilate, swallowing the irises, and his grip on my wrist tightens just enough to sting. The boredom vanishes—if only for a second—before he wrenches his features back into a mask of aloof cruelty.
“My wife sounds frustrated tonight,” he murmurs, his tone sliding into a dangerous purr. “Is she angry because she’s growing desperate? Or because I stood up and left her in the dirt, covered in my seed but utterly unsatisfied?”
He doesn’t wait for my retort.
His free hand slides down my flank, grabbing fistfuls of silk, bunching the fabric upward until the air of the room hits the heated skin of my thighs. There’s no fumble, no hesitation. He knows exactly where to go. His long fingers hook the thin fabric of my undergarments, brutally shoving them aside before his thumb strokes over the sensitive pearl at my center.
A ragged gasp tears from my throat. My head falls back against the wall, my hips bucking instinctively into his palm. “Oh my god.”
“Uh-huh.” He leans in, his breath tingling the lobe of my ear while his thumb circles the nub—once, twice, a maddeningly precise friction. “Do you love me yet, Elara?”
“Bastard…” The word dissolves into a whimper, but I refuse to surrender the offensive.
My hand snakes down between our bodies, seeking the strain in his breeches. As expected, he’s granite beneath the leather, a furious contradiction to the poison he spits. I cup him, squeezing his thick cock, and his breath instantly turns jagged.
He retaliates, his thumb working faster, harder, trying to drive me over the edge before I can unravel him. “You best stop, Elara. Or I might have to tell you how badly I want you to trip and break your neck.”
“Careful. The more you try to convince me you’re heartless, the more I wonder what exactly you’re guarding so fiercely.” I struggle against the stiff waistband, forcing my fingers past the fabric until I hit searing heat. “A man who truly has no heart”—I wrap my hand around the bare velvet of him, swirling my thumb over the weeping head—“wouldn’t need to shout about it quite so loudly.”
He groans, a rough, guttural sound that vibrates against my lips. His forehead drops to my shoulder, his control shattering, but his voice is a jagged whisper in my ear. “Then best remember what happens to unruly wives.”
“I’ve seen women sport bruises like jewels.” I don’t halt the rhythm of my hand against his slick skin. Neither does he, spreading two fingers to trap my clit between them as he strokes back and forth. “I’ve watched neighbors spit teeth onto the floorboards after a husband’s chaotic rage, only to crawl back to them before the blood even dries. I’ve seen them cling to the legs of the men who broke them, confessing love.”
“That’s not true love, but—mmm.” His thick length surges in my hand, stretching to an aching hardness and twitching against my palm with a need that utterly betrays his composure. “Come to think…not true lovemight serve me even better than your hate.”
He yanks me from the wall by my wrist. With a force that leaves no room for resistance, he spins me around and bends me over the heavy oak desk. Sharp spines of books dig through the map and into my ribs as he flattens a large hand between my shoulder blades, pinning me inextricably to the wood. With his free hand, he bunches my skirts, dragging the heavy material up my legs until it piles at my waist, leaving me shivering and exposed.
My boldness falters, a tremor of genuine unease threading through the question. “W-what are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer.
For a tormenting moment, there’s only the sound of his ragged breathing behind me. His fingertip ghosts over my entrance, tracing the rim in a slow, maddening circle as if?—
The touch vanishes.
The air hangs suspended.
