But somehow she doubted he would find that amusing.
“Pau—”
His dark eyes slammed into her, ringed with gold and shot through with what looked to her like outrage and pure betrayal. “If you love me, I advise you to listen to me,” he bit out. “I suggest you get some sleep. Your brother will be here in the morning and I expect he will provide enough emotion to go around.”
“Do you think he’ll take a swing at you again?”
“He will not.” Pau’s voice was as dark as his gaze now, and she could hear the betrayal in that, too. “I earned what happened tonight. But that will be the end of me simply sitting back and taking blows. I feel certain he knows this.”
“I’m sorry he hit you,” Leontina said quietly. “I would have hit him for you, but I doubted that would do much besides annoy him.”
“I do not require my wife and the mother of my child to engage in fisticuffs on my behalf, thank you,” Pau said icily. The wordswifeandmotherhad made her feel so connected to him before. It was a sad little marvel that he could use them now to create distance.
Gulfs upon gulfs of distance.
He stalked into the shower, and Leontina debated whether or not she should follow him in there. It was one thing for him to walk off out here, but there was nowhere to go in that stall. It was large and steamy and they had spent a great deal of time in there over the past weeks.
She found herself hesitating, and shook herself.
If she loved this man, surely that meant she didn’t have to contort herself around his moods or parse the look in his eyes for clues on how to act. If she loved him that had to mean that she needed to behave in the exact opposite fashion than she would if she was back at the castle, wherelovewas not a word she’d ever heard used. By anyone.
A life she would not accept for her son, but that was getting ahead of herself.
The question was, would she meekly wait for him like she was waiting out a storm? Or was she finished with that part of her life? If she had to take cover from the man she loved, she needed to do something about her heart’s terrible choices.
Leontina hoped she’d learned at least that much.
She blew out a breath, then followed him into the shower.
The steam billowed, but it wasn’t enough to disguise the glory that was Pau, naked, as he stood with his arms braced against the wall and let the stream of water pound into his back.
“I will not discuss it,” he gritted out as she came in and let the water wash over her. She slicked her hair back from her face and decided that now was not the time to start a discussion about unilateral decrees in a marriage, which she did not recall agreeing to in that deeply civilized discussion they’d had when they’d decided to marry.
So calm. So quiet.
And she felt nothing like that now.
“Then let’s not discuss it,” she replied, and that made him turn from the shower wall, a frown all over his face.
“Leontina—” he began.
But this timeshewas the one not having the discussion.
Instead, she moved closer, and then sank down to her knees before him. The water fell all over them, adding a different dimension to this act that he had taught her that first night. Oh, she’d read about it. She’d studied the pictures she’d found and had watched some videos online that she rather wished she hadn’t. She’d thought she had the general idea.
Pau had tutored her in the reality of it. He’d taken such care then. He’d guided her head, murmured his approval, told her she was beautiful—though he hadn’t finished in her mouth.
Tonight he would, she vowed.
If she couldn’t have his love tonight, she would have the taste of him instead.
She swayed forward and slid her hands along his hair-roughened thighs, and could feel something like an electric current beneath his skin, making himalmostseem to shake. She knelt up, and could see his hands at his sides, curling into fists.
But he didn’t set her away from him.
And by the time she got to his cock, it was jutting out proudly, hard and ready.
Making his determination to get away from her…silly, really.
