I couldn’t count the number of times Dommik told me about the traces a vampire’s touch leaves on human skin. And now, here, underneath the frame of the massive vampiric commander, there was no hiding whatever hues his touch would appear as on all areas of my body. Especially the parts we wouldn’t be able to explain away.
“Dommik?”
He lifted his head and let out an exaggerated exhale. Our duties were waiting for us just beyond his door. Duties and punishment.
He kissed me softly before saying, “I don’t know. But I would like to stay here with you a bit longer before we go off to possibly be executed for treason.”
He rolled to his back and pulled me into him. He was being too casual…too nonchalant about betraying the regent whom he admired and had been loyal to for sixty years.
“What if…” I started, but the sentence got caught in my throat. If I finished my thought, this moment might end. He might never look at me the same. And I needed him to keep looking at me like this.
“Hmm?” he encouraged while gently placing a kiss on my forehead.
“Never mind.”
“No, tell me.” His fingers patrolled my arm in slow strokes.
“It’s not worth mentioning,” I pleaded with him to drop it.
“Try me.”
I let out a reluctant exhale before I shared, “What if we told him it was just a one-time thing?”
His hand stopped moving and I wished I could claw the words back from his mind. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know. You told me to share. I said it was a bad idea.” Regret assaulted me like a swarm of angry hornets. I sat up slightly and saw his hardened gaze fixed on the ceiling.
“So, you want to saythis…thatIwas a mistake?” I could see Dommik assembling his mental armor from the way his jaw muscle ticked and he avoided my gaze.
My heart sank that it took so little for his guard to go back up. “Dommik. No. Well, yes. But it wasn’t…you aren’t…” He was out of bed, moving toward his bathing chamber as I struggled to find the right words. “Please come back.”
The sound of running water echoed from the adjacent room as I looked around for anything I could cover up with. Finding nothing but scraps of my torn clothing, I pulled the sheet off of the bed, draping it around myself like I would a towel.
The pads of my feet met the cold floor and I found him hunched over the basin. Seeing him there, entirely naked, cut with muscle, was a new sight. But my gaze was drawn to his white knuckles gripping the sides of the water filled bowl.
I leaned my cheek against the doorframe.
His slighted eyes slid to mine. “I can’t accept that this was just one time, Reyva. I could barely pretend I didn’t have feelings for you before this. He’s sending me away because he knew it. That there was something here. Something more.”
My heart ached for him and all I could do was sigh.
“He fucking knows it, and you do too. Right?” His brows lifted. “This was not just sex. There’s something more here for you?”
He’d told me he loved me. And I sought him out and gave myself to him. Being unfaithful to Hollis had been easy. There was no love to be lost when I wrapped my legs around Beau. But Rhazien, he wasn’t perfect, but he’d been attentive and kind. And with so much at stake, there was nothing simple about this.
“Yes. But—” His head dropped and I moved to him. I wrapped my hands around his arm closest to me, beckoning him to look at me. To talk this out. “Dommik, please. You have to admit. It’s complicated. And delicate. This is bigger than us.”
I could practically hear him grinding his teeth. “I cannot fathom the idea of you going back to him.” The stone basin beneath his fingers creaked. “Of his hands…and lips on you…”
I ducked beneath his arms, his frozen form caging me between the basin and his rigid body. The sheet fell as I raised my hands to his cheeks.
“Stop.” I pulled him down and he obliged when I brought my lips to meet his. He exhaled and pressed his forehead into mine. I let my lids fall closed as I whispered, “Stop.”
There was no going back to Rhazien for me. Not when I wanted to be here. Beneath, on top of, and next to Dommik.
My shield. My sword. My forest and flame. My absolute ruin.
My Dommik.
