“Then you’re aware that he—”
“—Guinevere.” Her name came out quiet, almost gentle. She stopped, and I could see the surprise registering in her gaze. “He not only fucked you, but he lied to my face for months about it. He sat at my table, looked me in the eye, and—”
“—he was protecting me.”
The words landed wrong, and something shifted in my chest. It wasn’t the dragon. No, this was something smaller and considerably more humiliating.
“Protecting you,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
I turned fully to face her. The fire was low behind me, and she was standing just inside the doorway with her chin up, her jaw set, and her hair still half-undone from wherever she’d been when she’d heard that Lance was in my dungeon. Her cheeks were high with color, and her eyes were furious.
She was beautiful. That was the problem. That had always been the fucking problem.
“You came here,” I said slowly, “at this hour, to advocate for the man who fucked you.”
“I came here because he didn’t deserve—”
“—stop talking about what he deserves.”
She stopped, and then she just watched me. I crossed the room in four steps, and she didn’t retreat, which was either courage or stupidity. With her, I’d never managed to tell the difference.
“You stand here in my chambers and defend him to me.” I kept my voice even; I was good at that because I’d had years of practice. “You want to tell me what Lance deserves.”
“Someone should.”
“And it should be you.”
“Apparently.”
There it was again. That stubborn, infuriating tilt of her chin. The fire caught the line of her throat, and I was very aware of how close I was standing and how long I’d been managing this: managing the want of her, managing the dragon’s constant, insistent pull toward her, managing the image that had lived behind my eyes since Lance had confessed. An image of the two of them, his cock inside her, his lips on the line of her neck, her moaning.
I was done managing.
“Take off your shift,” I said.
The silence in the room was absolute.
Her eyes narrowed. “No.”
“You’ve known what this was moving toward: that the two of us is inevitable. I’ve always known it—”
“—I said no.”
I chuckled because I couldn’t help it. “Are you going to pretend you don’t want me?” The words came out harder than I intended. “You’ve wanted this just as much as I have. Don’t stand there and pretend you don’t when I’ve finally decided to give you what you’ve wanted all along.”
“Wanting something andchoosingit are two different things.” Her voice didn’t shake. I almost wished it would. “And I’m not choosing this or you. Not tonight.”
“Why not tonight?”
“Because tonight you’re not the man I’ve been—” She stopped, pressed her lips together, and started again. “Tonight you’re exactly what I always thought you were.”
“And what is that?”
“A tyrant.” She said the word simply, and she didn’t mean it as an insult, but as a diagnosis. “You’re punishing Lance because you’re angry at the situation.”
“No. I’m angry with him because he wronged me.”
