He prowled closer. My skin tingled with anticipation. A storm cloud hovered over my heart, and it would remain until I finally faced him and put an end to this maddening, unresolved tension.
“You don’t know what I want,” I said, but the words were weak.
“I know that you’ve been avoiding me.” There was a pained somberness to his beautiful features. Part of me hated it. A dark part of me relished it, wanting him to hurt the way he’d hurt me. I didn’t like the dark, brewing side of myself that had taken over these past few weeks.
The part that wanted to shut the world out and hurt anyone in my way.
I tilted my chin up. “You noticed.”
“Of course I noticed.”
“How did it feel?”
“Is that what this was?” he whispered, closer yet still half hidden by the shadows. “A punishment?”
“Did it feel like one?”
Raithe took one step. Then another. And then one more, until finally his body filled the rest of the mirror behind me. Heat licked at my back from where his chest hovered. I ached to arch into him.
“Yes.” His admission caressed the shell of my ear. “It’s been torture.”
I shivered. “Good.”
“Good?” Raithe repeated tersely.
“You ignored me for weeks. After we almost—” I wanted to laugh. He’d done nothing to convey any interest in me. Not really. I’d confused his kindness—and my loneliness—for attraction. It wasn’t fair that I could be so easily affected by him,and that he could feel nothing. “Tell me something real, Raithe. Something honest.” I swallowed past the nervous lump in my throat. “Do you think about me? Do you… desire me?”
Raithe’s gaze burned into the mirror where my hand rubbed thecommunicahidden beneath my dress, nestled between my breasts. Still he said nothing.
“Tell me it’s not just in my head.” I wasn’t drunk, having only had two,maybethree glasses of wine, but I was tired of avoiding him. Avoidingthis. Consequences be damned, if he didn’t meet me halfway in this pivotal moment, I feared a silent void would forever remain. I would find a way to live with that—somehow—ifthis was only one-sided.
Something in his face shifted. “You want honest?”
“You owe me that.”
His throat worked. I waited with bated breath, fearing he would reject me. Or worse, shut me out again. When my heart began to deflate, determination set in his jaw.
“I’ve never wanted to kill a man like I want to kill Ionis, and anyone else whose ever touched you the way I can’t. When I thought you’d been harmed in the attack, I’ve never felt so terrified. And I—” Raithe broke off with a self-deprecating laugh. “I’ve never thought about anyone else soincessantlythe way I do you.”
And there it was: the validation that something palpable burned between us.
“So no, Rahzlyn,” he rasped. His face was unguarded in a way I’d never seen before. I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to. “It’s not just in your head. It’s in mine too.” He reached for my hand and brought it to his temple. “You’rein here. And stars help me, I don’t want you to leave.”
“Raithe,” I murmured as my heart exploded with relief—and want.
“You want to know what else I think?”
“Please,” I begged, beyond caring about my pride.
“You’re so fucking beautiful that I never truly understood the meaning of the word until you.”
My breath hitched, dazed by his words.Beautiful.I understood what it meant for him to divulge such honesty to anyone, including himself. But I’d been called that word by many before—many of whom had lied to me. I pulled myself from his grasp and turned. “You must think I’m a fool too.”
Shock dissolved his fervency.
“You deceived me, Raithe. Exactly like you’ve been deceiving Maryn.” I jammed my finger into his armored chest. “EveryoneI've trusted in my life has lied to me. Am I so gullible? Is it so wrong to believe the words of the people I care about?” I knew I revealed too much in my anger, but I couldn’t help it.
“I once thought differently. But now?—”
