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I shrug like it’s nothing. Judging by the way he glares at me, he clearly disagrees. “Yeah. I wasn’t about to let my pretty musician run around Caervast falling into hidden chambers without supervision.”
Rowan stares at me. “That is not a normal thing to say.”
“Neither is waking up concussed in my bed, but here we are.”
Rowan pushes himself upright and winces.
I’m already moving before I think about it, catching his wrist and steadying him as he sits up too fast. “Easy.”
Rowan goes still, pulse jumping beneath my fingers before his gaze drops to my hand and lifts back to my face, breathing changing just enough for me to notice. “I need to go.”
“You’re not going anywhere, little mouse. You hit your head, and unless you want me to call the doctor, you’ll stay right here.”
“Perhaps a doctor—”
“Costs over ten thousand coin if they need to visit a patient on location.”
I watch as his face morphs into shock before puffing out a breath.
“Here’s the deal. You eat something, you drink something, you talk to me, and maybe”—I reach for the tray and slide it closer across the sheets—“I’ll let you go.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Not part of the deal.”
“I don’t know what to talk about.” But at least he reaches for the juice and takes a big sip.
“Also not part of the deal. Let’s do this a little differently.”
I shift over him, just enough to remind him exactly how hard we both are. Rowan freezes, breath hitching, and my mind flashes back to the way he came apart for me the last time I had him like this.
“Yeah,” I murmur against his mouth. “You like that? I like it too. Especially when you start telling me what the fuck you were doing in that chamber last night.”
“I told you, I fell, you asshole,” he grumbles.
But his pupils have dilated, and his body betrays the secrets he still refuses to tell me. He won’t for long, because my mouse is already on the verge of collapsing, and it has nothing to do with his heart.
Not giving him the chance to find his composure, I shift higher before reaching for the tray on the nightstand and snagging a slice of orange.
Rowan stares up at me like I’ve finally lost my mind, and maybe I have.
I take a bite of the orange and don’t stop moving, the slow roll of my hips pulling a broken breath from him. Beneath the sheets, his cock jerks against mine.
“Eat,” I command, holding the fruit to his lips. “And then you’re going to talk, mouse. Every word. Or I’ll make sure this is the only thing you taste for a very long time.”
I press the orange against his mouth until he’s forced to take it. A drop of juice escapes, dribbling down the corner of his lip and onto his chin.
I watch it trail toward his throat before I lean down, my tongue catching the sweetness from his skin in a swipe.
Rowan’s hips jump beneath mine, his frame shuddering at the contact.
“I told you what happened,” he insists, his voice thinner now.
“You know what? I admire the commitment to the lie.”
“It’s not a lie.”
“You disappeared from the party and ended up in a restricted area of the academy, panicked badly enough to throw yourself down a staircase, and somehow ended up in a chamber containing an abandoned Noctis.” I lean back, keeping him pinned, watching the way his chest heaves. “That’s a weird evening for someone who just accidentally got lost.”
