Entwined Realms Volume One(129)
He nipped her, a little harder, teeth a little deeper into her velvety skin, and her answering moan had his cock beating against the zipper of his jeans, demanding to be let out.
“Esh, let go,” she whispered, those long fingers still digging into his upper arms.
She wasn’t saying anything he wanted to hear, so he concentrated on licking the tang from her skin and listened to that tiny hitch in her breathing.
“Warned you.” And before his brain processed, Nalah shifted, using her leg to dislodge him while those fingers twisted his body and had him on the floor.
She got off the bed and now stood above him, hip cocked to the side and fists on them, her eyes sparking in an all-to-familiar way, one that used to mean he was sleeping on a couch that night. “Damn woman, who taught you that?”
“Who do you think? I might not be a warrior, but do you think I’d let myself be totally vulnerable?”
She was vulnerable. Any of Beylor’s men could have her on her back with either a sword in her belly or them crawling on top of her in five seconds flat. But right now, with her foot that close to his balls, he wasn’t going to point that out. Instead he rolled and got to his feet, watching her watch him the entire time.
There was appreciation mixed with the earlier anger, the way she followed the bunching of the muscles in his thighs and his arms. Nalah wasn’t immune to him any more than he was to her. “Why’d you stop me?”
“Again, why do you think? I’m not here to be your personal amusement. Already told you.”
He snorted. “When have you ever been that? If that’s all I considered you good for, do you think I’d be here?”
That stopped her, her mouth closing, her face scrunching up in a V of confusion. She collapsed on the nearest chair, her arm draped across the table. “You and I need a little clearing of the air. Cards on the table?”
Yeah, that didn’t promise a good time. He shrugged, going to sit across from her.
She waited until he was settled before she began. “Why did you agree to do this?”
Talk about denial. He met her gaze, held it, until she was near fidgeting but still didn’t look away. “You aren’t stupid. You know why. I’m not changed.”
At that, Nalah did look away, out a window that overlooked the nearby forest. “It’s been five years,” she said, her voice as low as he’d ever heard from her.
“So? Fuck does five years mean? You’re it for me, always have been. Knew it as soon as you looked up at me with those big brown eyes and I told you so back then. Told you the same before we came here, though you wanted to pretend that wasn’t what it meant. If it won’t change in fifty years, why do you think five years is some magic number?”
She swallowed, the movement doing little to hide the slight quiver of her chin. “’Cause I haven’t been around.”
He snorted. “Yeah, like that changes shit.”
Now she turned back to him, her chin square, her eyes dead set on his, hard in a way they rarely were back before. “Because Jac is dead.”
“And?”
As if she had been touched by a live wire, Nalah jumped from the table, pounding her hands hard against the wood surface. “What do you mean, and? You could have stopped it. You should have stopped it.”
He rose to her challenge, stepping toe to toe with her. “Why? So he could turn around and do the same stupid shit the next year, the next month? He knew and he chose to do it anyway. He did it knowing I wasn’t going to get involved.”
“Oh yeah, you and your famous I don’t get involved.” She flung her arms wide, the movements wild and her voice loud and angry. “That’s why they thought it was safe to target him. Because there was no worry over retribution. The Cage King’s best friend, and they killed him, all because you don’t get involved.”
“So what’re you saying? You blame me for his death?”
That shocked her still, her voice and body going slack for a moment. She looked…she looked like she wanted to argue, and she wanted to cry, and she wanted to bang her head on a table and not stop…all of it, rolled together.
Her arms wrapped around her waist, one hand stroking along the length of the other arm. “I’m not saying – That night, when I disappeared, do you know why I went with the Guild?” She didn’t wait for him as she dove into the answer. “Because I didn’t care. Whatever they had in mind for me, I was okay with it. I knew what they said they wanted, but if it was something else? I’d just lost everything and I was so tired. As long as the pain ended, I was okay with it.”