Cardan is standing by the bed. When he turns, he looks so astonished that I almost laugh. I have seldom seen him unsure of himself, even when drunk, even when wounded; it is rare to see him overset. A wild heat leaps into his eyes, an expression not unlike fear. I feel a rush of power, heady as wine.
Now this is a game I don’t mind playing.
“Come here,” he says, voice rough. I do, crossing the floor obediently.
I might be inexperienced in love, but I know a lot about provocation. I slide to my knees in front of him. “Is this what you imagined I’d be like, back in your rooms at Hollow Hall, when you thought of me and hated it? Is this how you pictured my eventual surrender?”
He looks absolutely mortified, but there’s no disguising the flush of his cheeks, the shine of his eyes. “Yes,” he says, sounding like the word was dragged out of him, his voice rough with desire.
“Then what did I do?” I ask, my voice low.
I reach out to press my hand against his thigh.
His gaze shimmers with a sharp spike of heat. There’s a wariness in his face, though, and I realize he believes I might be asking him all this because I’m angry. Because I want to see him humiliated. But he keeps speaking anyway. “I imagined you telling me to do with you whatever I liked.”
“Really?” I ask, and the surprised laugh in my voice makes him meet my gaze.
“Along with some begging on your part. A little light groveling.” He gives me an embarrassed smile. “My fantasies were rife with overweening ambition.”
On my knees, it is a small thing to lie back on the cold stone. I reach up my hands, like a supplicant. “You may do with me whatever you like,” I say. “Please oh please. All I want is you.”
He sucks in a breath and gets down so we’re both on the floor and he’s on his hands and knees, making a cage of his body. He presses his mouth to the pulse point of my wrist, racing in time with my heart. “Mock me all you like. Whatever I imagined then, now it is I who would beg and grovel for a kind word from your lips.” His eyes are black with desire. “By you, I am forever undone.”
It seems impossible that he’s saying those words and that they’re true. But when he leans down and kisses me again, that thought blurs into sensation. He arches against me, shuddering. I begin to undo the buttons of his doublet. He tosses his shirt after it.
“I’m not mocking,” I whisper against his skin.
When he looks down at me, his face is troubled.
“We have lived in our armor for so long, you and I. And now I am not sure if either of us knows how to remove it.”
“Is this another riddle?” I ask. “And if I answer it, will you go back to kissing me?”
“If that’s what you want.” His voice sounds rough, unsteady. He moves so that he is lying at my side.
“I told you what I wanted,” I say in challenge. “For you to do with me whatever—”
“No,” he interrupts. “What you want.”
I move so that I am straddling his body. Looking down at him, I study the planes of his chest, the voluptuous black curls damp against his brow, his slightly parted lips, the furred length of his tail.
“I want—” I say, but I am too shy to say the words.
I kiss him instead. Kiss him until he understands.
He shucks off his pants, watching me as though waiting for me to change my mind. I feel the soft brush of his tail against my ankle, winding around my calf. Then I fumble my way into what I think is the right position. Gasp as our bodies slide together. He holds me steady through the sharp, bright spark of pain. I bite his palm. Everything is fast and hot, and I am kind of in control and out of control at the same time.
His face is wholly unguarded.
When we’re finished, he kisses me, sweet and raw.
“I missed you,” I whisper against his skin and feel dizzy with the intimacy of the admission, feel more naked than when he could see every inch of me. “In the mortal world, when I thought you were my enemy, I still missed you.”
“My sweet nemesis, how glad I am that you returned.” He pulls my body against his, cradling my head against his chest. We are still lying on the floor, although a perfectly good bed is right next to us.
I think of his riddle. How do people like us take off our armor?
One piece at a time.