“Very,” he murmured, his bright-eyed gaze traveling over my face so intensely it felt like a physical touch. His stare lowered over the slope of my throat, lingering on the faint bruise left there, and then to where my shoulders broke the surface before moving lower still. The tips of my breasts tightened under his heavy stare, and the muscles low in my stomach followed suit. His gaze drifted farther, over my hand resting against my navel and then to the space between my parted thighs. Heat flooded my veins as a sharp, twisting pulse darted through me.
Nyktos’s gaze shot up. The aura behind his eyes was bright as wisps of eather seeped out.
My heart kicked against my ribs. “I think you’re the one doing theoglingnow.”
Thick lashes lowered, shielding his eyes, but I felt his gaze. It had returned to where the tips of my breasts were just below the surface of the water. “You do know you don’t have to allow me to look upon suchunmentionableplaces.”
“I know.”
One side of his lip curled up. “And yet you continue to allow it.”
The spark of irritation further flamed the fire in my blood. “I do. What do you think that means? That I’m trying to seduce you,Nyktos?”
His eyes rose to mine again. The strands of essence churned slowly. “Is that a serious question? Everything you do is seductive.”
“You are the one who said you would await me and then chose to enter the chamber where I was bathing,” I reminded him. “And yet you think I’m trying to seduceyou?”
The knuckles of the hand on the rim of the tub turned white.
“How long did you sit there and look upon me while I was unaware?” I pushed away from the corner of the tub, sitting up. Water dipped below the swell of my breasts. “Better yet, how was I trying to seduce you when you came into my bedchamber uninvited and watched me pleasure myself? Then touched me?”
Every part of him went still. His chest. His features. The eather in his eyes.
I smirked. “Oh, I’m sorry. Was I not supposed to bring that up again? Forget that you watched me, wishing it was your fingers instead of mine inside me? Or were you wishing it was your cock?”
The air became electrified, filling with power as his eyes locked onto mine. That should’ve been a warning, but I was angry—with him for behaving as if his response to me was my fault, and with myself because that ache was there, throbbing and wanting.
“The thing is, Nyktos.” I rose, stirring what remained of the suds. Water coursed down my stomach, running over my hips and between my thighs. “My want of you isn’t something I can’t control. It’s achoice. I have the courage to admit that, and you don’t. Now, if you will excuse me—”
“No.” Nyktos’s hands landed on my hips, stopping me. He stared up at me, his eyes swirling, burning spheres. “You are not excused.”
Chapter 19
There was a hitch in my throat and a highly idiotic shiver below my belly in response to the blade-edged sharpness of his tone. The unmistakable heat in his stare. The branding feel of his cool hands on my skin. “I didn’t ask if I was allowed,” I told him.
“Actually, you did.” His hands tightened, squeezing the flesh on my hips. “You asked, and I’m telling you no.”
Wet hair fell over my shoulders and breasts as I tipped my chin down and grasped his wrists. “Do you want me to just stand here?” The anger and the want of him was a dangerous, heady mix. “You should hand me a towel then. I wouldn’t want my nakedness and your inability to avert your gaze to be seen as another forced attempt at seduction.”
Nyktos’s laugh was smoke and fire, coasting over my stomach, and my earlier taunting haunted me now because it was like nothing would remain of me but ember and ash.
I pressed my fingers into his skin. “Let go—”
“You were right. I did look at you longer than I should have while you slept in this bath, thinking about that damn offer you made me when there are far more important things to be consumed with while I looked at your breasts. Those fucking nipples.” His lashes swept down. “Your pussy. And I did sit hereand think about how it tasted. How it felt around my cock. The little jewel there and how a single touch makes you even wetter than anything I could’ve ever imagined.”
Air stalled in my lungs, and a dizzying heat swamped my senses.
“But I’m thinking about that when I’m not even looking at it,” he said, and he was looking at it now. His lips parted, revealing the sharp tips of his fangs. “Thinking about it so fucking much that I’m dreaming about you on my cock, riding me.”
I jerked as his lips brushed against the skin above my navel and his hands slid back, fingers pressing into the cheeks of my ass.
“I kept telling myself you didn’t know I was there as you touched yourself. That was the only thing that stopped me from getting between your legs and fucking you until neither of us could walk.”
My legs went weak, and I would’ve fallen if he hadn’t been holding onto me.
“And I sat here, looking at you and all your loveliness—wanting you so fucking badly.” His voice was the silk whisper of midnight as he lifted his head, bringing his mouth to the skin below my navel. “Trying to remind myself of all the reasons—and they are vast—why I cannot acknowledge what you do to me. Why I cannot afford for you to be anything more than a distraction.”
My heart stuttered, and I started to pull back.