Page 83 of Queen of Diamonds

Okay.

I mean, if it was what he wanted, I’d sit through this quietly. I had sort of baited them into the fuck. And rut.

I was silent as he ran the tap and grabbed a cloth from beneath the sink. Then he stood before me, running it beneath my eyes and over my forehead, warming it when it got too cool. Then, when he was done with the cloth, he grabbed a bottle of lavender moisturiser and set it on the counter at my side.

It became too much when he sank to his knees before me.

“Knight, you don’t have to?—”

I cut off at his low growl, which he stifled just a little too late. He shut his eyes with a deep sigh, pressing his forehead against my shins and hiding his eyes for a long moment.

A long silence passed, and slowly he leaned back, touching firm around my legs as he worked the moisturiser into my skin, not saying a word.

He didn’t meet my eyes, but he was tense, as though waiting for another protest.

I didn’t give him one.

“Kyan must be spoiled,” I said quietly, needing to find something to break the strange serenity between us.

“Kyan refuses this,” Knight replied, voice too flat.

I swallowed.

“Oh.”

Damn.

Why was this so hard?

When he was done, he stood, rinsing his hands off in the sink and then returning to me. His knuckle brushed my chin as if he wanted me to look up at him, but I couldn’t. Instead, I stared really hard at his abs, cursing the burning in my eyes.

Don’t cry.

Don’t fucking cry.

A hot tear splashed to my thigh, and I felt the shift in the air, the stiffness to the knuckle beneath my chin.

“I’m near heat,” I whispered. “It’s not…” I took a shaky breath. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Okay.”

He was going to leave now, which was good because I think I was going to cry a hell of a lot more.

To my frustration, he didn’t. “You’re sick.”

“Sick?” Finally, I glanced up, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“You told Zed you use drugs through heats.”

I nodded.

“All of them?” he asked. “Were there any that you didn’t?”

I frowned, trying to read his expression as I blinked away my tears.

“You’re touch-starved, Glade,” he said. “I looked it up.”

My heart took flight in my veins, offsetting every ounce of peace he’d brought me in the last few minutes. “Looked… what up?”

---