Page 9 of A Dance of Water

Luella shook the violent image away, her eyes fluttering closed as she took a deep breath. She was fine, it was fine.

Graves huffed a laugh, his breath puffing out and hitting her cheeks, fluttering the tendrils of her hair. "Curious thing."

He paused, giving another little tug on her hair; her head bent to the side, further toward him, and she had to notch a hand on the mattress to stop herself from falling into him.

The sheet fluttered to her lap without her holding it up, baring her silk-clad chest. The thin wisp of white fabric barely covered her, leaving nothing to the imagination—she resisted the urge to wrap an arm around her middle and cower, but stopped herself at the last moment. He had come toherroom without an invitation. She was doing nothing wrong.

The neckline of her nightgown dipped low, stretched from her fitful night of sleep. A thin strap fell off her shoulder, and goosebumps erupted on her skin from the nip of the early morning air. And from his attention.

She could hear her heart pounding. She wondered if he could see it batter against her chest.

Graves’s eyes dipped as he took her in. The leather of his gloves groaned as his hand gripped the sheets.

His head bowed, a strand of short black hair falling over his temple. She was suddenly reminded of another time, another place. But she blinked, and it was gone.

Luella studied his profile, taking in the strong line of his shoulders wrapped in the dark fabric of his cloak. The amulet on his chest gleamed, the purple stone holding white swirls as it rested against his chest, the silver around it kept it encased in a delicate cage—she was utterly ensnared by the sight of it, had a strong desire to reach out and touch. Graves did not move for a few short moments. The air between them was a crackling charge, and the rain continued its steady fall outside, only growing heavier with every passing breath. What had been a faint and continuous drizzle when she first awoke was now well on its way to a deluge. The very walls seemed to shake with the force of the rain.

The raven shifter’s shoulders rose as he sucked in a sharp breath. He raised his head, hands snapping up to grip the sides of her face. Her cheeks puffed out from his forcible grip.

"I saw everything," he whispered, bringing her face close to his. The tips of their noses brushed, and her hands fisted the silk sheets where they were bunched around her waist. Luella wanted. She burned. "I saw your breaths as you slept. The way they grew more and more erratic. I kept wondering what it could possibly be that you saw behind your lids as you slept that was so captivating. And then you woke up." He pressed the flat of his hand against her sternum, a thrumming weight that forced her to topple back onto the mound of pillows decorating her bed.

An indignant huff escaped from her parted lips.

She stared up at him, and he stared down at her. They were both good at that—the staring. It was theirthing. She hated that they were so familiar that they had a thing, but at least their thing was heavy silence and not torturing her enemies for pleasure like Tharen and the King—Vale, she reminded herself—seemed to enjoy so much.

His hands left her, and he reached for the silken bedsheets, gathering them up as his head lowered. And Luella suddenly knew what he was going to do.

"Wait!" A whispered shout that pierced the space between them. "Please don’t."

His head continued to lower as he looked up at her. The sight of him kneeling on the ground by her side, his head lowered as he stared up at her with those jewel-toned eyes—she was suddenly glad she was reclining, or else she would have swooned.

Graves pressed his face to the sheets, burying his nose into them as he breathed deeply. His voice was muffled by the fabric as he said, "I saw your hand as you touched between your thighs…" He did not elaborate.

Luella was grateful. She did not think she could bear to hear him utter what she had done after that. But seeing his face, buried in the silken sheets. He was smelling… her.

Her white hair was a fan behind her as her head shifted on the pillow, watching him. "I didn’t mean for anyone to s-see." She curled her hands against her chest, well aware of how the thin fabric of her gown brushed against her chest.

Graves finally lifted his head. His nostrils flared as he stared at her, the sheets still held halfway up to his face.

"So," he started, "you’re not embarrassed over what you did? Just that you got caught?"

She rolled her lip between her teeth, and his eyes fell to watch her mouth. "I don’t know," she whispered.

Would she have been embarrassed if he had not been there when she awoke? Maybe? But perhaps not. She had never touched herselfthere, never felt that sort of dampness between her thighs. She had lazily drifted from the land of her dreams to being awake, and in that short, soft space between, she had only known an intense desire, the urge to touch and feel. Maybe when she woke up a little more, she would have started to feel shame over what she had done.

The raven shifter seemed to read everything playing over her face. His eyes grew understanding, and he pulled away from her, standing.

"Sweetheart, you’re killing me," he grumbled.

"What?" she inquired, still lying splayed on the pillows where he had left her.

He rubbed a hand over his face. "Vale wants you for breakfast. He sent me to check on you."

She nodded, sitting up and gathering the sheets back to cover her, pulling them far up to her chin. He huffed a soft laugh, like hehad not just done something much more intimate than seeing her in her thin nightgown.

"You don’t have to check on me every few hours, you know?" Luella wrapped the sheet around her shoulders and stood.

The rain beat an incessant rhythm against the glass doors of the balcony. It was almost peaceful. She was sad that her sleep had been interrupted.

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