Page 60 of Prince of Masks
The thought touches my mind—then the sun vanishes.
A dark shadow stretches over me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, once, twice, then squint up at the shadow.
Dray stands over me.
He tilts his head, his shades pushed back to sit on his damp, sandy hair, and a strand of hair fallen over his brow.
His tired blue eyes pin me.
The gloss of his chest sparkles like the waters overboard, sun-oils balmed all over him, and I give him another five minutes before his tan has been fully restored, while I sit here like a pasty squid.
Fisted in his hand is a white shirt.
I frown at it.
Hiswhite shirt.
He hands it to me. “You’ll burn soon.”
“I brought a coverup.” I look along the boat to the silhouette of either my mother or Amelia, I don’t know which one exactly, just that it is a woman with slender curves, topped off with a giant wide-brim hat that flaps in the wind.
It’s up there. The coverup. My bag is up there. My hat…
But so is Mother.
Dray leaves little room for argument. He plays the role of allied aristos, of a gentleman tending to my needs, and tosses the shirt at me.
It crumples on my lap.
“Put it on,” he says, voice rough, like his throat has been dragged over a grater. He sighs as he reaches for the folded black trousers on the cooler.
I watch as he climbs into them, concealing the chiselled definition of his legs, before he drops to sit on the storage box pushed up against the wall of the under cabin.
The toes of my feet, still pressed against the wall, curl on instinct.
He is close.
The side of his thigh is a breath away from my calf, his knee too close to mine. It’s a narrow spot, this little nook I conquered for myself.
I remind him of that. “There are other places to sit, you know. More comfortable places.”
Dray snags a glass bottle of water from the ice bucket. He unscrews the lid and gulps about half of it down.
As he draws it away from his glistening lips, he shoots me a tired look. “Put it on, Olivia.”
The shirt in my lap, still crumpled.
I sigh and snatch it up.
As I tug on the shirt, I glance over Dray’s head to Oliver. Still passed out on the roof of the under cabin.
Dray watches as I fix the sleeves at my wrists, rolling them back to fit the length of my arms better.
He tugs down his shades, resting on his head, and draws them over his eyes. Sawdust hair slides over his brow, somewhat frayed by the sea mist.
My hair is so ridiculously frizzed that I’ve had to wrestle it back into a loose plait, lazy and rushed and too many tendrils freefrom the braid. Those strands whip my cheeks in the constant breeze.
