Page 55 of Even Angels fall
“I’m surprised that’s what you want,” I say, and I know that my smirk is back to taunt her. “After all, you sounded like you needed a helping hand this week.”
If it wasn’t for the blush that creeps from her neck to her cheeks, I would think that she’s unaffected, because she doesn’t even react to my words.
“I’m not a prisoner,” she adds, counting a second finger on her right hand.
“Okay.”
“Léandre stays here after the wedding.” Third finger.
I already decided on it when Cassiopé told me about him, but the fact that she makes it a rule irks me a bit. Nope, I’m not jealous.
I still nod my answer, and she keeps counting on her fingers.
”No touching, no kissing, nothing, but I won’t have you do that to someone else in public. If you need to scratch an itch, you have to be discreet.”
“This goes for you, too,” I answer her, and something like rage simmers inside of me at the idea of her being with someone else, even if they’re discreet. There is no way I’ll let anyone close enough to touch her or hear her, the way I did this week. But I rule Notre Dame, so that might not be so hard to control.
“Anything else?” I ask, as if her rules bother me, when she didn’t ask for much so far.
“No—” she starts to answer, but then seems to think about it and adds, “I need new clothes. Or for someone to show me where I can clean mine.”
I’m utterly surprised by that new rule, because it’s not one at all. It just shows that I’ve been a poor host, who completely forgot about her basic needs. Like having clean clothes.
If she made it a rule, now I wonder if she’s wearing anything under her outfit.
“That will be done, but it’s not a rule,” I tell her as I stand and make my way to her side.
Her breath catches as I get closer and roll back her pinky to remove her fifth rule.
“Then there are only four rules,” she says, and I can’t miss that she has to tip her head to look at me, or the way her throat constricts at her words.
My hand is still around her finger when I think of something else.
Without letting my eyes stray from hers, I open her pinky again and add, “No killing each other again.”
I’m so close to her that I feel like I’m breathing her air. I can smell the soft scent of wild flowers on her skin, and if I was a better man, I would just relent and not taunt her the way I do, hovering just a few centimeters away from her lips, as if I want to devour her.
Because yes, I do want to devour her, but I already decided that I can’t have her. This gnawing I keep feeling inside my guts—I know what it is. I know what it could turn into. I know, and I don’t want to break, like my father.
But here, so close to her, I could forget.
I have to remind myself that she just laid her rules, and one of them was specifically no kissing. If we’re exact, she said notouching, either, and she hasn’t said a thing about my hand still encircling her pinky. I draw the line of respecting her wishes at the kiss that I’m dying to steal and take a step back.
It feels as if all the warmth in the room disappears.
Yes, I was right to stop myself, because I think that if I ever get to taste her, I might never want to stop.
33
Angélique
It feels like an eternity has passed before I realize Elhyor has left the kitchen altogether.
I meant to make it a rule that he teaches me how to make the delicious pasta that he made tonight, but after his comment about me needing a helping hand, everything went sideways.
I know my skin turned red, and it’s not like I have hair that I could hide behind, so I stood like nothing had happened, but inside, I was boiling—still am—because I couldn’t stop imagining howhishand would be a big help.
And then he came my way and said hand touched me. It wasn’t sexual.I know that, but tell that to my wet panties and the pulse I felt deep inside my pussy. They wouldn’t believe you.
