Page 26 of Golden Queen
He chuckled darkly and stared ahead. The laugh told me the thoughts were not ones he was prepared to put into words. But I stopped and raised a brow, daring him to admit it.
He faced me and reached out to the lapel of my coat, his eyes trained on where he straightened the already straight edge. The light pressure from his fingers where they grazed the fabric seemed to scald me.
"I was thinking about how beautiful you are." His eyes slid up to meet mine, and that wicked, dark gaze sent a jolt of something warm and eager through my chest.
I feigned disappointment even as my heart raced and his words settled in me like warm honey. "Is that all? I was expecting something more...specific." I hardly believed the words coming out of my mouth. So daring and haughty, like someone who was used to such compliments—as though I wasn't trembling under the weight of those inky, depthless, black eyes.
They flared imperceptibly and almost seemed to come alive as I watched. I thought I glimpsed some movement in the darkness before they narrowed again, assessing. "Ah, you want specifics?" The deep, dulcet tone of that final word sent a shiver down the backs of my arms.
I nodded.
He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring. "Well, I thought about your eyes—like swirling bits of fog trapped behind glass. I thought about your lips and how they would taste—how soft they would be." He prowled closer, and I barely registered that I had backed away a step.
"I thought about all those wild curls—and what they might look like falling down across my chest." The implication of that one was not lost on me as the image flashed in my mind of my hair, falling around my face and shoulders as I rose over him.
I hadn't even realized I was moving until I felt the wall at my back. He had me pressed against the side of the building, his fingers still clutching the edge of my coat.
He rested the other hand on the wall beside my head. His wide shoulders blocked out the world around me as he hemmed me in to the space between his tall frame and the unyielding stone at my back. But I was not afraid, even when it felt like a shadow fell across the courtyard and all the rest of the world disappeared.
I looked up at him, his face towering above me, a few stubborn strands of hair falling over his forehead. I knew my face must have registered how much I wanted him to touch me. But he didn't. He took another deep breath, almost like he was scenting me.
"But most of all, Sera, I thought about what it felt like when I woke and felt you on top of me, your thighs around my hips, and your hips pressing me down to that bed."
"Oh,'' I breathed, my heart pounding out a rhythm in my chest as I began to ache—to literally ache for him to touch me.
"So tell me, Sera, did you think about me today?"
"Not even once," I said, giving him a wicked grin.
"Liar," he said, his lips almost to mine. "I need you to tell me, Sera. Tell me that you want me."
I waited, not quite able to just say it.
"I've never been with a woman who was...paid to be there. But if you do want this as much as I do, then I will pay you whatever you ask."
The words took a few heartbeats to filter into my brain, but when they did, they cut through the heat like an icy knife.
Iknewthat was what he thought—that I was a courtesan. The rational part of my brain had known to expect it—to expect him to think my body was for sale.
But as he looked at me, as he had talked about my eyes, I began to believe it was something...more. And perhaps then, the rational part of my brain had simply shut down.
Little bits of swirling fog, trapped behind glass. I thought that was what he had said…
The realization that this was a transaction to him, even if my stupid mind had thought of it in a very similar way not so long ago...well, it sent rage and humiliation crackling through me. "I have never been paid to be anywhere, you prick," I said sharply, making him take an automatic step back from me.
I moved away from the wall and started to turn away as he stared back at me warily.
I thought better of it, though, and whirled back on him. "Maybe next time, you should ask around a little. Find out if someone actuallyisa whore before you try to pay them."
I turned again, but that word I had used—it shamed me to my core. The immediate fear that one of my friends in the brothel might have overheard me momentarily drowned out the anger I felt.
I had wanted to sting him the way his words had stung me. But using that word, well it was uncalled for.
I stopped, ready to take it back.
When I faced him, he was looking at me like something I said was highly amusing.
"You're an asshole," I said and turned away again, letting my footsteps carry me across the courtyard quickly before I could change my mind again.
