The wasp brought me to a room with the number six painted on the door. I shouldn’t have noticed how lovely her hair smelled, but I did.Dammit. She smelled lovely, and in the candlelight her dark waves looked so glossy and—
She started talking about my room, but all I could think about was wrapping that hair around my fist, drawing her head back, tasting the skin she hid beneath that high black collar.
Keelynn twisted, colliding with my chest.
Her heat. Her indignation. Herscent. Feck it anyway. I owed it to myself to at least try and convince her to stay with me, right? “That’s the second time you’ve tried to climb on top of me today.”
She backed up a step, ramming into the wall. Her tongue nipped out, wetting her lips, even more perfect when I couldn’t see the black.
My magic slipped free. Stalking. Waiting.
“Keelynn?”
Her gaze landed my mouth. The most dangerous part of me.
“Unless you need me to warmyourcold bed . . .”
Say yes say yes say yes.
Her subtle lavender scent shouldn’t be overwhelming, but it was and—She wasn’t saying yes.Dammit, wasp. Say yes.She needed to forget she hated me for one feckin’ night and give in.
She wasn’t giving in. Sure, why would she? Hadn’t she just watched me and Nuala go off together? I hadn’t a hope of convincing her to stay with me tonight.
“I’m going to need . . . my key,” I finished with a sigh.
She shoved the key at me and bolted for her own room, leaving me with a half-hard cock and a whole lot of disappointment.
The feckin’ key didn’t fit into the feckin’ lock no matter how I jiggled it. I shoved it into my pocket and flicked my wrist. The door creaked open, and I had just reached the bed when I heard a faint knock. My heart clattered against my ribcage. I stumbled back to the door.
The woman from downstairs ducked beneath my arm and into the room. “Is yer bed cold?”
Shit. My brain wanted to tell her to get the hell out. My cursed mouth said, “I haven’t checked.”
Her shawl fell onto the footboard as she freed the leather strap holding her silver-streaked brown hair. “Will I check for ye?”
I didn’t want to say yes. I was drunk and wrecked and not even moderately attracted to the woman.
My curse made it impossible to say no.
* * *
The ceiling above the bed had a crack in the plaster that I’d been staring at for the last hour. It ran from the corner all the way to the decorative medallion that marked the center of the room.
It didn’t appear structural, so there was no fear of the ceiling collapsing. But it was unsightly and shouldn’t have been there.
The woman next to me shifted in her sleep, mumbling something about payment. I hadn’t asked her name, and she hadn’t asked mine. When you couldn’t choose what to do with your body, you stopped caring what anyone else did to you.And something inside you broke.It wasn’t invisible. People could see it. But only if they looked in the right direction.
Like that damn crack in the ceiling.
The light coming through the gap in the heavy black drapes was still gray, so I figured I had a few hours before we had to leave.
I needed a feckin’ bath.
When I went to roll off the bed, the mattress creaked. The woman shot upright, searching the murky darkness. Her eyes landed on me, and her thin lips quirked into a smile. “Where do ye think yer going?”
I collected my shirt and breeches from the dipped floorboards. “Away.”
She caught my elbow, nails digging into my skin. “Don’t leave. Not yet.”