“That,” Arthur said, his voice exactly the same temperature it had been before, “is what my displeasure looks like.”
I pushed my wet hair from my face and glared up at him. He just stood there with his hands loose at his sides, watching me kneel naked on the stone floor in front of him in a spreading puddle of bathwater like it was the most natural thing he’d witnessed all week.
“I suggest you don’t give me cause for another demonstration.”
Water soaked through the gaps in the stone beneath my palms, cold now, finding every crack. My shoulder throbbed where the copper had caught it, and the anger within me was now an all-out incendiary.
But I said nothing. Because there was nothing left to say. He’d made his point, and we both knew it. He walked over to a folded sheet of thick fabric that was lying on his bed, and reaching it, he threw it at me. It hit the wet stone floor and immediately began absorbing the water before I could grab it and wrap it around myself.
“What doesmy kingwish me to wear?” I asked, glaring as I turned to face him.
He’d settled himself into the high-backed chair nearest the fire, one booted foot crossed over the other on the velvet ottoman. He motioned me forward with two fingers.
“Drop it.”
I held his gaze. The linen was warm and still damp where I’d wrapped it around myself, but I wouldn’t let him see my hands shake. I let the linen wrap fall. It pooled at my feet in a soft heap. I stood there, I breathed, and I gave him nothing. My chin stayed level and my arms remained at my sides.
“Step forward.”
Three steps. I stopped when I was close enough to see the grain of the leather in his boots, close enough that when he exhaled, his breath moved against my hip.
He took his time in letting his eyes move over me, and there was no pretense of propriety. The dragon tattoo at his throat shifted when he swallowed.
“Your eyes tell me one thing: that glare you give me.” His voice had dropped, and it was now rougher than the clipped authority he usually wielded. “But your body.” He tilted his head, the ghost of a smile crossing his face. “Your body tells me something else entirely.”
“My body is cold because you upended my bath.”
“Mm.” He didn’t believe me.
“And in case you believe my body speaks a different message than my eyes, I can assure you that I hate you with all parts of myself equally.” I took a breath. “I hate you completely.”
“Is that so?”
Not a question. He leaned forward as he reached for me. I didn’t move. I just remained standing there, even when his hand moved between my thighs with the unhurried confidence of a man who’d never been wrong about anything. His fingers found the slick heat of me, and one finger rested at my opening, barely inside. And he left it there. Left it still. Just pressing.
Just knowing.
Then he slowly, very slowly, moved his head upwards so his eyes could rest on mine. And his gaze was fixed, narrowed. He flexed that finger only once. The sound that tried to escape my throat died before it reached the air as my nails pressed into my palms.
His eyes never left my face.
“There it is.” Three words, almost pleasant. His finger moved, just slightly pushing inside me, and my hips betrayed me with the smallest, most catastrophic shift forward. And herecognized it immediately: enough that he withdrew his finger, and there was obvious wetness covering the end of it. He held my gaze while he let the silence do its work.
Then he laughed, low and unhurried. The sound came from somewhere in his chest, and it was the worst sound I’d ever heard because it wasn’t cruel, and it wasn’t mocking. No, it was simply amused, satisfied the way a man is satisfied when he finds exactly what he was looking for exactly where he said it would be.
“Predictable.” Another chuckle. “So fucking predictable.”
My face burned hotter than the fire, and my jaw locked down so hard my teeth ached.
He leaned back again, effortlessly resettling into the chair like this was tedious to him. LikeIwas tedious to him. He looked at me at the same moment that he brought his finger to his mouth and sucked off my essence, holding my gaze the entire time. His boots fell back onto the ottoman.
“In case no one ever told you, Guinevere,” he continued, “the body doesn’t lie.” His eyes tracked upward to my face, idle and so fucking blue. “Even when the mouth is very determined to.”
I stood there, naked, dripping, and wanting to set the entire room on fire. And he just watched me.
Then he turned to face the bed where clothing waited folded. He motioned to the pile, and I immediately approached it, wanting nothing more than to hide myself from him. When I picked the tunic up, I recognized it immediately. It was Lioran’s; it was mine. Someone had washed it because it smelled of lye.
I dressed quickly. My fingers knew the laces by rote by now; I’d been Sir Lioran long enough that the armor of him settled around me like a second skin. Even here, even stripped of the disguise, putting Lioran’s clothes back on was like pulling rank on myself.