"And now you want the door shut."
"I wanted the choice plain," he said. "Nothing hidden in it."
That answer should have sent her straight back to the latch. Instead it landed too near the center of the wound.
"If you say something patient now," she said, "I may hit you with a pigment jar."
The corner of his mouth moved. "Then I shall spare the jars."
His hand lifted, slow enough for refusal, and touched the side of her throat.
That was all. The broad warm weight of his fingers under her ear, thumb resting light at her jaw. None of the incidental contacts of the past two weeks had prepared her for touch that neither of them could pretend was accidental.
Her pulse slammed against his thumb.
"You may still say no," he said.
Instead she put her palm flat against his chest through the open throat of his shirt and felt the warm skin there, the solid muscle, the faint tack of maruk oil at the collarbone where he'd handled the bottle earlier.
"I know," she said.
Then she rose on her toes and kissed him before her nerve could rot.
He made a sound low in his chest that went straight through her. One arm came around her waist, not dragging, simply taking her weight as if he'd expected exactly how far she'd reach and planned for it. The other hand slid from her throat into her hair, cupping the back of her head. His mouth was warmer than she had imagined and less careful.
He kissed the way he painted: certain of the line once chosen, willing to stay on it until the material answered.
Iva grabbed a fistful of his shirt because otherwise she might have done something humiliating like sway. His tusks altered the angle, made every pass of his mouth a little rougher, and gods curse her, she liked that at once.
When he pulled back it was only far enough to look at her.
"Tell me what you want, woman."
"Do not start sounding noble," she said, breathless and angry at the breathlessness. "You will ruin the mood."
His thumb brushed the corner of her mouth. "Then tell me to keep going."
"Keep going," she whispered.
This time the kiss went on until thinking thinned into sensation. His hand at her waist slid lower, then up under the back of her blouse with deliberate slowness. He was not teasing her. He was reading the surface before committing pressure, the same way he tested wall plaster with a palm before deciding where to lay the brush. Her body responded to the professional patience of it before her mind could intervene.
When his fingers found the line of her spine she shuddered.
"Aye," he murmured, as if confirming data.
"Do not observe me."
"Too late."
She pushed at his shirt until it slid off one shoulder. Warm skin under lamplight, rougher where old pigment and work hadmarked him. He caught the back of her hand and turned it, pressing her palm fully to his bare chest.
"Feel it," he said.
His heartbeat hit her skin, deep and steady.
She tried to tell herself it was the oil. Easier than the truth. Mavrek's hand slid down the front of her blouse to the first fastening. He looked at her once in silent question. She answered by undoing the buttons herself, because if this was happening she would not stand there passively while he carefully negotiated every inch of cloth.
"Impatient," he said.