Her pupils dilated wide. Staring blankly up at him, she swallowed hard before asking, “What is this ‘way’ you speak of?”
“…I wonder.”
He trailed off, brushing a gloved hand across his lips. Unsettled by her unwavering gaze, a faint flush rose along his pale skin.
A sudden thirst tightened in the back of his throat. He tugged at his collar, which suddenly felt suffocatingly tight.
“At the very least, it will not be some rushed affair with your skirts merely hiked up.”
The crimson flush coloring her cheeks crept down to her earlobes and the nape of her neck.
He bit the inside of his cheek, then yielded to the urge to touch her, leaning over the bed.
Her shoulders hitched as she gathered her skirts and tucked them tightly beneath her knees. Ignoring her guarded glare, he cupped her heated cheek and pressed her.
“What will it be?”
“You… you must tell me what you want in plain words….”
“I intend to take time to prepare you, so that your body can take mine without strain.”
His thumb brushed her lips, red as clotted blood. Her deep blue eyes, wet and glistening, wavered violently.
Looking up at him with sheer fright, she turned her head aside to break his touch.
“Is there truly any need for that? It is better for both of us to finish quickly.”
He drew his hand back, his eyes turning cold.
“If you have no intention of accepting my terms, leave this room. You may be content playing the broodmare, but I have no desire to be used like cattle.”
All color drained from her soft, flushed face in an instant.
Varkas hardened his resolve against the pity stirring in his chest. If he yielded now, they would only repeat that disastrous night.
He crossed his arms and jerked his chin toward the door, questioning why she was not getting up to leave. Clutching her skirts until her knuckles whitened, she bit her lower lip and spoke with a trembling voice.
“Then… grant me just one condition.”
He waited in silence for her to go on.
After a long hesitation, she looked at him with grim resolve.
“Put out the lights. If you do that, I will endure whatever you do.”
His mouth twisted.
He knew she had not spoken out of malice. Yet her manner—like a martyr facing slaughter—turned his stomach. Had he not known she was genuinely terrified, he would have walked out without looking back.
After studying her for a moment, Varkas walked to the window. He put out the candles on the candelabra one by one, then lowered the iron screen over the hearth. Yet the unspent daylight still poured into the room through the glass.
He looked out at the bruised purple clouds and the golden sunset before turning back to her. His wife still clung to the fabric of her dress, watching him with wary eyes.
He felt a prick of discontent, but if darkness granted her peace, there was no reason to refuse.
He drew the heavy curtains across the window. At last, dense darkness swallowed the room.
“Is this enough?”
Talia gave a slight nod. Then, perhaps assuming he could not see her, she answered in a strained voice.
“It is… it is enough.”
He waited until his eyes adjusted to the dark before stepping toward the bed.
Sensing his approach, she reached out blindly. He sat on the edge of the mattress and leaned forward so his wife could touch him.
Soon, ice-cold fingers grazed his neck. When he cupped her hand and brought it to his cheek, she flinched, shrinking back, but slowly began to stroke his face.
At her touch, as if she were simply verifying that he was real, a dull ache tightened in his lower belly, and a fierce heat surged through him.
His eyes narrowed at the violent stir of his own flesh.
He had felt heat flare whenever he was near her before, but he had dismissed it as merely the natural instinct of a man in his prime.
Though he had been somewhat surprised that such urges still remained in him, he had never given it serious thought. He had merely concluded that producing an heir would not be an impossible task.
He had willfully ignored that his body had never reacted to anyone else. If duty required it, he could have relied on an aphrodisiac.
Trained to govern every appetite with discipline, he considered severing flesh from thought a trivial matter. Lust was merely an instinct for the preservation of bloodlines. There was no cause to attach meaning to it.
Yet those cold convictions collapsed easily beneath her touch.
Varkas let out a slow breath and slid an arm around her waist. As he untied the laces at the back of her dress, the fabric slipped away, laying bare her fragile frame and elegant contours. As he stroked her skin with deliberate care, savoring the warmth, a breathless whisper slipped from her lips.
“You… you cannot see anything, can you?”
Instead of answering, he laid her back against the pillows and drew her dress down past her hips. Talia drew a sharp breath, her hands clutching frantically at the silk. Even in the gloom, he saw her shoulders bunch tight with fear.
“Answer me. Truly, you see nothing?”
Looking down at her face, unraveling with panic, Varkas murmured low against her ear in a soothing tone.
“Yes. I see nothing. So be at ease.”
Only then did her fingers loosen their grip.
He pulled the dress down past her feet. In the dim blue shadow, a body so exquisite it seemed unreal lay revealed before him.
Slender shoulders carved as if from ivory, the graceful swell of her breasts, a waist so narrow a single hand could span it, and a smooth, taut stomach…. As Varkas let his gaze trace down the delicate lines, akin to an offering set upon an altar, his eyes abruptly halted.
The moment he saw the bandages wound tight from above her twisted knee down to her calf, a blade seemed to thrust into his throat.
As if to tear away the sight, he came over her urgently and pressed his tongue against her parted, swollen lips.
Startled by the sudden contact, she flinched, but soon parted her mouth for him.
He sought out the slick warmth within, tangling his fingers into her silk-fine hair. With every sweep of his tongue, her skin grew hotter beneath his hands.
A faint regret struck him for granting her demand to douse the light.
Had the room been lit, he could have watched the crimson rise across that pale skin. He could have seen her lapis-blue eyes turn cloudy and her reddened lids grow wet.
The parching thirst in his throat grew fierce. He used his tongue to draw the sweetness pooling in her mouth, swallowing it greedily, yet the drought in his throat would not abate in the least.
Gripped by an odd urgency, he drove his tongue deeper into the slick hollow of her mouth. Her small tongue darted, trying to retreat. He pursued it without thinking. As he hungrily tangled with the tender warmth, she gave a muffled moan and tilted her head back.
He instinctively held her fast as she tried to pull away.
The fire that had scorched his throat now raged deep in his gut, like the heady poison of belladonna settling in his veins.
“You… take yours off too. The sword hilt is pressing into my stomach. It hurts.”
While he clung to her mouth, half out of his senses, she pushed at his chest and whined softly.
He let out a ragged breath and raised his head. Straightening up, he saw his groin, hard as iron, bearing down against her stomach.
How would she react if he told her it was no hilt?
She would turn white as ash and shrink away.
He hated the thought of that, yet a dark urge longed to see it all the same.
He wiped the slick moisture from his mouth with the back of his hand, using the other to tear open the buttons of his shirt.
Stripping off his tunic in a single motion, he unbuckled his sword belt and shoved down his trousers.
The cool air brushed against his fevered skin, yet his body, burning with desire, did not cool in the slightest.
END