This feeling. Her first concession. Stephen did not know what to do with it. “Give it to me.”
River handed the burnt book over as if she didn’t deserve to touch the pages any longer.
Watching large hands tug it from her grasp, she pulled her knees under her chin. All the while, her eyes did not leave the cover—ruined as it was—no matter how many times Stephen turned the warm object over in his hands.
To torment her.
To please her.
To handle a thing she treasured and thumb to a random page. For the first time in his life, he began to read aloud. So she might keep her feelings quiet and not further poison the air with female emotion and uncomfortable stirrings.
And magic was discovered.
He read her to sleep, River sprawled on the floor and too near the flames. Through the oration, he watched to make certain no flying ember sparked her, annoyed, yet grasping the opportunity to see such a thing so near the light—the shade of River’s skin, dark and satiny. The shape of her arms, gentle. She’d chewed her nails to stubs, yet still there was grit under each fingertip from hard work and careless inattention to one’s body.
He could smell River’s sweat as he’d smelled the men he trained with, but at the same time, it was absolutely different. It seemed almost a natural highlight, that odor—like it belonged to her and her glossy braids.
Before the storm made it impossible, every heated shower had been for him, and for the first time, Stephen wondered if she’d missed her bathing ritual. He could not be sorry for it though, not when it gave him the chance to smell and analyze female. A wild female.
River had claimed she’d seen other men naked, Stephen had not forgotten. She’d fornicated; claimed to prefer weather-beaten males.
Trained from childhood to serve as Mikhailov’s elite soldier, Stephen had taken a vow of chastity. The only female bodies he’d ever seen naked were ones he’d been ordered to dispose of. And they had been in pieces.
To the silence, to her slumber, he whispered, “I am scarred. My flesh is worn. I am not pretty.”
River only groaned in sleep, turning so her back might feel the heat of the flames.
Whatever possessed him to argue his aptitude as a male under her qualifications was silenced. Feeling foolish, Stephen was unsure why he had spoken at all.
But then why shouldn’t he speak? He had been cast off, his vows no longer held weight. He was a virile male; she was a young, apparently shrewd female.
Thoughts began to percolate.
The sleeping shrew became more interesting. After all, why should he not partake? Why should he limit himself by vows made to a master who’d betrayed him? From that moment forward, there
were no rules but those he chose to make.
He would do as he pleased.
For the first time in many years, he felt a twinge and looked down at his crotch as if such a thing were astounding. More blood pumped to quell the anger and hurt of rejection, but not enough. Half-hard, Stephen glanced back at the sleeping monster and hated her for knowing things he did not.
* * *
After sleeping on the chair, then the floor, River was sore and stiff. She wanted her couch back, but the wail of wind slapping against the logs of her house made it clear the storm was a long way from letting up.
The loud breathing animal that stole half her air had soured on her.
He was always in the way.
If the fucker bumped her one more time, she was going to poison his food.
“Why do you have no husband?”
It was questions of that nature that were making homicide far more appealing. “I’m a lesbian.”
“You previously claimed to like men.”
Rubbing her temples, River sighed. “I don’t need a husband. If anyone in this room needs a husband, it’s you. Maybe he could even dislodge that stick crammed up your ass.”