“Why?”
“Why what?” he snaps.
“Why do you want to leave?”
“Would you want to supplicate yourself to a selfish, backstabbing bitch you don’t believe in every week?”
“I suppose not. But why didn’t you tell me this in the first place? And what about all that princess bullshit?”
“Oh”—he nods to my ring again—“it’s not bullshit. You’re definitely her.”
“And if I’m her, who are you?”
He smiles at me. “You get right to the point, don’t you?”
“When I have one, I try to.”
He stands up, flashing me his full frontal, and stands there. Almost proud. “You’re mine. We will be together because the magic foretold it. It’s been done and it can’t be undone. I’m not going to force it because I don’t have to, Pie. You’re just mine. So whatever.” He flips his hand at me the same way he flipped it at Luciano back in the hallway. Dismissing me.
No. It’s different. He’s not dismissing me. He’s dismissing the idea that I will reject him.
But I don’t have time to think more about that because Tarq says, “I need that jacket, Pie. Please take it off.”
His segue into this new subject is abrupt and offputting. But I don’t object. I just want to get out of his office. So I slide the jacket down my arms and shiver as his eyes follow my movements. I hold it out to him. “Here you go,” I say, then realize my mistake.
Because he walks out from behind the desk and over to me. Close enough to take the jacket dangling from my fingertips. But he doesn’t walk away or put it down, he just stands there. Way too close.
I look up at him. “What?”
“You need to take off all the clothes. You can leave them here and change on your way home tonight.”
“Do you mind, then?”
“Do I mind, what?”
“Can you leave? So I can take them off?”
He smirks at me. “I’ve already seen you naked, Pie. And everyone will see you naked when you leave my office. The whole point of Fireday is to expose yourself. So why bother with the pretense?”
He’s right. I get it. And it’s not really that big of a deal to be without clothes when I’m a nymph. My hair can cover my breasts and I have fur—light and velvety as it is—covering pretty much everything else I typically cover up.
But it’s different.
And even though he’s standing here naked in front of me, with no shame at all, he knows it’s different. Because he knows it’s weird for me, even though it’s not weird for him or anyone else.
He’s putting me on the spot, on purpose, and that makes me want to be Mad Pie.
But I’m not going to give him the satisfaction.
I unzip my skirt and let it fall down my legs. It floofs into a puddle of fabric at my feet. His eyes travel that distance right along with it. And they linger there—at the pool of chiffon, or tulle, or whatever the hell it’s made of—on the floor at my hooves.
Then they travel back up. Slowly. And he watches me take off my camisole. I drop that to the floor too, then arrange my hair to cover my now very perky nipples.
“Happy now?” I ask.
He just grins.
I begin to turn away from him. But once again, his words stop me.