I laugh a little, though it comes out as a gasp. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t been hard up for company in the intervening time.”
“No, you haven’t.” She circles my clit again. “Pretty, popular Aurora. You’re everyone’s favorite, and yet you’re always left in the dust when they find their people to settle down with. They don’t see you, and the ones who do want to change you. They don’t appreciate you for the gift you are.”
I’m suddenly terrified that Malone truly does see me. I try to keep my mouth shut, try to just enjoy this without digging myself deeper into a hole I’m not sure I can climb out of. “Do you?”
“Fierce Aurora. Protective Aurora.” She picks up her pace between my thighs, driving me toward orgasm as if we’ve done this a thousand times before, as if she knows my body as well as I do. “Deadly Aurora.” Her smile is just as fierce as her eyes. “Yes, I see you.”
I orgasm. It’s just a physical thing, just a tiny death, but it feels like something’s shifting inside me. Like something is changing that I can’t afford to change, not if I want to keep my feet on the path I’ve trod for more than half my life.
It feels like forgetting.
I shouldn’t want to forget. I shouldn’t betray the memory of my mother, my grandmother. I am simply so tired. Tired of fighting, of plotting, of hope. That must be why I’m craving this woman’s touch. No one has ever undone me in the same way that she does. I’ve never craved that undoing the way I am now.
Malone gentles her touch, bringing me back down with the same expertise she ramped me up. She holds my gaze as she lifts her fingers to her lips and sucks them deep. Tasting me. My entire body clenches at the sight. It doesn’t matter that I just came, that she’s my enemy; I want her. “Malone—”
She ignores me and pulls my dress back down, smoothing it into place, her touch lingering on the sequins for a moment before she sits back. “I’m famished.”
“Malone.”
“Aurora.” The snap is back in her voice, the coldness I recognize… Though it’s different now. It feels brittle, like it might crack beneath my feet at any moment. Not like the deep permafrost it used to be. Or maybe that’s all in my head. I honestly can’t be sure.
It shouldn’t matter. It can’t matter.
I carefully sit up and move to a kneeling position. “Yes, Mistress.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” I stare hard at the bright red of the cushion in front of me. “You want me to stop talking and stop pushing, right? Here I am, being obedient.” Why am I so angry? I should be happy that she’s reestablishing the proper boundaries between us, reminding us of our respective roles. I didn’t expect to need that reminder as much as she apparently does. That must be why I’m furious. It’s certainly not because she’s shutting me out.
She presses a single finger to my chin and guides my face up until I meet her gaze. “We’re not through talking.” Without looking away from me, she reaches to the middle of the table and presses the button to summon the server.
He arrives a few minutes later, bringing in our food, replacing our pitcher of water, and disappearing just as quickly. I pick up my fork, but I’ve lost anything resembling an appetite. It’s so tempting to put the utensil down and just drink some more wine, but I can practically hear Allecto’s voice in the back of my head.
You want to defeat a warrior, Aurora? You have to train like one; and that includes eating.
A rousing pep talk when I was twenty-two. Now she just shoves extra protein on my plate any time she catches me during a meal. It’s annoying and endearing in equal measure, and with that in mind, I start working on the chicken scattered throughout the salad. “If we’re not finished talking, what are we talking about?”
“I would have thought it was obvious.” Malone cuts her chicken like she does everything else—with precise violence. “We’re going to talk about you.”15MaloneAurora is no rabbit, but she certainly impersonates one when she’s backed into a corner. She freezes, and her eyes go wide. “Me? What could you possibly want to know about me that you don’t already?”
I eat a bite of chicken slowly before speaking again. “We’ve established that the innocent act doesn’t work on me. Try again.” It shouldn’t irritate me that she keeps throwing up shields, treating me like every other one of her patrons. Maybe it wouldn’t have before I forgot myself and told her too much about Sabine Valley and my family, though I doubt it. Aurora gets under my skin like no one else I’ve ever met, and I crave the truth of her.