by Megan Hart
He moved from her to stalk toward the closet at the back of the room and return the text. “You can’t know it.”
“She believes it.”
This stopped him, and he turned. “She’s been in contact with you?”
Serenity nodded after half a breath. “She writes to me upon occasion.”
“What does she say?”
“What do women say when they write to each other?”
He kept his mouth from a sneer only by forcing himself to blankness. “I’m not a woman beginning or end, Sarenissa. I don’t know.”
If the use of her name from before her life in the Order startled her, she didn’t show it. “She writes of daily charms. Of the weather, of conversation. Of her life, Cassian. Her happy life.”
He swallowed a rush of bitterness. “Not of . . .”
Me, he’d almost said and choked it back.
“Not of the boy? No. She knows he is in good care, here. And she has . . .” Serenity hesitated for longer this time.
He turned to face her. “What? Don’t call yourself my friend and then not finish. Tell me.”
“She has someone, Cassian.”
“Yes. A patron. I know.”
It was Serenity’s turn to shake her head. “Not only a patron.”
He could no longer keep his neutral mask. The sneer twisted his mouth, and Cassian covered it with one hand, but only for a moment. The taste of simplebread crumbs turned his stomach.
“She’s not coming back, and even if she did, what would you do?”
“I would . . .” He cleared his throat and then again. The chime had sounded for the afternoon lesson. They wouldn’t be alone for much longer.
Serenity gazed at him overlong before she sighed again. “You would what?”
“I would ask her to forgive me.”
She showed no surprise at his words. She nodded as the door opened and young women, led by their chatter, began to enter. She moved closer to touch his sleeve only, knowing him well enough not to try for a more intimate embrace than that.
“How could she, when you won’t forgive yourself?”
Then with another tug on his sleeve, Serenity moved through the gaggle of novitiates and out of the room. Cassian watched her go. He folded the towel over the remains of the simplebread. He smoothed the front of his jacket, though nary a wrinkle dared mar it.
He faced the room.
“Good afternoon, Master Toquin,” Wandalette said cheerfully.
“Good afternoon, Wandalette.” His voice, steady, betrayed nothing, yet she looked at him with some astonishment. “Yes?”
“You . . .” she hesitated.
Cassian, having no more patience today than any other, and in fact in possession of rather less, raised a brow. “Yes?”
“You never say good afternoon, or call us by our names!”
“Pull out your texts,” came his reply. And then, spying her at the back of the room, “Ah, Mistress Marony. I believe I’ve a chore for you today, after class.”
She nodded. Neither of them gave any indication they noticed the low buzz his words had produced among the other novitiates. Annalise looked at him from across the room, her pale eyes heavy lidded and thoughtful, and then she turned her attention to the book in front of her as though she might study the words he knew full well she’d long ago memorized.
Roget’s accusation that he never faced temptation had shamed Cassian into asking Annalise to assist him, and now Serenity had forced him to thinking of much he didn’t wish to know. He was in no mood to parry with Annalise, but it had been done and there was no going back now. Roget would be back again in a sixmonth or so, on his rounds to serve at all the Sisterhouses. By then the woman would be gone, one way or another.
Cassian had meant what he said when he told Annalise he didn’t believe she’d ever be granted a patron. She was not the sort to bend. The question, therefore, was would she break, instead?
Chapter 13
Their time with him ended, the other novitiates left for the afternoon service with backward glances and hushed speculation Annalise ignored. Only when the door had closed behind them did she move to the front of the room, where he sat behind his desk. He’d been staring out the window the entire time.
“You needed me?”
“I need your assistance.” Toquin gestured toward the closet at the back of the room. “We have texts to sort, I believe.”
Annalise looked toward the closet, then at him. “Why now?”
His brow furrowed. “Plead your mercy?”
“Why do you want to sort them now, when you did not before?”
“Why do you question what I want and what I don’t?”
She smiled at the rise in his inflection. He was not so cold as he’d like to feign. The question would be whether prodding him to anger would be better than enduring his disdain.
“Because I am insufferable,” she suggested.
Toquin stared a long moment before answering. “You take pride in being so?”
“Should one take pride for what one cannot take credit?” Annalise asked coyly, testing him further with a drop of her lashes, the slightest jut of her hip.
Ah. He noticed that, sure enough, for his eyes narrowed and his mouth thinned just the barest bit. He noticed, and did not like it. It was different, his reaction, not the bored irritation the others wrung from him.
“You claim no credit is yours, yet you could change that quality.”
“Oh, I’ve tried, with little luck. It’s going to be the most difficult task I’ve faced here,” she told him honestly, yet with the intention of teasing. “Perhaps that and . . . humility. Perhaps that, too.”
“So much for proving me wrong.”
Ah, that slap stung, and was well-deserved. “I spoke out of turn that day.”
“Only that one?” He got to his feet, big boots thumping the boards.
He smoothed the front of his jacket, toying briefly with the flash of red at his throat and then at the sleeves, pulling them to fully cover his wrists. He was meticulous in his grooming, but Annalise thought it was meant to distract her more than tidy himself.
Distract her from what?
“Why do you wear that?” She pointed at his jacket.
Toquin looked at himself, then at her. “Why do you wear that?”
“It’s what I’ve been assigned to wear. It’s a uniform.”
“So is my choice of garment.”
She laughed. “Really? A uniform for what? Is that what men would wear if they allowed them to join the Order instead of merely working for it?”
Incredibly, he laughed. So briefly it might have been a sneeze, but nevertheless, a chuckle. Toquin looked as surprised as Annalise felt.
“It could be. I find it . . . comfortable.”
“It’s not fashionable, that’s for sure. Though I’m fair certain you might set such a fashion should you ever present yourself in finer company than what you find here.” She looked him up and down. “It suits you.”
“I find the company in the Motherhouse as nice as any.”
“Ah, you’d have me think you’ve had other company then, sir, and I know for a fact this is untrue.” Annalise leaned against his desk, her fingers gripping the polished wood and the edge of it firm against the backs of her thighs.
“I have company enough. The closet, Mistress Marony.”
She sighed. “It excuses me from afternoon services, yes?”
“Do you wish to be so excused?”
“I do indeed.” She lowered her voice as though to tell a secret, when in fact she meant only to encourage him to lean. “I find myself fair weary of them, altogether.”
He made a noncommittal noise and did not lean as she’d hoped. “Your presence is not required at services.”
“But everyone stares if you don’t attend.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “How can they stare if you’re not in attendance?”
“They stare later, and drop remarks about h
ow much you were missed. Women have a way of cutting to the quick of things with even a dull blade.”
“Indeed.” He looked over her shoulder. “The closet? Must I remind you of your task?”
“You might show me to refresh my memory,” she said, though she needed no such thing.
Toquin sighed, broad shoulders rising and falling. “You’d have me believe you need instruction now? I am to believe such a charade? Tell me, think you I’m a fool?”
“I think you’d like to tell me how you wish the books sorted, and I fully believe you’d leap at the chance to chastise me for doing it in any way but yours.”
Ah, she had him, now. He bristled for a moment before smoothing his features. He moved a little closer and she kept her smile from giving away the fact of her small victory.
“You cannot argue with me,” she murmured and this time, he did lean. Just a bit. “You know it’s true.”
His fingers twitched, not quite fisting. Annalise bit her lower lip and kept her eyes innocent. He narrowed his. He knew her game, she thought with a small tingle of expectation. But would he play it?
“Come into the closet with me, and I will show you how I wish the task to be completed.”
She nodded and waited until he’d brushed past her before she followed. Inside the closet, he turned to face her. He put a hand on the shelf at the level of her hip. His fingertips brushed the stack of texts. Annalise moved a little closer.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“For every lesson you mean to teach.”
She watched the bob of his throat as he swallowed. The air in the closet was thick and warm. She could smell him—and Annalise swallowed hard, herself.
“The texts, as you pointed out, have fallen into disrepair. I want you to sort the ones that might be salvaged from those that are unusable. The ones with no damage put aside on a separate pile.” He slid a fingertip along the shelf, gathering dust. “You might clean in here, while you’re at it.”
She blinked prettily. “Oh, the honor.”
He blinked, too, and turned his head. To hide a smile? Land Above, the man was worse than difficult.
“And am I to use my judgment as to the condition of the texts, or yours?”
“Mistress Marony,” Toquin said in a low voice, “you plague me apurpose.”
She fought a smile and kept her eyes wide. “Oh, never.”
He pulled a book from the pile and took it to the table beneath the window. “Come here.”
Annalise had hidden her grin by the time he looked at her. She took her place beside him, standing close though he shifted almost at once. Almost.
“You tell me if you think this text is to be saved, destroyed, or repaired.” He touched it with one fingertip, sliding it in front of her.
She flipped open the cover then riffled the pages. “You know I must do more than peek at it. I must actually pay attention to each page to be sure they’re unblemished. This is not a task for one afternoon.”
“I didn’t intend it to be.”
“I do need your opinion,” she told him seriously. “Not because I don’t know enough, but because it’s necessarily a task for two.”
He said nothing, and she drew in a breath. He’d known it when he gave it to her. She’d thought herself the mistress of this game, but was she, truly?
“Don’t tell me a cat’s stolen your breath,” he said.
“No. Not a cat.”
She’d spoken in honesty, not to tease. His gaze flashed, mouth thinning, and though many times she’d meant to poke him into anger, she regretted it now. She moved when he did, blocking his way.
“Move,” he told her.
“I meant no insult!”
“Get out of my way or I’ll move you myself.”
Annalise stood her ground, chin lifted, eyes boring into his face though he wouldn’t meet her gaze. “No.”
He looked at her then, his eyes flat and glittering with fury, his mouth set so grim the near smile he’d given before seemed like some sad dream. “I said—”
“I know what you said,” she interrupted. “Stop. Would you listen? Why do you take such offense to such . . . levity? Such meaningless jest? You’re not a man to be moved by worthless flirtation. I know this about you.”
“You don’t know me.”
The words she’d thrown at him now bounced back, and Annalise discovered how much they could hurt. She flinched, but stayed in place. He was so close now she could feel his breath on her face, the heat of their bodies even through layers of cotton and wool.
She was not the sort to stammer and was mortified to find herself doing so now. “I spoke what leaped from my tongue without thought.”
“It was not a cat that stole your breath.”
“No,” she said in a murmur that was the loudest she could speak, without additional intention. “It was you.”
“Tell me the first principle.” His voice had pitched low, too.
The tiny room had grown sweltering. Annalise tasted sweat when she swiped her tongue over her lips. She could see it beading on the top of his and couldn’t stop herself from wondering what he would do if she licked it and how it would taste.
“What?”
“The first principle. Tell me.” He’d not yet gripped her, but neither of them was moving.
“There is no greater pleasure than providing absolute solace.”
She breathed out. He breathed in.
“And the mantra?”
She couldn’t think of it at once, and he grew impatient, scowling. It should’ve frightened her. He meant it to, she was fair certain of that. It would have scared others in her position. It only made her want to kiss the expression away.
“You’ve studied it. But do you believe it?”
“I’m told I must,” Annalise whispered without looking from his eyes. Those deep, dark eyes in which she was going to drown.
“No. Not must. It’s not a question of must, or need. It is a simple question of belief. There is no greater pleasure than providing absolute solace. Do you believe it?”
She paused for a breath and nodded, surprised by her answer. “Yes. I do.”
“Then how,” he said with grit in his voice, a snarl on his mouth, “do you ever expect to grant it to someone when all you can ever find it within yourself to do is taunt?”
“I wasn’t taunting you!”
Toquin stepped back at the cry. Annalise moved with him, so no distance grew between them. He turned his face again, but she took his chin in her hands and forced him to look at her.
Fast as anything, Toquin grasped her wrists and yanked her hands from his face. It didn’t hurt, his hands if anything were big enough to encircle and bind her without actually touching her flesh. But the swiftness of the motion, the fierceness of it, startled a gasp from her.
Her heart thudded, marking time with thunder in her ears as she waited for him to speak. Or to strike. The violence in his eyes hinted it could be either.
“What I said was the truth,” she told him at last. “All else, yes, I’ll admit I did it to tease. To make you do . . . something. Anything. Even to rouse to anger, since that would be better than having you look at me like . . .”
His fingers tightened. His thumbs pressed the pulsing point on the insides of her wrists. He felt it, she could see it in the glance he cast there before his gaze returned to hers.
“Like what?” Deep and low, rough as gravel, smooth as river-tumbled rocks. That was his voice. Hard as his gaze that pinned her hard enough to make her wonder what by the Void she’d been thinking in ever seeking to tempt this man.
“Like I don’t matter,” Annalise whispered. “As though I mean naught to you.”
How did they shift so that their bodies aligned? That his hands still bound her wrists between them, but his face was so close to hers she could have counted his lashes had they not been so thick? And how had she lost control of this situation?
“But you do. Mean naught to me.”
Annalise twisted her wrists in his grasp, not seeking release but proving she knew him to speak a lie. “Then let me go.”
For a bare second she thought he would. That in fact he might not only release her but thrust her from him so that she stumbled. It was there, that possibility, in the heat of his eyes and set of his mouth.
He did not let her go.
Her lips had already parted when he kissed her and his tongue slid inside without warning. Without resistance. He kissed her like he meant to eat her up, and Annalise leaned into it, open, eager, and gave him everything he seemed so determined to take.
Only then did his grip bruise her, but by then she didn’t care. His hands found her hips; hers linked at the back of his neck, beneath the softness of his hair. He bent her, turning, one hand sliding between her shoulders to support her even as he pushed her onto the table.
He used his chin to nudge hers up so he could get at the small sliver of her throat exposed above her high collar. His teeth nipped. Annalise bit down on her gasp, willing to risk nothing that would stop him from his task. She arched, her fingers threading through his hair, holding him closer.
His hands moved over her body, breasts, hips, thighs, belly. The table cut into the backs of her thighs, but she didn’t care. He pushed between her legs as she settled atop the table, thighs wide to receive him. The heavy folds of her gown got in the way, as did the length of his jacket.
He captured her mouth again and they kissed for a long time as he held her close. So Annalise said naught even when she wanted to speak. To say somewhat that would draw him to her. Instead she let her hands and lips and tongue, her eyes, meeting his, urge him to continue.
He groaned, his forehead dropping to hers. His hands ceased their roaming. His breath, sweet with mint, caressed her face. He’d closed his eyes, his lips parted.
Annalise froze with the thunder of her heartbeat making her deaf. They were tangled, limbs and clothes, yet she dared not move even to pull him closer, for fear he’d pull away entirely.
She’d never been with a man who seemed so desperate for her, yet so determined to deny himself. Moments ago she’d been certain he would take her there on the table and now . . . now she could feel the twitch and strain of the muscles in his back and shoulders as he kept himself from doing so.
