She was dressed for bed, but she had a blue cloak over her nightdress, and it was buttoned down to her waist. Her hair was braided again, but it was tidy now.
His gaze skittered over her. He wanted her to go away. “I find I’m tired, Ziafiata. Perhaps this could wait until morning?”
She laced her fingers together. “Oh, of course, I’m sorry.” She turned away.
He started to close the door.
She turned back. “You think I made a mistake.”
“What?” He opened the door again.
“You didn’t want me to spread the fact that I killed Donato.”
“Well, I don’t see what killing a caporegime gets you,” he said.
“A reputation of strength,” she said. “I’m a woman, and I can’t afford to seem soft at all. Killing a man, burning his house down, it’s only going to shape what people say about me.”
He shrugged. “I suppose.”
“Truly, I… I didn’t think before I did it,” she said. “When I saw that knife coming for you, I…” She bit down on her lip.
“You what?”
She peered over his shoulder. “Can I come in?”
He hesitated. And then he stepped away from the door, spreading both of his hands to indicate she was welcome to do as she wished.
She stepped inside, and she shut the door behind her. She fiddled with one of the buttons on her cloak. “You were very quick evading the blade.”
“Not quick enough.” He touched his cheek, which was bandaged now.
“Well, not quick enough to avoid injury, I suppose, but you’re alive.” She drew in a breath and let it out and then crossed over to the window. She put her hand against the glass, gazing down at the street below. “I have to admit, the thought of your… of your not being alive, I hadn’t expected to…”
His mask didn’t quite seem secure. He reached back to retie it. “I should thank you for saving my life. Have I done that?”
“I think so,” she said.
“You were quick,” he said. “Getting that pistol. It was inspired.”
“No one was watching me,” she said. “They underestimate me. They think I’m under your control, but I’ll soon show them otherwise.”
“Of course you will.” Mask tighter, he crossed to stand beside her. The window was between them. They weren’t so very close. Perhaps, though, they were too close. He found himself thinking of the shape of her body beneath that cloak, and though he thought he had memorized every curve and slope of her, he wished to see her again. He clenched a hand into a fist and released it.
They were quiet.
The moonlight spilled through the window, silvery white.
Everything was still and silent.
“I shouldn’t care, of course,” she suddenly burst out with.
“About?”
“Whether you live or die,” she said.
“Ah.”
“But I do,” she said, and her voice was suddenly softer than it had been a moment ago.
He cleared his throat. “I’m currently useful to you, so—”
“Not like that,” she said.
It was quiet again.
Then she started to speak again, her voice hardly louder than a whisper. “I think sometimes about the way you looked at me when you were trying to get the location of the key out of me.”
“Must we speak of that?” His voice wasn’t strong.
“I didn’t enjoy it,” she said.
“Of course you didn’t.”
“But when I remember it, I…”
“Ziafiata, perhaps you should go find your bed.”
“I suppose that I feel sorry for you in some way,” she said. “Because of what happened with your sister. It seems rather too hard on you that you have lost her and become so hardened and deadened by revenge and then also lost the ability to take comfort in… in someone’s arms. It seems too much for one person, and I suppose…”
“I don’t need your pity.” It was a growl.
“You said that you had never done to a woman what you’d done to me,” she said. “But you didn’t really do much, did you?”
“Ziafiata—”
“All you did was look at me,” she said. “You made a lot of threats, and you cut off my clothes and you pressed your…” She looked at his crotch.
He looked at his crotch. His trousers were growing tight. “You should go.” His voice was hoarse.
“So, did you mean that you’d never looked at a woman before? You can’t have meant that. Of course you’d seen—”
“Not close like that,” he breathed. “Not inches away.”
She sucked in a noisy breath.
“I’ve seen before, but I’d never really… looked.” Why was he saying this to her? “I always looked away. But I had to make you think that I wanted you—”
“You do want me.” This was a fact.
“Yes.”
“Would you like to look again?”
He choked.
“I shouldn’t show you,” she said. “You don’t deserve it.”
“No, I don’t, and I don’t even want…”
She started to unbutton her cloak.
“Ziafiata, please.” What was he begging her for? To stop? To continue? He felt something scalding rising inside him. It was spreading through his core.
“I’m not doing it for you,” she said. “I only want…” Her fingers stilled for a moment, and they trembled slightly. But then they started to move again, deftly, determinedly. “What you said about killing again making you even more numb and blank, it’s true for me too. And I want to feel… something. I want to feel your gaze on me. Will you look?”
“Blazes,” he groaned.
“As a favor to me,” she said, and now her cloak was entirely unbuttoned. Beneath, her nightdress was white and filmy and almost translucent. Her fingers went to the ribbon at the top and she untied it. It parted, opening to reveal the valley between her breasts.
The feeling inside him seared him.
“Chevolere?” she whispered. “Will you?”
“Yes,” he rasped.
She tugged aside one side of her nightdress to bare one of her breasts to him.
It was more lovely than he remembered, rounded and high and firm. The air tickled it, and the nipple tightened. His mouth was dry. He was hotly aroused. He was trembling.
She looked up at him, taking in the way he gaped at her. She let out a shaky breath. “What do you think?”
“Beautiful,” he said huskily.
“Do you want to see the other one?”
“Can I?”
She covered herself and then pulled aside the other side of her nightdress and there was a perfect twin, just as round and lovely as the first.
He felt unsteady, and he leaned into the wall to hold him up.
“You like that, then?” Her voice was teasing and knowing, but he didn’t mind. He liked it.
“I am… yes.”
She let out a pleased, breathy giggle.
“Could I… would you show me both at once?”
Her laugh deepened, knowing as well. “You’re growing rather bold, Chevolere.”
“You can refuse me.” He was speaking to her bare skin, not to her face, and he didn’t care. “You can do anything you like.”
She tugged aside the other side of her nightdress.
He might have moaned.
She let out a pleased noise, acknowledging that.
“They are perfect,” he said. “You are perfect.”
She laughed again.
Now it was silent again, but the silence was different now, charged with something powerful, like the rush of white water over rocks in a stream.
She took a step closer to him.
He sighed. “You’re standing in front of the window. What if someone sees you?”
“No one’s on the streets at this hour.”
He reached out and tugged the curtains closed just the same.
Ano
ther laugh from her. “Was that to protect me or because you don’t wish to share the sight of me with anyone else?”
“Both,” he decided. He managed to tear his gaze from her breasts to lift it to her face. He smiled at her.
“Do you want to touch me?”
He swallowed. “I do. But I can’t.”
“Are you sure? If you never looked at a woman, then you’ve probably never tried.”
The fire in him turned dark and cold. It stabbed him, and everything about this was wrong.
He looked at the floor. “Cover yourself.”
“But, Chevolere—”
“Now.” His voice thundered. He turned his back on her.
“I know it must be frightening, but perhaps if you—”
“You’d best go,” he cut her off, his voice brisk.
“A moment ago, you—”
“That was a moment ago,” he said.
She sighed.
“Please.” His voice broke.
“Of course,” she whispered.
He didn’t turn around until he’d heard the door open and shut in her wake. Then, he was alone in his room, and inside him, he roiled—fire and pain and cold in a swirling storm of frustration.
* * *
Ziafiata went back to her room and took off her cloak. She climbed into bed and pulled the blankets up over her nightdress. There was an insistent pressure between her thighs. Nothing had happened. She’d done nothing except move some fabric and let him see her, and she felt rather horribly aroused.
She rolled over onto her side, but now her legs were pressed together, and that seemed to make it worse.
Onto her back again, then.
She stared at the ceiling.
You wanted to feel something, she reminded herself.
She swallowed, and then she shut her eyes, and thrust her fingers between her legs. She thought of Chevolere’s raw voice saying she was perfect as she stroked herself. Inside her, pleasure rushed through her like a raging blaze.
When it burst, a collection of sparks—an explosion—it left her gasping as tremors tore through her hips and thighs.
What if he heard her?
She rolled over, burying her face in her pillow.
On second thought, she didn’t care if he did hear. Maybe she wanted him to hear.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
If she expected any acknowledgment of what had passed between them from Chevolere, she was wrong. He was unaffected the next day, no different than usual, neither more familiar with her nor more stiff and formal.
This annoyed her, for some reason. She wanted it to have mattered, she decided, even if it was really nothing. He hadn’t even touched her, so maybe it shouldn’t warrant acknowledgment. But it seemed momentous to her. She had derived more pleasure from it than every time that Diago had been inside her.
She knew it had affected Chevolere, so for him to ignore it made her want to demand that he…
Well, she didn’t know what she wanted to demand. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from him.
She hadn’t thought that through. She hadn’t thought any of it through. He couldn’t touch her, so there was no real future in it, was there? It might have been very affecting this time for him to look at her, but would that be enough, if that was all it ever was?
She had never given much thought to wanting a man for her own pleasure. She had always assumed she would not be interested in such things, considering her experiences with Diago. And perhaps it would be the same with Chevolere. Perhaps the act between men and women always amounted to that same thing, invasive and a bit painful.
But perhaps not, as well.
If she could bring herself pleasure—something she rarely did, admittedly, finding it usually too much trouble to be worth it—maybe she could find it with someone else.
But that person couldn’t be Chevolere, of course, because he wouldn’t—couldn’t—touch her.
She resolved to try not to think about it, then, and she focused instead on meeting with the other caporegimes of the Abrusse family. She’d decided she didn’t feel comfortable going to them anymore. It was too dangerous, especially since the other caporegimes might try to kill Chevolere for her father. Instead, she proposed that they invite the two remaining caporegimes to the tavern for a private audience, and Chevolere agreed it was a good idea.
Messengers were sent out, and they both came back with refusals from the caporegimes, who said that she was likely only trying to lure them to their deaths.
She sent back word that everyone would surrender their weapons and that they would all be allowed to bring extra men for protection.
By evening, they had acquiesced warily and she set about planning for what they would serve and how they would set up the tavern to host them.
Eventually, the tavern closed, and she still hadn’t formalized all her ideas. She should have been exhausted, but she felt wide awake. She wanted to get this right, or she didn’t think she’d be able to sleep.
Chevolere looked in on her, saying he noticed she still had lamps lit.
She was sitting on her bed, and she got up. “You can come in,” she said.
He stepped inside. “Are you still working on the event at the tavern?”
“I don’t want it to seem as if it’s something you would set up,” she said. “So, I thought that I should have them fix dishes that wouldn’t normally be served at a tavern. But then I realized that if you really were the mastermind, you would have gotten that information from me anyway, and I thought why bother? The tavern staff is good at what they make. Does it matter?”
“I don’t think it does,” he said.
“Yes, so then why can’t I decide?”
“You should sleep on it.”
“Oh, I can’t sleep,” she said, thrusting her hands into her hair.
“Well, I’m exhausted,” he said.
“Oh, don’t let me keep you,” she said, gesturing in the direction of his room. “Didn’t you sleep well last night?”
“I, er… after you left my room, I was…” He cleared his throat.
She felt her face get hot. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think. I spent half the day thinking about that, but then it somehow slipped my mind. We don’t have to speak of it. I know you don’t wish to.”
“You spent half the day thinking of it?”
Oh, had she said that out loud? “I told myself to stop thinking about it, and then I did.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Of course,” he said. “Because nothing happened.”
“Right,” she said, shrugging. “And I told myself I don’t need you to act differently with me, because it was nothing.”
“I thought I was acting differently.”
“You did?”
“Wasn’t I?”
“No.” She glared at him.
“Well, I’ve felt dreadfully self-conscious all day.”
“Why? I didn’t see any part of your body. Blazes, you could have taken your mask off at least, so that I could have seen your expression.”
“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t think of that. My apologies.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“Do you want me to take off my mask now? Would that make up for it?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s only your face. I suppose if you wanted to make up for it, you should take off your tunic.”
He swallowed visibly. “Would you promise not to touch me?”
Her lips parted. “Are we really talking about…?”
“If you don’t want me to—”
“I didn’t say that.” She squared her shoulders. “Very well, then. Both your mask and your tunic.” She waited expectantly.
He didn’t move for a moment. Then he went back and shut the door, which didn’t matter, because they were only the two people in the whole of the building. But then he reached back and untied his mask and pulled it away from his fa
ce.
She looked at him, and she couldn’t stop a smile from overtaking her features. He was a very handsome man with his light gray eyes and his dark hair and his straight nose. He was striking.
He shoved the mask into the pocket of his trousers and seized the bottom of his tunic with both hands.
“Well,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “What are you waiting for?”
He cast his gaze down, and she saw his dark eyelashes fan against his cheeks, and there was the bandage from where he’d almost been killed by Donato, and suddenly, her heart squeezed.
She almost reached for him, but she stopped herself just in time.
He pulled his tunic over his head.
Her smile widened. His shoulders were broad and his body was shaped like a V. His muscles weren’t prominent, but they did ripple beneath his skin as he balled up the tunic and shifted it back and forth in his hands.
“I suppose that makes us even?” he said to her.
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose. Although I don’t think it’s quite the same to see a man’s chest as it is to see a woman’s.”
“But I’m not wearing the mask either.”
“True,” she said, her gaze settling on his flat stomach, and the way his hair grew thicker below his belly button.
“You’re…” He cleared his throat again. “You seem rather more interested in looking at me than I would have thought.”
She smirked. “Are you fishing for a compliment there, Chevolere?”
“No, I only… you don’t… you loathe me. You wanted to feel something last night you said, but you don’t find me pleasing. You couldn’t.”
“I find you more pleasing without a shirt than with one,” she said in an amused voice.
“Blazes, I’m getting dressed.”
“Don’t,” she said, her voice sharp.
He froze, looking up at her.
Her gaze got snared in his, and she could do nothing but look into his eyes as the moments ticked by.
When she finally did look away, it was different somehow. Everything was different.
Wordlessly, she began unlacing her bodice. She was wearing a casual outfit that was much more like a tavern wench’s than anything else she owned. She found them more comfortable than stays and easier to get on and off herself.
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