Page 20 of Dark Restraint
She jumps. “What?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
She turns slowly to face me. She’s worrying her bottom lip the way she does when she’s doing something she thinks she shouldn’t. She did the same thing in the maze. The memory feels like acid under my skin. It was the realization of everything I’d ever wanted, a physical promise of a future together…and then she left me.
Now she’s engaged to another man.
“Has he touched you?”
She props her hands on her hips, anger overriding her caution. “Does that seriously matter? He’s my fiancé. Even if he wasn’t, would you really see me as less valuable if I had sex with someone else?”
She doesn’t get it. She never fucking gets it. “No one else matters but us. No one has ever mattered but us.” I drop onto the couch. “But you forget; I know you. You wouldn’t have chosen it—not with him. If I need to kill the motherfucker…”
“Stop.” She shakes her head sharply. “No one has touched me. Dionysus even wrote a clause into the marriage contract that takes sex out of the equation.”
Relief threatens to bow my shoulders, but I force them straight. Thank fuck she hasn’t been harmed like that. “Good.”
That takes some of the steam out of her sails. “Yes. Well. I thought so. He’s been very kind, actually.”
“I’m done talking about him.”
Ariadne rolls her eyes. “Great. Wonderful talk.”
“Ariadne.” I wait for her to look at me. “Take off your clothes.”
She shrugs out of her jacket and lets it drop to the floor. Then she reaches for the bottom of her shirt with shaking hands and pulls it over her head.
The maze was a frenzy. This is something different. No matter what else has happened, I relish this moment of freedom between us. She might be engaged to someone else. I might be under orders to kill her. But right now, there is only us.
We have all night.
She doesn’t stop, removing one piece of clothing after another until she stands before me in only her underwear. I was right. She’s lost weight. I don’t comment on it, but I file the fact away, along with a determination to feed her soon. I knew the stress of the situation in Olympus was getting to her, knew it was taking a physical toll, but I thought there was still time to deal with it…at least until she left.
Even so, her body is still lush, her soft belly making me want to sink my teeth into her all over again. Her thighs have dimples, and there are stripes of paler stretch marks over her hips.
In short, she’s fucking perfect.
“Show me.”
She sinks slowly onto the chair across from me and tentatively spreads her thighs. She’s wearing cotton panties, and I can actually see how wet she is from here, but I’m just as interested in the scar marking her thigh.
I have a matching one on the fleshy spot between my thumb and forefinger.
I want to ask her if she thinks about the maze just as often as I do. I want to sink to my knees and taste her again. I fucking want.
Not yet.
“You left.”
To her credit, she doesn’t look away. “I didn’t think I had any other choice. I’m not sorry I did it, but I’m sorry it hurt you.”
We stare at each other for several beats. I hadn’t planned on having this conversation now, but maybe it’s best to get it all out in the open before we move forward. Or at least part of it. “You could have told me you were pregnant.”
“I thought you might stop me.”
Again, she underestimates me. I lean forward. “One of these days, you’ll see the truth of me.” I hesitate. “Are you okay? Did it—”
“I’m fine.” She clears her throat. “Mostly fine. I’ve recovered physically, but it rocked me a little more than I expected.” She lifts her chin. “I don’t regret it.”