Page 57 of Chasing the Night
“Never you mind that old fool. Tell me of yourself. How are your studies going?” She glanced from me to Messiah and back again.
“I know where to stick a man to make him bleed to death,” I offered, recalling our lesson on arteries. “I learned that the difference in a trickle and a spray means life or death for both me and the target.”
Isabella’s dark eyes jumped between us again. “That’s quite a skill to learn,” she said, clearing her throat that she was daintily pawing. “Messiah, what good does such information provide a girl who is learning to bait and tail?”
My face contorted with the label she had applied. It sounded so filthy when she put it like that. “I am learning to follow people without being noticed.”
“Indeed, you can tail them in the shadows. What of your baiting? Hmm, have you tested her?”
I suddenly found myself being talked around, which did nothing to help my quickly souring mood. She made me sound like a damn hound.
“I’ve focused on the basics of extractions with her… I expected she would take naturally to the luring, so I was getting the hard part out of the way first,” Messiah carefully countered.
“Be sure that your teaching her extraction lessons and not focusing too heavily on the deadlier arts, hmm?” Her expression flashed from stone to a pretentious smile, and she left as quietly as she had snuck up on us.
“She is afraid.” After a quiet thoughtful spell, he laughed. “She nearly fainted when she thought you were training to be an assassin.” His head tipped back, and the throaty bark of laughter escaped. A bawdy sound that was more fit for a tavern and far from anything I would have expected out of him.
“Indeed, perhaps I will.” He snorted, before leveling his attention toward me. “But first… we will work on luring, since she is so set on it.”
“I’m not good at selling things,” I mumbled, sweeping my hair behind my ear. I just wanted to go back to picking and preening herbs in the forest. Life was simpler then.
“Luring can be quiet empowering, but you must be careful. Too much, and your reputation is compromised. But lay your attempts on a man who can spot them, and you just may end up dead.” He brought my hand up to his lips and kissed it before sweeping his thumb over the spot his lips had blessed. “Come,” he said, preventing me from lingering over the conversation too much.
He escorted me back to the Villa and led the way to his own chambers. The doorway seemed like a line in the sand. It took me a minute to cross it and put the thoughts of him and Blazian from my mind.
I immediately set my sights on that tall bay window that gave him the view of everything out front. It was an uncanny warm day for the season. Messiah had a low but steady fire going nearby. I suspected it to be more for the comfort of its sound than any chill he might have found when he awoke. On a nearby table a few scrolls lay open and piled with coins.
“You have much to learn,” Messiah announced. He was kneeling before a trunk and shuffling things about. After a few moments of this, he rose and shook out a folded white bundle. His fingers pinched a two-inch leather strap that fountained into l smooth pristine fabric that hung freely, billowing out the longer it reached.
“That… has to be the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen, Messiah.” I gravitated toward it, hesitating just a moment before I allowed myself to touch it. The material was so thin and fair I feared I would stain it, or perhaps it was the seed that Atticus had planted echoing in the core of my being that I was too cheapened to be worthy of such a thing. Whatever it was, it passed the moment Messiah laid it over his sofa and turned back around to face me.
I knew from the way his fingers tickled the air that he was preparing to pluck the strings of my bodice. My shoulders twitched toward modesty but found his palms warm and heavy pressing them back. He massaged me from upper arm to neck until I was so relaxed his touch alone puppeted me. As they slid up my neck and took my jaw in hand, I was left staring into his crisp, hazel eyes.
“You’re the only woman on this mountain who possesses the beauty and birth to rival Isabella Krypt. Do not be shy or ‘shamed.” It could have been flattery. From any other man it might have been. But it wasn’t any other man, it was Messiah. He looked down at me with those heavily lidded hues in a way that resonated what he had said.
Without meaning to, I stood taller when he brushed the gown from my shoulders and ran his hands down my arms, chasing the material away, until my hands were locked with his. My body tingled with a demand I didn’t recognize.
I stepped toward him, and nearly tripped over my discarded gown. He caught me by the waist and our eyes met again.
“Mind your feet, I can’t promise what will happen if one of your spills carries us to the bed.” Jesting wasn’t his strong point, but the words carried a mental image with them that made my thoughts betray me.
“You’ll think less of me.”
He laughed, and something sparked in his hazel eyes that I couldn’t quite place. “I’ve tried, love, believe me I’ve tried. The less I strive to think of you, the more obsessed I become. You’re more addictive than the fucking Nirvana Root. More tempting than the thickest of wines.” His words trickled until they were nothing but the vibration of his lips against mine.
For a moment, I surrendered to his affection. Too shocked to determine if it was another of my daydreams, or…
No that was definitely his mouth greedily conquering my own. His palm spanning my cheek.
“I couldn’t fucking think less of you if I tried, Chalice. And that’s the truth, love,” he sang in that sweet whiskey voice while pressing his forehead to mine.
I wrapped my hand behind his neck and tried to pull him back, but his fingers tangled in my hair and forced me to stay put. After a few moments of stroking my hair, he sighed and planted a kiss to my forehead. I was drawn into his arms where he stroked my back with his hand and held me tight for a moment.
What the fuck was that? Was that all this life would be? A stolen moment here or there?
I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to the sanctuary of his chest.
“Put it on,” he whispered before grabbing a wine bottle and wrestling with the cork.