Page 153 of Bishop

He turns on his heel and stalks for the house without another word.

28

ABRI

The lead-up to the bedtime situation has me on edge with both annoyance and despised want.

I only ignored Bishop’s taunt about sharing a bed because it works in my favor. I don’t plan to let him out of my sight in case he decides to turn rogue and track Geppet down.

But the closer it gets to nightfall the more my insides buzz like busy little worker bees.

I walk inside the house as the sun begins to set, the hours I’ve spent alone on the porch wasted on thoughts of Bishop when I could’ve been strategizing about my meeting with Geppet.

I make my way to the shower, initially wishing there wasn’t limited water so I could stay under the spray forever but then thinking better of it when all I can do is fixate on the things I’ve done with Bishop while in this tiled space.

I roughly dry myself once I get out, wrapping one towel around my body and draping another around my neck to hide my scar.

Then I pad from the bathroom and into a deathly quiet house.

“Matthew?” I call out. “Layla?”

A shiver runs down my spine, the second towel around my neck suddenly seeming heavier.

Nobody answers. There’s only a shift of movement from somewhere down the hall.

I follow after it, the light from Bishop’s bedroom glowing bright.

I stop in the doorway and find him seated on the closest edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees, his forlorn eyes meeting mine.

“Where is everyone?” I ask.

“They left to get food.”

A nervous tingle skitters through my stomach at being alone with him, despite the fact we’d been that way for days.

Something is different.

He’s different.

And it’s not just the slump of his posture or the heartfelt way his usually intense gaze now pleads with me. It’s as if all the stubbornness he previously had written into the fiber of his being is softened. Susceptible.

“Come here,” he murmurs.

I raise a brow, caught off-guard by his gentle command, but I do as he asks, slowly moving forward.

He sits taller, his arms falling to his sides. He doesn’t break eye contact, his stare eating me up as I approach.

For palpitating heartbeats, neither one of us speak. There’s only the damage piled between us. The anger and animosity that battles with attraction and lust.

“Let your hair out.”

My pulse flutters at yet another subdued demand. Is he attempting to get us back to where we were? Before my siblings arrived. Before he betrayed me.

Is that something I want?

Of course it is.

I reach for my messy bun and drag the elastic from my hair, the long lengths hitting the towel on my shoulders to shroud my chest and back. “Anything else, your highness?”

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