Page 77 of Ruthless Scoundrel
“Yes, take in the shoulders and the waist,” she says to herself, then turns away from me just as fast as she came.
“She likes you,” Jasper says, breaking the silence.
“What?”
He shrugs. “She didn’t throw you out. She likes you.”
I scowl, my anger pushing through the shocked haze. “So you stole from her and she what, took you in after?”
He hums thoughtfully. “Not quite. I came on land about ten years ago. Everyone was horrible to me. She was nice—”
“Before or after whipping your ass raw?” I cut in.
“After, of course. Maybe before, too. An ass whipping was much better than execution. In any case, I didn’t have anywhere else to go to learn the languages or how to behave, so I just kept coming back to her. She gave me errands to run and I slept on a cot upstairs.”
“And she knows you’re a…” I lean in and whisper, “A selkie?”
He shrugs again. “I can only assume she knows I’m not a Man.”
“You haven’t told her?”
He grips my bicep and turns me toward him. “No, and you won’t either. You’re the only one who knows.”
My stomach gets warm and fluttery at that knowledge.
No. I’m not special. I only know because he used his magic to save my life and that’s all.
His eyes glisten with opal magic and he smirks. “You’re the only one who knows, Rei, so don’t go fucking me.”
“I wouldn’t fuck you,” I say, only realizing the double entendre a half second after it leaves my mouth.
His grin widens. “We’ll see.”
“Done,” the woman—auntie—says as she returns from the back. She limps over to me and holds the garment up again.
“Yes, it fits. Change,” she demands, pushing me away from Jasper and toward the stairs on the right side of the shop. “My room is on the left at the top.”
I stumble up the steep, narrow stairs to the second floor. There are two doors, one on the left and one on the right. Jasper and the woman argue below in Illyan and a flare ofrungoes through me. It’s only the second floor. He’s distracted. I couldeasilyescape him here.
But I still want answers, and maybe just a little part of me actually wants to help Jasper.
I open the door on the left and find a quaint room full of colorful knitted things and little elephant figurines. I’ve never seen an elephant myself, but Alyse told me about them plenty.
The memory lances my heart like ice and my levity dies. I strip out of Alejandra’s clothes and put on the fresh undergarments and the dress. The soft blue fabric clings to me in all the right places and gives me plenty of space to move. It’s airy, and the humidity doesn’t weight it down. I wonder what it’s made of. It fits perfectly, and I can’t help but be curious about how she tailored it so quickly. I inspect the stitches. They’re so clean and tight, only a magus could do this.
I turn to the mirror again and follow the lines of the dress. It crisscrosses over my chest and exposes a small bit of skin on the stomach. My shoulders and arms are bare, and a triangle of my tanned skin peeks out on my back above the skirt of the dress. It flows wide and fluttery down to my mid-shin.
I twist and turn my hips, feeling the soft fabric rub my legs. It’s nice. I wonder how much it costs…
Well, that’s Jasper’s problem, not mine.
When I come out of the room, he’s still grousing about something, and the woman is putting up an uncompromising fight. I make enough noise to be known as I come down the stairs and Jasper quickly quiets. I catch his attention as I clear the wall obscuring me. His face shifts from frustration to awe in a blink.
The scorching look in his eyes threatens to set me ablaze. He’s desperate for me. I want him to want me like this, but it’s dangerous. Falling into his dark gaze makes me forget about my own people, my own struggles I must overcome. I can’t get caught up and carried off in his lust.
Finally, he clears his throat. “Well, that’ll do, I suppose.”
“Auntie” slaps him on the back of the head again and says something like a curse in Illyan. “It suits you very well,” she says to me.
