Page 42 of A Bride for the Winter King
“Wise choice.” His spears retreat, and he draws back a few inches. “Both palms in front of you, don’t move, and maybe, if I don’t find anything, I’ll give you a chance to explain yourself.”
A hoarse sigh rocks me as I flatten both of my palms to the frozen mirror, and Elio digs his hands inside my pockets.
“What’s this?” He dangles the silver key in front of my eyes.
“It’s for my mask. I left it with Seth.”
“Pretty stupid of you.” With an unkind chuckle, he tears off my shirt and picks the leftover shreds off my shivering frame.
After he’s done with the top, he dips his fingers below the hem of my black leggings to pull them off. My stupid body bends to help him along, my skin feverish as I step out of the leggings one foot at a time, my black underwear the only barrier left to shield me from his gaze.
Why is my body reacting this way, when I should want to kick his teeth in for what he’s doing? Why are my breaths so damn shallow, and why oh why are my breasts so heavy and sensitive? He’s hard-core frisking me. This is not sexual. This is not sexual.
But I’m delusional, because it’s absolutely sexual.
My reflection in the mirror to my left is one of pure submission, and my gut cramps. “Enjoying the view, ice prick?”
“Not particularly,” he barks in response. “I’m busy.”
The calluses of his hands trace every single inch of my naked back slowly and methodically. He inspects every groove like he’s afraid I’ve hidden the runes under an invisibility enchantment of some kind, and I shiver at the pressure. He’s very careful notto bruise me, but his touch is colder and heavier than strictly necessary. The bastard wants me to feel small and under his control, but the rather intimate search only spurs the fever along. Hell, the touch of his smooth, large hands spreads the disease from my treacherous body to my intoxicated brain.
He’s got very graceful fingers, long and nimble. The girls were saying how he loves to play the piano—I bet he’s good at it, too.
No! Nope. Ugh-Ugh. Stop thinking about his pianist hands,I try to reason with myself, but the strange warmth in my belly is intent on dragging my mind deeper and deeper down the gutter. From his expert musician hands, to his rock-hard abs, to the long, steely ridge of his erection pressing against my thigh, earlier.
The fever, and the magic behind it, is too powerful to resist. What started as a spark of madness back on stage—with a kiss no one would argue was the best damn first kiss a man and a woman ever shared in front of an audience—has caught fire.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Elio barks darkly, no longer meeting my gaze in the mirror. After he’s done with my back, he rakes his icy fingers through my hair and gives it a rough pull to check my skull.
I swallow back a whimper. “Careful with the hair.”
He twists it around his hand and tugs harder in response, jerking my head back. “Where did you hide the runes?”
“I told you,” I scold him. “You’re searching for something that doesn’t exist.”
“We’ll see.”
When he’s confident there’s nothing written on my scalp, he traces new lines over my backside, all the way down to my heels. Jolts of electricity scatter through my body, but he hurries along my curves like he’s intimidated by them. Or rather…distracted?
I watch him in the mirror, and he pauses for a moment, his bottom lip tucked between his teeth like he’s not sure what to do. He extends two fingers toward my spine like he’s yearning to touch it but stops himself at the last second.
He growls when he catches me looking.
“You’re certainly enjoying the viewnow…” I trail off.
“Spin around.”
I swallow hard, but he doesn’t ogle or leer at my chest as I obey. The earthy, fresh scent of him drills into me again—pine needles, dewdrops, and apples—so perfect I could scream.
His eyes fall to my ribs, and he pauses. “What’s this?” he grazes the swollen spider bite, and the small touch causes my abs to clench and my nipples to harden.
“A scar.”
“That’s more than a scar. You were wounded, and badly at that.” His blue eyes pulse with anger. “You almost died.”
“I know,” I answer quietly.
I can’t tell if he’s mad that I escaped death or what, but his hand shakes. He scans every inch of my arms to the very tip of my nails and applies the same process to my face and chest.
