Page 55 of Depths
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered as his hands wrapped around my waist, his touch flowing and soft as silk, leaving me trembling.
“You too,” my idiot mouth replied without waiting for my mind. I stared up at his hazel green eyes and felt myself falling into that lusty trance that I’d come to associate with him. My awareness of the room around us faded. Even my self-consciousness about Felipe and Ugo swimming just a few paces behind me seemed to disappear. Only Valdez existed.
“You didn’t wear your rings tonight,” I noted.
“I didn’t wear the visible ones,” he replied.
That sent my thoughts into a churning whirlpool. Where else could he possibly have rings?
His naughty grin told me he knew exactly what I was thinking, and when he went to spin me, he grabbed my hand and deliberately dragged the outer edge of it across one of his nipples, the hard edge of a metal ring pressing against my hand.
Damnation.
I closed my eyes and bit my tongue, trying to force reality back to the forefront. The pain jolted a tiny sliver of sense into me, or at least the upper half of me. The lower half was ablaze, utterly consumed by lust. When I glared up at him, Valdez simply looked amused.
“I asked around about pink dolphin shifters,” I grumbled. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Did you? Do you?” Valdez cocked a brow, and the arrogant expression on his face made me want to smack him and then kiss him. Then maybe smack him again. Or maybe have him smack my ass while we kissed.
“Stop.”
“Stop what?” He leaned down, and his lips brushed my forehead, sending delighted tingles dancing like ribbons down my entire body.
My breathing quickened. My heart skipped. And not because it was faulty this time. Because his hands teased my hip bones as he pulled me closer. His thumbs stroked them, and I felt like a puppet. My entire body followed his touch, yearned for it, like I needed it, like his touch turned me from a wooden girl into a live one. Everything inside me pulsed.
I bit down on my tongue until I drew blood. “Stop. This.” I mustered all my strength to push back slightly. Apparently, all my strength only gave me the ability to back away an inch. “It isn’t real.”
“Of course it is,” Valdez replied smoothly. His head tilted, and his eyes hooked me, reeling me back in. “Haven’t you ever met someone you were immediately drawn to, someone you wanted above all others?”
My mind drifted to the first moment I’d seen Mateo. There’d been a flash of attraction. Interest. But nothing this intense. The moment I’d seen Valdez and he’d asked me to dance …
I shook my head. “This is magic.” This was too intense, too much. People didn’t feel this. It was impossible. They’d combust.
Valdez raised a hand to my lips, gently tracing them with the pad of his thumb. “No, it isn’t. What we feel for each other? It’s pure, unbridled lust.” He pulled his finger away just as I was about to suck it between my lips like a heathen, like a trollop, in front of everyone present.
He scooped my hand up into his and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. “Thank you for the dance, Avia.”
It wasn’t until he’d swum away and I was left floating alone amongst crystal chandeliers that shone brighter than the stars, that I realized the music had stopped.
What the hell was he doing to me? And was it real? Or not?
17
Confidence is a hammer. It can be both a tool and a weapon.
—Sultan Raj of Cheryn
* * *
Midnight foundme awake with nerves. The tournament’s first competition would start at dawn and continue until dusk. Dreams of Valdez trapping me in a cave with his lust magic swirling a deep pink around me alternated with dreams of giant tentacled sea monsters swallowing Mateo up. I awoke panting, dreading the idea of closing my eyes again. So I didn’t.
Mateo’s face filled my mind.How could he do this?He’d survived the day’s parade only because Felipe had found him a mount. He could hardly swim! But what would he face tomorrow? What if he had to wrestle an octopus? Steal something from a snapping turtle? What kind of tasks did they even perform under the sea? On land, it was shooting with arrows, sword fighting. What if he had to face off against another contestant with a trident?
No! It was too dangerous. It was foolish of him to do this. Foolish of me to allow it. I had to find Felipe and tell him that Mateo needed to withdraw. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t stand the thought of Mateo getting hurt because of me. He was too precious.
A memory of the two of us dancing in the ballroom came to my mind. Bloss had just publicly professed her love for her husbands—due to my devious machinations—and the entire ballroom had filled with the kind of joy that stuck to the skin like glitter. Sparkling. Impossible to avoid or remove. Everything had felt absolutely perfect. My own chest had been as bright as the sun, my smile so strong that I knew my cheeks would ache later.
Mateo had stared down at me, his dark curls framing his handsome face, his arms properly touching my waist but his fingers digging in, signaling his lusty intentions in a way that no one else could observe but had made me gasp in anticipation. He’d worn a deep blue vest and a white shirt that had been crisp to the touch. We’d spun and danced and laughed until I found—to my surprise—that we were clear across the ballroom, near the arches that led off into long dark halls and rooms with doors that weren’t strong enough to block out the moans of pleasure taking place within them. Mateo’s deep brown eyes had sparkled mischievously as he’d glanced around the dance floor, then taken my hand and led me out into that corridor, the one that had always been forbidden to me.
