Page 56 of The Iron Dagger
“But, how . . . what?” he said again, completely bemused. He wore nothing but a rich velvet dressing gown over his bare chest and trousers, and his hair was standing on end, mussed and damp. He must have just bathed after a day among horses.
“Have people not been using them in all this time?” she asked.
“I have never heard of anyone stepping into a tapestry, no, Hara,” said Gideon, coming to stand beside her. He hesitantly reached up to feel the fabric. “It seems like a normal tapestry to me.”
Perhaps it would not work for non-magic persons. Hara frowned and placed her hand over his, guiding it to the dirt path. “Try this area.”
Gideon gasped. “How is this possible?”
“You feel it?” Hara said, grinning. She removed her hand and let him roam, feeling the textures of the path and the leaves. It seemed non-magic people needed to be shown the trick by magikind; if no witches had been hosted here, it made sense why no one had been able to use the tapestries in twenty years.
“How do you use it?” asked Gideon.
“Climb up, like this,” she said, using a small footstool to hoist herself onto the path. Gideon climbed up after her, and his eyes grew large as he looked all about them. A bower of muted green leaves stretched above them, silent and still.
As they walked along the path and caught glimpses of other rooms between the branches, Gideon muttered, “If my father only knew about this, he’d have his spies set up a permanent camp in here.”
Hara felt a bit of relief. “Luckily, it seems to have been undisturbed. But don’t you see? This way, we can visit each others’ rooms unseen.”
“Yes. It’s very clever,” he said. “I suppose the Ilmarinen family members didn’t get much privacy from one another.”
“These were technically only used by servants,” said Hara. The vague childhood memories were solidifying the further they walked. “My mother and I used them as shortcuts to get to lessons. Servants could pass from bedroom to bedroom without having to go through a series of antechambers and salons.”
“We have those in non-magic households, too, you know. Little doors and panels that slide open so servants can take a shortcut,” said Gideon. “We have them built into our manses in the city. But these are more pleasant.”
“I don’t imagine you spent much time in the servant passages as a child,” she said. Somehow, she could imagine him as a vain little lord even then.
“Of course I did. They were forbidden,” he said with a shrug. “The scolding I would get if I were caught made it all the more tempting.”
“You cannot resist something you’re not allowed to have, can you?” said Hara dryly.
“Well it would make everything easier if you’d just give in,” said Gideon in a low voice. They stopped along the path, and there was nothing around them but densely embroidered trees. Their conversation, light and friendly only a moment ago, had turned close and much too warm.
Hara took a slow step back. His steps followed until she was backed against a tree.
This is stupidshe chanted to herself as his hands came up to caress the sides of her neck.
“I was thinking about the other night, when I touched you,” he murmured, and Hara closed her eyes, trying to ignore the pleasurable chills that trailed after his fingertips as he brushed a strand of hair away from her lips. “And I thought it was not right that I did that without kissing you first.”
How did he do it?she wondered. She liked kind, honest, hard-working men. So why did this conceited, spoiled cad make heat rush up from her core?
He took another step forward, pressing his bare chest against her front. The heat of his skin drenched her senses, bathing her in his clean, edible scent.
His tongue wet his lips briefly before he brought his mouth to hers. He was soft and slow, patient. Hara couldn’t help the pathetic sound that escaped her, but he groaned back in response and pulled her more strongly against his body.
Thiswas the reason. It was difficult to resist a man who was so inexplicably hungry for her.
What she did not understand was how his hunger persisted even after they arrived back at his home. She fully expected that their attraction would expire, as intense and ephemeral as the snows. He was back where he belonged with his family, surrounded by his coterie of admirers.
But the way he stared at her whenever they were alone together was impossible to ignore. His eyes were heavy with yearning, and held such burning focus that she felt as though her every movement had an audience.
She had never been the object of anyone’s obsession before. She knew how it felt to desire and to be desired, but this intensity was something she’d never before experienced. Gideon would hurt people for her. He already had.
Even if he would deny it vehemently, she sensed that he was desperate to have her favor. Maybe no one had ever challenged him to be good, or expected him to behave decently. Why would they, when his family was the most powerful in the kingdom? Perhaps a man like Gideon found the desire for approval intoxicating.
She had tried not to think about that night they’d been kicked out of the inn, and she’d been rather successful as the splendor of the city distracted her. But the way Gideon’s mouth moved over hers now made it clear that he’d suffered no such distraction.
His hand clutched at the nape of her neck, while the other moved down her back and over her rear, clutching a handful in a fierce grip. Gideon made a small, desperate sound and abandoned her hair to use both hands to hold her. He cradled and squeezed her arse in his palms, and his breaths grew frantic against her lips.
