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But he couldn’t make his hand reach for the edge of the shower curtain. He was paralyzed. He was too afraid of what he’d see when he looked at Mal’ik—judgment, disgust, concern, pity?—and too afraid of what Mal’ik might see when he looked at him because he felt raw and flayed. And he was too embarrassed by how he’d behaved to face it.
After a long moment, Mal’ik’s form twisted as he turned away from the door. “Good night, Oliver.”
“Yes, good night. Sleep well,” Oliver called back and promptly wanted to bash his head through the tile wall. Was everything he said going to be the absolute worst possible option?
He heard Mal’ik’s heavy footfalls walk away from the bathroom, but then any other sounds he might have been making were covered by the patter of the shower. So Oliver stayed in the stall, letting the hot water race over his skin, even once it had heated to the point of discomfort and then slight pain. He waited until he was sure Mal’ik was gone and then waited some more until he had managed to gather up the courage to come out of his hiding place and back into the bedroom.
Chapter Four
The next morning, Mal’ik paused before opening his door into the hallway.
He wasn’t hesitating.
He was pausing to give himself more time to gather his wits. To steel himself. The guards standing across the hall in front of Oliver’s door wouldn’t be the same guards he’d had to walk past last night, still smelling of sex and Oliver. But they would have heard about his walk of shame. He hadn’t sworn his guards to secrecy. He hadn’t said anything other than good night and to wake him if anything happened, even though there could have been no doubt in their minds what he’d just done.
He exhaled heavily. What had he just done?
To sleep with an assignment—no, to have sex with an assignment; Oliver clearly hadn’t wanted him to stay beyond that—was beyond unprofessional and beyond foolish. He would have never thought himself capable.
But no klah’eel would be able to blame him, not really. A man like Oliver, smelling the way he did, looking at Mal’ik the way he had, asking him—him, of all people—to fuck him. Mal’ik shuddered. He’d have never been able to say no to that.
And he hadn’t.
And now, here he was, pausing behind his door because he didn’t want to deal with the consequences of his actions. Unacceptable.
He pushed the door open and stepped out into the hall. The two second-shift night guards looked up at him and, to their credit, had no reaction other than to nod.
“Good morning, sir,” said the tall human on the left. “Our shift was quiet. Nothing to report.”
“Good. Thank you. You’re dismissed.”
They left to rest before their afternoon shift, and Mal’ik found himself in front of another door he didn’t want to enter. He considered standing outside of it until Oliver came out on his own. The man was unerringly punctual. He didn’t need Mal’ik prodding him along, and that wasn’t Mal’ik’s job anyway.
But it was Mal’ik’s job to provide close protection. And once the day began—which it did at precisely seven o’clock—Mal’ik needed to be closer. So he knocked on the door briskly, opened it too, and stepped into Oliver’s rooms.
The scents of the night hit him like a punch to the gut, and he froze on the threshold: the sting of the drink he had brought, the clean linen of Oliver’s baseline smell, the wood shaving and musk of the oil Mal’ik had used to open Oliver up. And layering over it all like a quilt, the earthiness of Oliver’s desperate arousal mixed with the aggression of Mal’ik’s.
Mal’ik swallowed and closed the door behind him but didn’t dare go any farther into the room.
“Good morning.” Oliver stepped out of the bedroom, dressed immaculately, with not a golden hair out of place, and smelling like absolutely nothing. He didn’t wait for Mal’ik to respond, just motioned to the door. “Shall we?”
Mal’ik nodded and led the way out into the hall and to the dining room. Oliver carried on like any other morning, even pointing out the weeds growing in the pot outside the entrance to the dining room that he would have expected to be pulled by then.
Mal’ik wasn’t surprised by Oliver’s blithe disregard for what they had done last night. He wasn’t even disappointed. He had given Oliver something he had needed—and felt lucky for the opportunity to do so—and that was that. And if such a dismissal twisted at his heart, coming from a man who had even asked for his advice and opinions, then that was entirely his own problem.
And so the day went.
Mal’ik escorted Oliver to meetings. Oliver drove hard bargains, and pushed politicians further than they had been prepared to be pushed, even though word of Oliver’s ruthlessness had spread among them by that point. And then Mal’ik escorted Oliver out of meetings and tried not to be too amused by Oliver’s snide and self-satisfied comments about how the previous meeting had gone.
Oliver was a force of nature, and he knew it. Mal’ik found it hard not to be drawn to that sort of competent self-satisfaction.
Toward the tail end of Oliver’s conversation with the transportation minister, the time for the afternoon guards to be exchanged with the evening guards came, and Patrick accompanied them. He stepped beside Mal’ik and tilted his head toward him so they could speak while still keeping an eye on the windows and doorways.
“There’s been a change of plans for the meeting after this,” Patrick told him. The next meeting was with Governor Tesh of Southern Tava. Mal’ik had been dreading it all day. “The governor has requested the presence of Emissary Serihk and his consultant Bryant Harrison.”
Mal’ik frowned. He knew Emissary Serihk was here and that he’d been conducting his own meetings with the Klah’Eel. He was already due to meet with Oliver on his own tomorrow, though Mal’ik had found it odd they hadn’t arranged a meeting earlier. Mal’ik wasn’t a politician by any means, but he knew Oliver and Serihk were two of the most powerful players in this particular game, and from what he had seen of Oliver and what he knew of Serihk, there was going to be tension between their two goals. He didn’t think the governor as a third player was a good sign.
“And has requested that they meet on Emissary Serihk’s ship,” Patrick continued.
