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I’m going to fall in love with him,I thought. And for once, the thought didn’t bring a stab of fear and trepidation with it.
“And for the record,” he murmured against my lips, “I don’t remember the last time I came that fucking hard.”
“Oh,” I whispered, infinitely pleased. “Yeah?”
“Yes,” he hissed. “You want to come again?”
“No,” I said, biting back my smile in fear it might split open my face.
“You sure?” he purred, pressing teasing kisses to my lips.
I laughed. “Yes.”
I pushed at his shoulder, but his hands started to wander.
“All right, let’s go bathe, then,” he said, helping me up into a standing position. My bones protested, my knees reddened from the hard floor, and Lorik brushed his fingers over them. “I’ll get the water hot for you.”
“Thank you.”
A few moments later, we were situated in the small bathing tub, steam curling around us thanks to Lorik’s magic. It was laughable, our position, but somehow we’d made it work. Lorik was behind me, his knees drawn up on both sides of me, and I was tucked into his lap. His hands were caressing my body with a soft kind of reverence, and it was lulling me into a trancelike state.
“You’re not using magic on me, are you?” I asked sleepily.
“No,” he whispered. “Just admiring you.”
I grinned lazily, my eyes half-lidded. When had I ever felt this happy, this content with someone? Well, maybe with Aysia, but obviously in a much different way. But with Lorik…I felt comfortable and comforted. I feltloved, even though even thinking that word made me a little bashful.
“Thank you for fixing the trellis,” I said in the quiet. The washroom was dark. We hadn’t bothered to light the candles, but that was all right. Through the small window, there was just enough light from sunset to illuminate the room, casting it invarying shades of lilac and orange. “I can’t tell you how long it’s been in disrepair.”
“I wanted to,” he replied, taking the cloth from the edge of the tub, dipping it below the surface. “I want to take care of you, Marion. I want to help you however I can.”
“Sometimes I think you’re too good to be true,” I confessed.
Lorik didn’t reply, at least not immediately. He only lathered up the cloth and ran it over the exposed parts of my body before he explored underneath the water.
“I fear one day you’ll think quite differently about me.”
“Why?” I asked. “Planning to steal all my potions like the last one did?”
He exhaled a sharp breath, but I couldn’t tell if it was in amusement or not.
“Where I grew up,” he murmured quietly after a brief silence lapsed, “is much different from Rolara. And my father was a very strict male. He had a strong sense of morality, of good and bad. For someone like him, there was no in-between. He couldn’t see the differing shades of both, the spectrum of it, even how it can change from one moment to the next. Once you wronged him, you wronged him forever. And he never forgot it, even for his children.”
I listened with almost bated breath, fearing that if I made a single move he would get skittish and stop speaking.
“I don’t want to be like that,” he admitted. “That severe. There is no room for mistakes with someone like that. And all people make mistakes. Even if they think they’re right, someone else will think they’re wrong.”
The back of my neck prickled with something I heard in his voice. Almost like…an apology.
“I imagine that must’ve been difficult growing up,” I said quietly, wishing I could see his face, but he kept me tucked intohis front and we both stared at the wall as our words drifted around us. Maybe it was better like this.
“There was very little time to grow up” was what he replied.
“You said you knew you had a purpose. You always knew what you would become,” I commented.
“Yes, because of my family’s legacy. My father was what I am now. My duty was once his. As was my grandmother’s, my grandfather’s, and even before them. The line stretches back far. One of us had to take on the duty of it.”
“One of us?” I asked quietly.
