Page 136 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“Don’t get dressed,” I said, brushing a finger down her stomach, watching it rise and fall fast. “Wait for me like this.”

Chapter thirty-one

Pink Roses

Thora

I waited for him. And he did as he promised he would do. Several times. I’d barely slept for a full hour all night before he’d woken me and repeated it all over. Besides the filthy words he’s whispered all over me, we’d barely spoken a word despite the eventful night. Then he’d been called away a second time, and had left me to deal with the aftermath of what we’d done all on my own.

Even though we’d not exchanged a single word after what we’d done, we’d not looked away from one another ever since we’d met this afternoon for the court meeting. Well, he’d not looked away from me and I was kind of forced to look back.

“Your hair is down today,” Skadi murmured under her breath, flipping through the court paperwork handed by the lords and whatnot.

“I was in a rush.” My eyes immediately returned to Mal, but his had dropped to my neck. When they returned back to mine, the corner of his lip lifted just slightly.

Skadi’s hand on my forehead startled me. “Are you unwell? You’ve turned red.”

“Just a fever.”

“Didn’t know you can catch that after being with a man. But what would I know? Never been with an Eldritch Commander before.”

My head whipped to her like a lash, and she gave me a smirk and a little head shake.

The meeting ended shortly, and the room soon cleared, thanks to my many prayers. Even Skadi left to check on the sealines.

He didn’t though.

Malik still sat across from me, tapping a finger on the table. “What’s wrong?”

“Why do you think something is wrong?”

“Thora, look at me.”

Was I not? “Yes?”

“Answer me.”

“Why did you sit so far today? You never sit so far from me,” I said, gesturing between us and his eyes fell on my agitated hand still moving back and forth between us.

“I sit beside you when Oryn is not here. He was today. I respect him.”

I pointed to the chair on my left. “And this one.”

“It has a bad leg and keeps creaking every time I move.”

“You’re my king—”

“That I am. Perhaps I should've just sat you in my lap.” He grinned. “There you go again.”

“What?”

He faded and leaned in to whisper in my ear, “Red like a little cherry. Don’t go red unless I’m spanking your pretty little arse. I don’t like others seeing you flushed. It’s how you looked when you took my cock last night.”

I covered my face with both hands, and he chuckled.

Kneeling beside me, he pulled my hands down. “If I knew you were going to stop looking at me, I wouldn't have touched you last night.”

Opening my eyes, I looked at him. “I touched you first.”