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She couldn’t muster the will to open her eyes, as she was so deeply relaxed. “What was it?” she muttered. “The thing that came up.”
A pause while he dunked the washcloth in the water again. “Can’t talk about it yet.” He wrung it out over her head once more, the warmth of the water like a kiss on her scalp. “Got some things to work through first.”
Maybe it was the muscle-deep pleasure and placidity from his massage, but she found herself saying, “If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”
He paused again in washing her hair, and there seemed to be a contemplative note to the silence. She almost didn’t hear his answer, because it came so quietly. “I will.”
He rinsed her hair one last time, then set the washcloth aside. With his hand on her shoulder, he indicated for her to lie back again, her head coming to rest on the soft cushion on the rim of the tub. With the focused calm of a great cat targeting a grazing gazelle, he moved in front of the tub, crouched there with his forearms on the edge. His eyes glowed with an inner light, candescent amber, their color a fascinating lure she could follow into ruin.
There was something deliciously decadent about having him fully clothed before her, while she lounged in the bathtub, with only a few fading piles of bubbles barely covering her nudity. And the way he gazed at her with such searing focus, such wild hunger writhing in his eyes, it made heat curl in her core that had nothing to do with the bath.
“Tallak.” Her voice was but a whisper.
“Hm?” His eyes mapped her face.
“You look like you want to devour me.”
A slow, slow smile curved his mouth. He blinked, almost lazily, and swept his gaze up and down her body. “You’re stunningly beautiful.”
Her face—already near blazing from the bath—heated impossibly further. “Don’t say such things.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
Because it made a part of her sit up in purring appreciation. The part of her so hungry for the admiring attention of a man that it had led her into a disastrous marriage with a narcissist who’d known exactly how to play on her insecurities.
Robert had showered her with affection in the beginning, had praised and complimented her until she’d glowed with happiness. For a girl of seventeen, used to always falling short of her family’s expectations, lurking in the shadow of her near-perfect older sister, it’d proved fatally addictive. She’d clutched on to Robert and his lure of undivided attention like a lifeline, and he’d reeled her in.
All those promises of adoration had changed, however, once they’d married and had the kids. His love and devotion had become a weapon, a sharp knife that would draw blood, make her feel like she was dying of a thousand small cuts, stretched out over years.
It had been more than a decade since Robert’s death, longer still since she’d been that young, naive teenager starved for acceptance and love. She was stronger now, wiser, more settled in her own skin. And yet, when a male complimented her with sensual intent, she couldn’t stifle the fear that whispered of a trap.
“Hey.”
Tallak’s quiet voice drew her attention back to him.
He gently lifted her chin with one finger. “Where did you go just now?”
“It’s nothing.” She gave him a small smile she didn’t quite feel. Careful. She had to be so careful with him, or else this thing between them might just morph into something she wasn’t sure she could defend herself against.
Breaking down the walls that had kept her safe but stifled for too long was one thing. Completely letting down her guard, quite another. Yes, she could loosen up and have some fun with Tallak, but she’d very consciously keep the truly vulnerable part of herself behind an impenetrable rampart. She’d fought too hard to piece herself together after Robert’s twisted idea of devotion had all but shattered her.
Opting for a change of subject, she said, “You seem different tonight.”
He studied her expression with far too perceptive eyes, clearly not fooled by her evasive maneuver. He didn’t push her, though, and instead just said, “Great sex will do that for a guy.”
She pressed her lips together, faint amusement tempting her to grin. “You are such a typical male.”
A fluid shrug of his muscled shoulder. “Guilty as charged.” He let his fingers play idly in the water before he rose to his feet, his gaze a searing brand on her exposed skin. “Bath’s getting cool. Better step out, love.”
She raised a brow. The water was, in fact, still comfortably warm, but she wisely decided not to mention that. Tilting her head, she eyed him. “You just want to ogle me and cop a feel when I get out, don’t you?”
That lazy, sensual smile of his again. “I am a typical male, my dear.”
Skin tingling from the intensity of his look, she slowly rose, water sluicing down her body. Her nipples hardened at the kiss of cooler air, and the droplets running over her sensitized skin felt like a dozen small caresses.
She froze at Tallak’s expression.
Pupils dilated so the black almost swallowed the glowing amber of his irises, feral hunger making his features stand out starkly in the flickering light of the candles, he stared at her with such burning focus that it made her instinctively shiver. He’d never quite looked like this before, never resembled the demon he actually was more than in this moment. Everything about him was inhumanly still. She’d seen footage of panthers becoming near unmoving when they crouched in lunging distance of their prey, and it had raised her hackles in primitive awareness of the predatory power at play.
