Threads of Desire (Spellcraft) - By Stone, Eleri Page 0,21

shook his head. “Surprise me.”

* * *

As the days passed, they fell into a pattern. She worked on the rug during the daylight hours while Kal...well, while Kal did whatever it was that aristos did with their time. He had other business involving the Ulla trade to attend to although she didn’t know exactly what that entailed. It did seem to keep him busy. Occasionally, he seemed distracted but never shared his concerns with her. She wanted him to confide in her, but she kept herself from asking him any questions about his life outside of the walls of the villa. It wasn’t her place. She wouldn’t make the mistake of imagining that there was more to them than sex and the weave he’d commissioned of her.

After the sun set each day, they put aside business. At first, she was suspicious of every kindness but as the days passed, she began to relax her guard. Already, it was difficult to imagine returning to her life on the streets of Lasura—sharing a tiny closet of a room with a dozen other girls, sleeping with her back propped up against the wall, bathing in the sticky-salt water of the bay, scrounging for scraps of fabric to create her rugs and fighting with the dogs over discarded food in the marketplace.

She hadn’t expected to feel safe with Kal, but the more time she spent with him the more she believed that he was what he seemed—a rich man who’d wished to hire her, a sensual man who wanted her in his bed. He didn’t push her beyond what she was ready to accept. Sometimes she wished he would. He made her ask for what she wanted from him and when she did, he didn’t gloat or shame her. He gave her exactly what she wanted, every time. Hard. Soft. Fast. In the workroom. His bath. Against the wall in the gardens.

The other night, when she hadn’t been able to sleep, she’d found a book in his library of men and women coupling in every position imaginable. It described genitalia in coldly precise detail. Common phobias and erotic pleasures she’d never imagined. Of course, it was when she’d curled up in the window seat with a lamp beside her, cheeks burning, eyes wide and greedily soaking everything in, that he came upon her. No teasing. No sly questions or innuendo. He only glanced at the page and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Only ask,” he’d said.

And the possibility of these things, the knowledge of his willingness to explore them with her along with the knowledge that their time together was fleeting, haunted her for days afterward.

Only ask.

It shouldn’t have seemed so daunting.

She wanted.

He wanted to give.

Only ask. It was such a small thing.

Over and over again, she found herself doing just that. She had only to whisper “please, Kal” and she could have anything she wanted. It wasn’t wrong to take from him; he had so much. She liked the way the word ruined him, stripped away his self-control and made him so desperately eager to please her. And it didn’t diminish her, not who she was. It didn’t change the wary respect with which Kal treated her outside of the bedroom.

She would only be here until her work was completed. Even a work of this magnitude would only take a month or two to finish. Then she would go her way, far richer than she’d come, and he would go his. Why shouldn’t they take full advantage of this short time together?

Tonight, she regarded him over the remains of their meal and shook her head. “How did I misjudge you so badly?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you were cold, a hard-hearted businessman who cared only for his own pleasure.”

“I care very much for my own pleasure. I can’t imagine what I’ve done that would dissuade you from that view.”

“But there’s more to you than that.”

He stretched his legs and crossed them at the ankle. He was barefoot and his shirt was open at the neck. “In what way?”

“Your servants respect you.”

He gave a slight shrug, but his gaze never left her face. “I pay them well.”

“They like you, I can tell such things. I’ve been a servant for some time. There is competence and there is loyalty. You own their loyalty.”

“It would be a mistake to assign me virtues I’ve no wish to claim.”

But Kal knew very well his people adored him and he wouldn’t abuse their trust. He didn’t press her