Captive of Wolves (Bound to the Fae #1) - Eva Chase Page 0,74
sense that his ghostly scarred eye sees just as much as the dark whole one.
“Talia?” he says, his baritone thickened by the sleep I’ve woken him from but his gaze now fully alert. “What are you doing?”
His entire body is still hovering over me, its heat teasing through my nightgown and over my skin. His knees feel almost scorching where they’ve settled on either side of my thighs. I can see enough in the darkness to tell he isn’t wearing anything from the waist up. His shoulders and chest are all sculpted muscle, even more impressive than when hidden under his shirts, the stark black lines of his tattoos swirling and twining across his brown skin.
A weird shivery tingle races down through my belly. I can’t tell whether I’m more terrified or turned on. Every nerve is quivering with the knowledge that this man is dangerous, and I’m definitely not half as scared as I should be.
“I—I thought—” I manage to force my voice out of its timid whisper. “I thought you might like some… company.”
Even with my awkward phrasing, the insinuation clearly isn’t lost on him. He blinks, the furrow in his brow deepening, but the heat I saw before sparks in his unscarred eye before he tamps down on it.
“And why did you decide to offer that company now, like this?”
I open my mouth and close it again. It’ll hardly work to win his affection by telling him that’s what I’m attempting to do. Even thinking of putting it into words makes me feel duplicitous, as if I was doing something slimy.
I don’t know what to do other than ignore the question entirely. Tentatively, I raise my hand to touch the side of his chest. His skin is surprisingly smooth over all that hard-packed muscle, and it seems to flare with heat the second I touch it. “You don’t like me?”
The way he closes his eyes with a strained grimace suggests that isn’t the problem. When he looks at me again, it’s like a flame is dancing in the dark iris. He keeps his voice steady, but there’s a roughness to it that wasn’t there before.
“I like you just fine, little scrap. But I don’t think this is about liking. Your fate doesn’t depend on you submitting yourself to my whims—is that understood? I’ll do as right as I can by you regardless of whether you warm my bed, and I always intended to do so.”
I guess my motivations weren’t so difficult to figure out. I wet my lips, and Sylas’s gaze tracks the motion. His attention, the closeness of his body, and his obvious attraction are making me dizzy in a way that’s nearly as intoxicating as Whitt’s drugged syrup.
“We could still… do something…”
I must sound so naïve. He lets out a sound that’s halfway between a chuckle and a groan and pushes off me, settling onto the bed a couple of feet away. “Go on back to your room, Talia. If this is what you really want, for your own sake and not out of fear, you can come back another time when you’re sure of that.”
I swallow hard against a swell of emotion. The fact that he’s sending me off for my own good, even when he’s not at all disinterested, extinguishes any fear I still had in me, leaving only the embers of my desire. A desire I’m clearly not going to see fulfilled tonight, thanks to the way I went about it.
But lying there next to his warmth, his smell twined around me and every inch of the stately room speaking of his authority here, I have trouble convincing myself to limp back to my lonely, spartan room. The conviction sweeps through me with so much certainty it takes my breath away: as long as I’m near him, no one can really hurt me.
“Could I stay here?” I venture. “I won’t bother you.” The bed has more than enough room for both of us. We could lie at opposite ends and barely brush fingertips with our arms outstretched.
Sylas offers another ragged chuckle and runs his hand through his hair. “Are you attempting to test my self-control? I told you—”
From somewhere inside me, I find the bravery to interrupt. “I really mean just to sleep. I—It feels safer in here than in my room.” Although that’s an awfully selfish reason to impose on his privacy, isn’t it? A flush burns across my cheeks. “It’s okay. I’ll—”