Queen Takes Rose (Wicked Villains #6) - Katee Robert Page 0,78

bath.

You’re mine, after all.

It feels right, which means it feels wrong. How can I simultaneously want to be Malone’s but also acknowledge that she’s the one who put my mother in a coma that she was destined to never wake up from? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

Malone returns a few minutes later and looks down at me. “Can you walk, or do you need me to carry you?”

I can walk. There’s no doubt about it. I’ll probably be limping just like she projected, but I am capable of it. I lick my lips, feeling suddenly unsure. “What if I want you to carry me?”

She gives a smile that’s nothing like her usually icy expression. It’s warm and soft and makes my chest give another of those dull thuds. “I’d like that, too.” She carefully scoops me up and gives a sympathetic look when I hiss at the touch of her arm against the back of my thighs. “I know it hurts. It will feel better in a little bit.”

She carries me into the bathroom and sets me into the tub with the utmost care. Malone grabs a hair tie and gently pulls my hair back and fastens it out of the way, allowing me to sink into the warmth of the water. She presses her fingers lightly to my temples and starts a slow massage that has me melting even further.

We sit like that for a long time, Malone carefully massaging my head and neck and the water doing the rest of the work. I feel ridiculously pampered and cared for, and it only makes my chest ache more. I love this. Last night and this morning. The kink and the sex and the comfort. Truth be told, I even love our conversations. Sometimes it’s verbally sparring and sometimes it’s simply getting a glimpse at how her brain works. She’s magnificent. A part of my soul recognizes something in hers that feels like kinship, even if I can’t fully describe why. “Malone?”

“Mmm?”

But words fail me. I really am a coward, after all. I don’t want to say or do anything to break moment of calm, of peace. I’m greedy for as many moments as I can have, because eventually it will end.

The balance will tip, the sky will fall, and reality will come rushing in.

25

Malone

Aurora and I settle into a smooth rhythm over the next week, interrupted only by the check-in that Hades insisted on. It goes off quickly and without an issue, but it’s still strange to have Allecto prowling around my house as if she expects to find evidence of nefarious activities. She and Aurora disappear into the spare bedroom for twenty minutes, and when they come back out again, Allecto announces herself satisfied and Aurora has shadows in her eyes. She doesn’t want to talk about it.

She never wants to talk about it.

I leave her in my bed each morning and head down to work for a few hours. We meet in the gym and spar. She wins a few matches; I win more. Then we end up back in my penthouse, fucking until we’re too exhausted to move. She’s still a little brat, but the edge of hatred is gone, leaving something warm and almost soft in its place.

It should be perfect.

This is what I want, after all. A slow and steady build into something more. A chance to pave the way for this to extend beyond our deadline.

But after ten days, there’s no escaping the truth.

Aurora is holding something back.

I have no business demanding more of her, especially so soon, but sometimes she looks at me and gets this strange expression in her dark eyes. It’s not grief. I’ve seen her grieving, and the night I beat her with a cane and then shattered her with pleasure seems to have blunted the edge of her sorrow. No, this is something else.

I’ve never met a mystery I was able to leave alone, and this is no exception. The stakes are too high. I want her. Whatever she’s hiding is preventing me from having her entirely.

It comes to a head three nights before the end of the assignation. I can feel the seconds slipping through my fingers with each tick of the clock, and it puts me in a foul mood. “Aurora.”

“Hmmm?” She looks over from where she’s been contemplating the fire crackling in the fireplace.

Maybe I’ve been going about this wrong. Wanting her to give herself to me without being vulnerable in turn isn’t