Chapter 32 Yearning
RAVIAL
Evening,
I paced the dining room like a caged beast.
Where was she?
We had returned from the hospital hours ago, and the second the car stopped she had fled upstairs. Not one glance back. Not one word. She had locked herself away, and now the table was set for two, candles flickering, food cooling, and my wife, my wife was nowhere to be seen.
Was she trying to starve herself just to stay away from me?
My fingers curled into fists. The crystal glasses on the table trembled.
The door opened.
Rosa stepped in alone.
My control snapped.
“Where is she?” The words came out a growl that rattled the chandelier.
Rosa flinched, but held her ground. “She… refused to come down for supper, Master.”
Refused.
The word burned.
I stormed past her. Staff scattered like startled birds as I took the stairs two at a time. Rosa’s voice followed me.
“Master…”
I whirled. Every servant froze except her. She climbed a few steps, then stopped a safe distance away, twisting her apron in nervous hands.
“The young missus has been crying since she came back,” she said quietly. “Please… we all see it. She’s not like anyone you’ve ever brought here. She’s soft. Fragile. Maybe… maybe try smiling at her. Speak gently. Be calm.”
I stared at her, incredulous.
Smile?
Be soft?
I opened my mouth to laugh, to remind her exactly who I was, but the words died.
Because I saw Leitana again in my mind: curled on the dining-room chair, begging me not to hit her, voice small and shaking.
I turned without a word and kept climbing.
Humans. Servants. Giving me advice.
Pathetic.
I reached the bedroom door, our bedroom, though I had never once slept in it, and stopped.
My hand hovered over the handle.
Smile. Be soft.
I forced my mouth into what I hoped was a gentle curve.
It felt wrong. Alien.
I strode to the mirror down the hall instead, stared at my blindfolded reflection, and tried again.
Smile, damn it.
The result was a baring of teeth, something between a snarl and a shark about to feed. A child would scream. A grown man would piss himself.
“Argh…” Rage exploded. My fist punched straight through the glass. Shards rained. Blood dripped from my knuckles.
I couldn’t do this.
I had never in ten thousand years pretended to be gentle for anyone.
I marched back, gripped the handle, and shoved the door open.
The sight inside stopped me dead.
Leitana stood just out of the bathroom, completely naked, skin still glistening from the shower. Water traced shining paths down her body like liquid diamonds.
One droplet slid over her collarbone… paused at the swell of her breast… clung to a pink nipple like it had every right to be there.
Jealousy, hot, irrational, flared in my chest.
How dare water touch her like that?
My gaze dragged lower, flat stomach, the soft curve of her hips, the bare, delicate place between her thighs that had haunted every second of my day.
My cock jerked, hardened instantly, painfully.
Memory flooded me: the way she had opened for me that first night, tight and trembling, crying my name like a prayer and a curse.
She turned, saw me, and froze.
For one endless second we just stared, her wide-eyed and flushed, me rooted to the spot, drinking her in like a man dying of thirst.
Then she spun, trying to cover herself, arms crossing over her breasts as she backed toward the towel on the chair.
Two strides and I was there. I snatched the towel first and held it out to her.
She took the towel from my hand with trembling fingers. Then she looked up (just once, quickly) from beneath those thick, wet lashes. One heartbeat. Two. Those huge hazel eyes locked on me, wide and startled and impossibly soft, before she dropped her gaze again and wrapped the towel around herself in a rush.
But it was too late.
I had already seen everything the towel now hid: the flushed gold of her shoulders, the way water still clung to the curve where neck met collarbone, the perfect weight of her breasts pressing against thin terrycloth. My tongue swept across my bottom lip, tasting the phantom salt of her skin. My hands opened and closed at my sides, aching (aching) to rip that towel away and replace it with my palms, my mouth, my body.
I would burn for it. I would let Heaven itself set me on fire if it meant I could hold her one more time.
She turned to face me fully, clutching the knot at her chest, eyes fixed on the floor.
“Mi… mi sorry…” she whispered.
I was barely hearing what she was saying.
I was just staring at her, drinking her in, and I didn’t know it was possible to yearn for someone so much it felt like I was losing my mind.
My chest hurt. My skin felt too tight. Every breath tasted of her, coconut and warm water and something holy I had no right to want. I wanted to drown in it. I wanted to fall to the floor and press my mouth to the hollow of her throat and stay there until the stars burned out.
Then suddenly I felt soft hands touching and raising my right hand up.
My eyes went wide. I looked down, and there she was, my little lamb, holding my bleeding hand like it was something fragile, something worth saving.
And to my shock, to my ruin, I wasn’t burning.
No fire. No agony. No wings tearing free.
Just her warm, careful fingers wrapped around mine.
“Yu bleeding… why yu bleeding, Ravial?” she rushed out, voice trembling with panic.
But I wasn’t hearing the bleeding part.
All I heard was my name on her tongue, soft, worried, real.
All I could see was the only human I had ever yearned for, ever wanted, ever needed, touching me like I wasn’t a monster.
My heart, if I still had one, stopped.
I was deeply, completely, catastrophicall
y screwed by my little lamb.
And the worst part?
The sweetest, most terrifying part?
I didn’t want to be saved from it.
Not ever.