I did not hold out any measure of hope that Bansi might fail to return to my shop. I knew him better than that. I only hoped that perhaps the opportunity to laze about at home for the past six months had weaned him of his eagerness to meet me at my door in the cold hours before dawn.
My hopes were founded, in this at least. I worked diligently through the morning, fueled by the knowledge that whenever he chose to arrive, it was going to spell disaster for my productivity for the rest of the day.
I did not suppose, after six months gone, that Bansi would count himself satisfied with only an hour during lunch in which to spend with me. Before, when he had returned from his long visits home, he had wanted to be at my side from waking to sleep for the first few days, as though he had starved in my absence and the only way to sate his need for my company was to gorge upon it. He was like a hurricane ripping through my life, when he had set his mind to something. The only thing to do was to hunker down and hope to ride it out.
He showed up at midday, looking bright-eyed and immaculate. He swept in like a king come to let his vassals pay homage, and caught me up about the waist while there were still customers in the shop to witness.
I fought him back and glared at him. He grinned at me and swept aside my work so that he could sit on my counter. "Ah, there's that look I've missed so much." He leaned in, elbows braced on his knees, as though expecting a kiss. I just gave him a flat look, and stayed well out of reach. His smile broadened, brightened. "Other lovers, they yearn for their sweetheart's smile, or miss the doting look of love in the other's eye. Me, I go too long without you to glare and snap at me, and I start to feel like something's missing." He sat back, then, leaning back on his hands, and smiled expansively at my little shop. "It's been godsawful dull without you, Ren."
"Come back tomorrow," he told them, without even sparing a glance, "and he'll give you half off."
"I'll do no such thing!" The customers filed out, all the same. I grabbed at Bansi's arm and dragged him off of my counter, shook him hard enough that I hoped it rattled his brains a little. "I can't go about giving away my work! You'll drive me to ruin!"
"I'll make up the difference. You needn't look a me like I've just reached my hand into your purse. You'll still have their business, and now you can come with me."
That was the problem, though. It was the problem with all of this. He had, or may as well have. But when money was no object, I supposed it was easy to convince yourself that it was intentions that mattered.
I couldn't feed Elodie with intentions, and I sure as hell couldn't send her to school on it.
"Where exactly do you think it is you'll be taking me?" I demanded, arms crossed and expression dire, because there was a difference between knowing that a storm was going to roll over you, and running for high ground at the first drop of rain.
"You'll see. It's a surprise." Bansi grabbed my coat from where I'd left it draped over the end of the counter and held it up for me like a valet, so all I had to do was slip my arms into it. "Put your coat on, Ren. It's breezy out there. We'll have to walk brisk to keep our fingers warm."
I shrugged the coat on, but left my scarf as it was. I stepped outside with Bansi and had to muffle a laugh. It was breezy, but the air held a warmth that hinted of summer. The breeze was nice, enough to keep the air just the right side of cool. "You've been under the sun for too long," I said, wry. "Have you forgotten what a lovely spring day feels like?"
"It doesn't feel like this, I'm quite sure I remember that." He hunched his shoulders and shoved his hands in his pockets. He made a surprised sound and drew one out. It held a small box, made of wood and decorated with ornate carvings. "Hurry up before my fingers snap off." He held the box out. "This is for you."
I reached for it, but Bansi pulled it away and clicked his tongue. "You can have it once we're walking."
I locked the shop up behind me and walked with him. As soon as we were moving down the street, he took my hand in his and pressed the box into my palm, sandwiched between both of his. He squeezed them once, then released me. "Open it," he said softly, looking conspicuously at the other side of the street.
I held it between my hands, a knot of emotions sitting heavy in the back of my throat. This wasn't a basket of fruit or some pastries for breakfast. Whatever this box held, it could only be a lover's token. I wanted to throw it back at Bansi, or drop it into the gutter, but I couldn't make my hands move except to pry the two halves of the box apart, and see what waited for me inside.
It was a pin, made of gold and studded with jewels, fashioned in the shape of one of the giant beasts of burden Bansi had told me walked through his homeland's forests. I ran my thumb over the jewels, marveling at their gleam. It was gaudy and ostentatious and not my style at all. I couldn't have worn such a thing even a moment without fearing being accosted in the streets by ruffians and thieves. But it was surely worth more than my shop made even on a good week.
I tore my gaze away from it and stared at Bansi. "What is this?"
"It's a pin, Ren. See?" He reached for it.
I closed my fingers around it. "I know what it is. I-- I don't know why..."
Bansi gave me a long look. He finished the motion that I had cut short, reaching for me. He covered my hands with his and clasped them. "You know why."
"I can't." My fingers spasmed beneath his, driving the point of the pin into my hand hard enough to make me wince. "You can't. Gods, Bansi, you have to stop this."
"I don't. I'm not." He still didn't release me. I couldn't bear to look at him, not when his gaze was so full of emotions. "The things I give you are mine, to do with as I please. You are free to continue to throw them out in the alley, if you like. But it's my choice to give them to you."
He turned my hand over and opened my fingers. I didn't fight him overly hard. The pin lay in the center of my palm, glittering and gorgeous.
Bansi took it from me and pinned it to my shirt, where it weighed down the fabric and pulled it crooked across my shoulders. I sighed and removed it as soon as he pulled his hands away. "I can't wear this, Bansi. Not here. Anyone on the street would cut my throat to get their hands on something like this, and then they'd fence it for half its value and count themselves the richest men in the quarter."
Bansi scoffed lightly and resumed walking. His fingers made a loose circle about my wrist that urged me after him, but didn't force. I reluctantly matched my steps to his. "I wouldn't let anyone hurt you. Surely you know that."
I fingered the weight of the trinket through my pocket and marveled anew at how very clueless Bansi was. "You'd do your best. I do believe that."
"You do delight in antagonizing me, don't you?" he asked with a shake of his head and a funny little smile, as though this were some strange quirk of my own, and not a complete failure to comprehend on his part.
I shoved my hand into my empty pocket, but left the other out of the pocket that held the pin. I didn't want the reminder bouncing against my knuckles as we walked. "Where are we going?"
"Home," he said. He grinned broadly. “Maybe."
"Maybe?" I eyed him sidelong. I didn't want to go home with him. I wasn't going to, but there seemed little point in making my stand now, if he wasn't even sure yet where he meant to lead me. "All this enthusiasm, and you haven't even decided where we're going?"
"I know where we're going." He slung an arm around my shoulder, drawing me in to walk at his side. I changed my stride, made it slower and more disjointed than his, until he had to let me pull away and walk on my own. "I'm just not sure if it's home yet. That's what I need you for."
"You're talking in riddles, Ban."
He gestured up ahead. "You'll see soon enough."
I let my gaze travel where he'd indicated, and my feet froze, making me stumble. My attention had been so well-occupied by Bansi that I'd taken little notice of the streets he'd led me through. We were near the griddle cake shop now, just a few streets over. And he was leading me through this part of town, where men of my station were only grudgingly tolerated, and straight into the broad, placid streets of Regent's Walk.
"Bansi." He came back and took my hand again to try to lead me forward. I pulled out of his grip. "What are you playing at?"
It had been one thing before, when Bansi had sent coaches for me and I had been well camouflaged inside, with nothing to give away my humble origins to those who saw me pass. I couldn't stroll the streets of the Walk like a gentleman, with my grease-stained trousers and threadbare shirt. I probably looked like a pauper come to beg for alms. As far as those who lived here were concerned, I may as well have been.
Bansi turned back, a question in his eyes. Gods help me, he looked like he hadn't the faintest idea what the problem might be.
"I can't go up there. Dressed like this... Gods. They'll run me out of the city, if I'm lucky."
He swept me with a gaze. "You look fine."
"I look poor."
Bansi sighed, then, and came back to me. He moved in close, a step past where I was comfortable with him. I thought maybe he meant to kiss me, to reassure me with sweet words, to tell me that he loved me and it didn't matter to him what amount of money I had or made, and so why should it care to anyone else. He'd done so before, the first few times he'd coaxed me to come to his place instead of always going to mine. It'd been placating then, but it wouldn't work on me now.
He didn't say any of that, though. He slid his hand into my pocket, making me choke out an indignant laugh. When he drew it out, he had the pin between his fingers. He fixed it on my shoulder again, where it glittered in the sun for all to see, then stepped back and put the comfortable distance back between us. "There," he said. "Let them call you poor now."
I put my head in my hands and sighed. Sometimes, there was no living with him.
"I look a fool," I protested as Bansi led me deeper into Uptown, and the buildings around us became more and more upscale.
"Ren, for the love of the gods, will you stop worrying so much? It's bad for the health."
Not worrying. Wouldn't that be nice? But I didn't have the luxury of it, not the way Bansi did.
The shops and cafes fell away, replaced instead by spacious houses behind elaborate gates. I eyed them mistrustfully. If he was taking me upon a social call, I was going to kill him. Slowly. "Where are we going?"
He shot me a sidelong glance. The corner of his mouth turned up. "I told you--"
"You told me nothing. You told me maybe and possibly and I don't know."
He laughed and drew me up to walk beside him, as the reluctance in my steps had pulled me back until I was a half pace behind. "It's a house on Moon Street. One of our customers at the market told me about it. The man who lives there is looking to sell."
I waited, but he left it at that. I glanced at him, but his gaze was on me, expectant, like he was waiting for something. A reaction, maybe, but what was I supposed to be reacting to? "Why are we going there?"
His smile was slow, sly. "Because I'm looking to buy."
That made me look at him with closer scrutiny. As long as I'd known him, he and his family had stayed in the same complex of luxurious flats in Regent's Walk. As far as I could tell, they'd stayed there for as long as Bansi had been alive, maybe as long as his family had been in the spice trade. "What's wrong with your place?"
He ran his tongue over his teeth and kept his gaze suddenly straight ahead, rather too blithe for me to believe that there was anything sincere in it. "Well," he said. "They rent it to someone else the other half of the year."
"You're talking in riddles, Bansi. It doesn't become you."
He hooked his arm through mine and led me along. I stiffened, but didn't dare put up a fight. Not here, where it would make a scene. In my own quarter of the city, I wouldn't have hesitated to raise a fuss so great that everyone heard it for blocks. But this was not my part of the city, and that sort of attention here, amongst these people, would not go well for me. I held my tongue and stewed at his side while he talked on, heedless. "I'll tell you plain, then, so you won't mistake my meaning. The owner hopes to sell his house, and I mean to be the one to buy it. Well, maybe. If it suits."
I stopped walking. Bansi continued on a few steps as though he assumed I'd catch up. When I didn't follow he turned back, brow wrinkled and head cocked at an inquiring angle.
"Why on earth would you buy a house here? You're only ever here half the year."
"Not anymore." His smile was beatific. He came back to me with slow steps. His eyes danced with excitement. "I'm staying this time, Ren. I'm staying for good. I'm not leaving again, not ever."
I had to shut my eyes. A wave of trepidation washed over me. "Why would you do that? Gods, Ban. There's nothing here for you. Everyone you know, your family, everyone... They'll all leave you behind. Why?"
Bansi's throat worked in silence. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, his eyes dark with sentiment. "You know why."
I did know. Because Bansi was besotted. Because he was a fool.
Well, it wasn't my money he meant to squander. What did I care? He could do with it what he wished. Maybe when the caravan left and he found himself all alone, with only my reluctant company, he would realize his mistake.
"Why am I here?"
He looked startled, then chagrined. "You know this city, Ren. Much more intimately than I do. If I were about to buy a home in a wretched area unawares, you'd tell me so."
"Don't bet on it."
He laughed like it was a joke. "And there's that, of course. Why wouldn't I want your company, in any endeavor?"
"I can't imagine."
"Come along, Ren." He caught me by the arm again and drew me with him, walking backwards down the street. "I need your opinion."
I relented and let him lead me. "You want my opinion. It's not the same thing."
His smile was slow and warm. It creased the corners of his eyes and set his whole face alight. "Yes," he said. "I do."
I sighed. "Do you at least mean to feed me? It's well past lunch."
"Whatever you like, Ren. Anything you like." He turned as I caught up to him and slipped his arm around my waist. I stumbled a step and nearly stopped outright. This was worse than just his arm through mine, it was closer, more intimate. He brushed against my side and my thigh with every step, his shoulder pressed firmly against mine and his arm was a solid weight across my back. It shouldn't have sent heat through me, but it did, and that just made me hate it even more. I should have found someone to fuck during the six months he'd been gone. I'd needed the time to work, not to play, and my own needs hadn't seemed a priority in comparison to what Elodie needed from me. But in the secret spaces of my heart, I hadn't truly expected Bansi to return. I had counted on the six month absence to sever whatever bond Bansi imagined remained between us.
I could not have supposed in my wildest imaginings that he would return with notions in his head of staying for good. Now, I walked at his side and tolerated Bansi's arm around my shoulders and tried to figure out what on earth I was going to do about any of this.
True to his word, we stopped along the way for food, then enjoyed it on foot. And despite my reluctance at being here, my irritation with Bansi for insisting upon my presence, I couldn't deny that the meal was incredible, and did much to soothe my foul mood.
We reached the house shortly afterward, while I was still sucking butter from my fingertips and fighting the urge to abandon my irritation entirely in the face of such indulgent food. It was a narrow construction, built up three floors high with leaded glass windows and ornate details that made my skin itch with the implicit reminder that I was out of my depth.
Bansi gushed over the spacious rooms while I stood in the middle of just one of them and felt dizzy at all the open space around me, and the knowledge that it was larger than the entire home that Elodie and I shared together, bedrooms and all. I remembered our old, old arguments, about how many rooms a person needed to be content. What do you need a dozen rooms for? I had demanded of him. You can only ever be in one at a time.
I held my tongue, now. This was to be Bansi's home, not mine. If he wanted to live in a palace, that was his prerogative. Once he'd made his decision and purchased his house, perhaps then he would let me be. Nodding my head along with him and agreeing to whatever opinions he offered seemed the quickest, easiest way to accomplish that.
"What do you think, Ren?" Bansi asked me, turning in circles in the middle of the empty room. "Do you think it's big enough for a bedroom?"
"I don't know," I said. "Exactly how many people were you planning to fit in here? If it's more than a dozen, I think you're in trouble."
He laughed. It was infuriating, the way he acted as though everything I said was a joke, meant to amuse him. I'd have rather he argued with me if he disagreed, than laughed and shrugged my comments off as though they counted for nothing. "The area, though. Do you think it's too close to the river?"
I shook my head. "I don't know."
Bansi stopped his circling and came about to face me, frowning as though perplexed. "You've lived here all your life and you don't know?"
"No," I snapped. This last was too much for me to bear. "I haven't lived here all my life. I've never set foot here before today. They may share the same name, the same streets may run through them both, but this? This is not my city. It's yours. And I don't know the first thing about it." I crossed my arms over my chest and moved away, fighting against the frustration that rose to choke me. "And I don't know why you insisted on having me here, when I can't do a thing to help. I wish you'd let me go."
"Let you?" Bansi approached behind me. His warmth soaked through my clothing and into my skin like heat radiating from a fire. "Devils, Ren. When have I ever let you do anything?" He touched my shoulder. It was the lightest of pressures, but I turned beneath it all the same and faced him. "You do as you like, and damned to anyone who stands in your way. You always have."
I wanted to laugh, or to cry. I wasn't sure which. "That's what you think, but you're wrong. You're so wrong, and you can't even see it. If that were the truth, I'd have succeeded in kicking you out of my shop a year ago, and you'd have stayed gone. You wouldn't be pursuing me like this, making me miserable. It would be a kind thing to say, if it weren't such a terrible lie."
"Miserable?" Bansi's face fell. He stood four strides distant from me and stared at me as though I were some tragic play, breaking his heart to pieces before his eyes. "You know I'd never want you to be unhappy."
I gave a broken laugh, covered my mouth with my hand and then pulled it through my hair. "Is that so? I'd never have guessed."
He made a gesture, aborted halfway through so that in the end, all he did was lift his hands and then hold them there uselessly in the air, looking at a loss. "Ren--"
I closed my fingers on a handful of my hair and pulled at it. "Don't call me that! You know I hate it."
He ran his tongue gingerly over his lips. He watched me as though I were some wild creature, and he feared I'd strike out at the slightest provocation. "You told me you liked it, once."
I stared at him, uncomprehending and numb with the shock of that statement. I had been telling him for a year that I didn't, that I wouldn't have him calling me by that nickname, that it drove me mad with fury.
"That was ages ago," I said. "That was before. Gods, do you comprehend nothing?" I turned, blindly seeking the doorway. This house was a labyrinth, and I wasn't entirely certain that I remembered the way out. But I'd sooner lose my way and have to be rescued by the owner upon his return than suffer the indignity of asking Bansi for anything, much less for help.
The sound of his footsteps behind me, hurrying after, made me stiffen. He caught me by sleeve and pulled me around, said, "Ren-- Damn it, Renad." I feared if I struggled, he'd tear my shirt or rip the seam. So I stood frozen and unyielding as he took me by the shoulders and tried to draw me into an embrace. "Don't be like this. You know it's well meant. You liked it once. Why shouldn't you like it again?"
"People change. Tastes change. A favorite meal may be ruined forever by one sour note, don't you think?"
He shook me. I caught my breath. He might not bat an eye at the idea of a ruined garment, but all I could think was that if he destroyed this shirt, the only place the coin to mend or replace it could come from was what I'd set aside for Elodie's schooling. "No." His hands cupped my jaw, turned my face up to his and held me close. "No, Renad. I think it would be the worst kind of tragedy to abandon something you loved on account of one bad experience.
"You left," I snarled and threw myself at him, fists battering against his shoulders, against the broad stretch of his chest. "You left me. It wasn't one bad experience, it was four years." My breath sawed through my chest. I was going to cry, and if I did that in front of Bansi, I didn't think I'd ever be able to forgive either of us. I spun away, gulping air like a fish pulled from the water. My shoulders shook and I knew he'd be able to see it, but I couldn't stop.
Bansi laid his hands on my shoulders, the lightest of touches. I still flinched beneath it. I tried to draw away, but he turned me with gentle, implacable strength, slid one hand to my jaw to tip my face to his and leaned in slowly. His lashes swept down against his cheeks and his breath game in gusts against my skin. I knew I had to stop this before it began, but I couldn't make myself move.
His lips touched mine, gentle and chaste. The feel of it, the softness and slight pressure, sent a jolt through me. I shuddered hard against his hands and braced mine on his shoulders. Just as I tried to push him away, he pulled me in, and the light kiss turned into something hungry and aching.
I shoved him back and rained closed-fisted blows down against him. I struck a blow against his cheek that made him wince and made color bloom beneath his skin. "You bastard. You complete and utter bastard. You don't get to waltz back in and expect me to be the same man I was four years ago." He stood strong, absorbing the force of my attack, and didn't move to stop me or avoid me. He just looked at me with an expression that was so sad. There had been a time that I would have done anything to keep a look like that out of his eyes.
"Fuck you," I snarled. "I've my own life, and you're ruining it. There's no space for you anymore. But you're going to tear it apart at the seams to make room, aren't you? And you don't even care what you're destroying."
I fisted a hand in his shirt and wrenched at him. The fabric tore with a sound that made the hair at my nape stand on end. I froze, shocked silent, and stared at the ragged gash that ran from his shoulder halfway down his chest. It was another one of his fine shirts, worth more than all I owned put together, and I had destroyed it. Part of me was appalled at the waste.
The other part thought it was no less than he'd asked for, wearing something so fine with so little regard for its care.
Bansi looked down at the tear, blinking like a man just come awake from a dream. The sleeve was practically hanging off of his shoulder, a swath of his skin visible beneath it. He was just as sun-darkened there as the rest of him was, and it gave me visions of him working without his shirt on, out under the baking sun, sweat clinging to the contours of his muscles.
Gods. I really should have found someone to take to bed, after he'd returned home.
I reached a hand out to him and slid my fingers through the tear. Bansi caught me by the wrist and held me there until I'd lifted my gaze to his. "It's all right," he told me, looking very solemn. "Renad, it's fine. I have a hundred others."
I laughed, but without much humor. I probed my fingers deeper into the ragged wound, curled them against the frayed edge of the fabric and jerked against it. The tear ripped open wider, caught on the grain of the fabric and left a gaping hole from his shoulder down to his waist.
Bansi made a shocked sound, like all the air had been forced from his lungs. Emboldened by the fine lawn fraying beneath my own hands, I grabbed it tighter and ripped again. It separated up to his collar and hung loose, but for the embroidered embellishment that bordered it.
The destruction freed something in me, some bolt hidden deep inside that had been twisted on too tight, and bound up the whole machinery because of it. It slipped and came free and I was abruptly galvanized, ripping and pulling and tearing at Bansi's shirt until it came away in tatters and shreds, until all that remained of it was the embroidered ribbon circling his throat and wrists.
He caught my hands when my breath began to unravel again. I couldn't bear to look at him. But he didn't scold or chastise, didn't wonder what on earth had gotten into me to send me into such a fit. He didn't speak at all, he just drew my hands toward himself and pressed them flat against his chest.
"There now. Do you feel better?"
"No." I smacked a fist against his shoulder, but his muscles were too solid to dent. "I feel wretched."
"It was an awful thing I did to you. I was young and afraid, and that's no excuse. I was a coward and I hurt you." He pressed his hands over mine, spread flat, fingers sliding into the spaces between my own. His heart pounded beneath one palm. The other shuddered with every unsteady breath that he drew. "Renad," he said, so quiet I barely heard it. "Do you ever think about it?"
"About what a horrible coward you are?" My mouth pulled into a crooked, humorless smile. "Every day."
He let out a sharp breath, not quite a laugh. "No. Ren. Do you ever think about what it might have been like, if I'd got that woman with child?"
I jerked back. "What?"
"The woman. What was her name? Les-something?"
"Leisl." Her name sounded foreign and strange on my tongue. I hadn't spoken of her in years. I'd hardly even thought of her in years. I'd made an effort not to, because all it ever served to do was fill me up with a strange sense of loss at how she had been such a part of my life for the better part of a year, and then disappeared from it so abruptly.
"Leisl. That's right. What do you suppose—"
"Shut up." I wanted to strike him again. I wanted to beat him until he was bloody. I jerked my hands out from under his so that we weren't touching at all, and I backed away from him. "Shut up. She's gone, and you have no right to talk about her."
"I-- I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"No." My lip curled. "You didn't. Because you left."
"I just meant..." His throat worked in silence for a moment. "I would have stayed, you know. If she had been. I'd have stayed. I think about it sometimes. What it would have been like--"
"Stop. Bansi, stop." The urge to strike drove me forward again. I swung a fist at him, but this time, instead of letting me hit him, he caught my hand and stopped me. I struggled against his restraint. "That's a lie. You were halfway out the door long before the day you left. You're a coward and a liar, and you don't get to rewrite history just because it makes you feel better to think so. You don't want a child. You never wanted a child."
"I might," he said softly. He slid one arm around me and stroked my back. I supposed he meant it to be soothing, but it only doused oil on the fire of my anger. "I might have."
"Stop lying to me!" I wrenched against him. When he wouldn't release me, I drove shoulders and elbows against him instead, anything I was able. Fury made my chest tight, made my breath burn through my lungs. "It's easy to say so now, when you can promise what you like and there's no risk of being held to it, isn't it? I'm so sick of your lies."
He pulled me close, pressed against his chest so that I didn't have room to fight him. His arms wrapped around my back like iron bands. He leaned his head on my shoulder, face pressed to my throat. "People change," he said roughly, the words bit out against my skin. "That's what you said. Is it only true for you?" He lifted his head and grabbed me around the back of the neck, shook me with it and bared his teeth. "Is no one but you allowed to grow and change?"
"You haven't! You're still the same spoiled, feckless--"
He growled something ragged and wild and crashed his mouth against mine. "Stop that. Stop saying that. I'm here, aren't I?" I didn't know if he meant the city, or the house. I shook my head and fought him off when he tried to kiss me again.
His face twisted with frustration. He leaned his brow against mine and slid his hands through my hair. "What do you want from me, Renad? Just tell me. I tried for six months to show you that I've changed, and I've gotten nowhere. So just tell me what you want."
His words turned my mouth dry as dust. "I don't want anything from you."
He lifted his head. His smile was crooked and sad. "Then why are you here?"
"Why? You made me. You waltzed into my shop and paid off my customers--"
"You have never once had a problem saying no to me. I don't suppose you've hesitated to tell someone no even once in your life."
I dropped my gaze, letting my lashes shutter my gaze. "You don't know me half so well as you think."
"You're wrong."
I nearly laughed. He was still so arrogant. He said he'd changed over the years, and perhaps he had. But not in the ways that mattered.
He was still bare-chested, his shirt lying in tattered ruins on the floor around us. The way he held me, he was very close, and it was hard to feign indifference to the way his muscles bunched and gathered under his skin. "I was wrong," I said slowly, eyeing the way light fell across him from the leaded windows and highlighted the curve of his chest, his arms, the flat of his stomach. "There is one thing I want from you."
He looked down on me with a raised brow, inquiring and patient.
I spread my hands over his chest. He was as hot as I remembered, his skin blazing as though he carried the sun with him even through this damp country. When I closed my mouth over the jut of his collarbone and sucked at the skin, he rumbled a low sound and speared his fingers deeper into my hair.
"This is what you want?" He sounded amused. I bit at his skin, chastisement for making light of my desire, and slid my hands down to skate across the flat planes of his stomach.
"Don't tell me you're surprised." It wasn't as though I'd done a very good job of hiding my desire, before he'd left again.
"No. You always did burn hot." He settled his hands on my hips. His thumbs drew circles through the fabric of my trousers while his fingers worked their way past the waistband. "You want to do this here?"
"We could leave, if you're too shy. I could push you up against the front door--"
He swallowed hard, and pressed his fingers against my hipbones.
"--Or have my way with you in the alley between the houses--"
His laugh was low and unsteady. "Gods, Ren." His hips flexed as though we were already fucking, or he wanted us to be. The solid press of his erection slid against my stomach.
"Here?" I ground my hips against his and held his gaze with my own, challenging.
He groaned again and lifted me up into his arms. I wrapped my legs around his waist and grinned ferociously when he answered me by carrying me across the room and pressing my back against the wall.
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