Page 154 of Ashen Torment
My throat tightens.
“What were you looking for?”
His eyes travel over me, patient.
“My voice?”
He pauses, then continues.
“My hands?”
He lifts them slightly.
“Did you want me to utter your name while you bend over this bench?”
“You have a high opinion of yourself, Lord Vasiliev Ashford.”
He laughs, passes beside me, and flings the window open with a brusque gesture.
The rain enters in thin needles of water and the scent of earth. He turns toward me, hands resting on the counter, hips forward, eyes shining as if a light were burning within them.
What an obscene vision.
“You are more fragile than you believe.”
My gaze drifts from him and slides toward a dark cloth abandoned in a corner of the room. I approach, graze it with my fingers, and then pull it toward me.
“Do not.”
A plea that must have cost him.
“For what reason?”
The cloth is already halfway down.
“Because if you touch it... it will be like invading me.”
I turn just a fraction to look at him.
Desire.
Repulsion.
Rage.
It is all there, written upon his flesh.
“Perhaps that is what I wish.”
“Then touch it.”
I cast the cloth aside completely and it falls to the floor. I place my hand upon the marble, the contact burns with how cold it is. The surface is smooth, worn by hours of hands that have sought it more than he will ever admit.
The sculpted shoulders. The chest. The collarbones chiseled with a precision that stings the eyes.
They are mine.
I recognize them. It is like looking at my body without my skin.
