Page 86 of Consort's Glory
Margot turned redderthan her hair. That was private!
Not when you think at me, he answered, even his internal voice smug. There was a whisper of fabric, the sound of fine leather shoes being toed off, and then bare feet on cold marble, moving closer.
I didn’t mean to,she groused.
Theodore’s hands skimmed her shoulders and down over her arms. You’ll get the hang of the connection soon enough, but until then, certain things may slip through — especially if those thoughts are about me.
Margot swallowed the lump of embarrassment in her throat to say aloud, “What about you? Am I going to accidentally hear your thoughts, too?” At least then they would be equal.
“No,” he answered. “I have more telepathic control than you do. I’m used to keeping my thoughts to myself.” His lips skimmed the curve of her ear. His breath was hot, the awareness that he was entirely naked behind her even hotter. “I don’t have to, though. Do you want me to share all the thoughts I have about you, darling?”
Her breath stuttered as it left her. “I don’t know if I could handle that.”
“Mm. We’ll see.” Theodore’s hands fell away. She felt it when he stepped back, even the rising temperature of the moist air in the bathroom feeling cold when he left her to step into the shower.
Don’t just stand there staring at the wall, you wimp. Margot sucked in a deep breath. She was aware that this was another challenge, and it irked her that it worked to prick at her other half so well. That part of her wanted to hiss at him even as it threw off the jacket to strut proudly, nakedly into the enormous shower.
Too bad the rest of her felt ten kinds of awkward.
He’s had his tongue between your legs, she thought, very careful to keep the words directed at herself, not him. There’s nothing to be shy about.
But she was shy. For all that she saw naked bodies almost every day of her working life, Margot hadn’t been naked in a room with another being in… decades.
Her instinct was to deny him this casual intimacy, but she didn’t want to. Besides, she wasn’t a coward. She didn’t back down from challenges. He had already seen her most intimate parts — up close and personal. What was there to lose?
Theodore’s coat slid off of her shoulders easily. The silk of the lining was a deep violet, the same color of the thistles in the Solbourne crest, and it stood out starkly against her skin as it traveled down to pool around her legs.
Anticipation hummed like a livewire in her mind, and it took her a moment to figure out that it wasn’t just her. It was Theodore, too.
Margot blinked at the wall. He’s excited. He… wants to see me. Oh.
That helped. A lot.
Sucking in a deep breath, she turned slowly toward the shower. Margot didn’t make it more than a step before her spine locked.
The door was left open for her, letting out great clouds of rolling, fragrant steam. Theodore stood in the center of the stall, his pale blue body made only vaguely fuzzy by the steam, his shape almost dreamlike, as a curtain of rain fell from the ceiling to spill across his upturned face and slicked back hair.
Margot stood before the open shower door, awestruck.
He was gorgeous. There was no other word for it.
Handsome wasn’t right. Beautiful implied a certain delicacy that his dense build lacked. He certainly had a pretty face, but the rest of him was rendered by an expert hand, a divine sculptor that knew their way around a muscled, agile frame. The stretch of his jewel-toned skin, the breadth of his shoulders, the tapered shape of his lean waist — Theodore Solbourne was a stunningly packaged predator.
But it wasn’t the lean muscle of his stomach or his corded arms that made her knees weak. It was the way he turned his head, opened his eyes, and grinned at her with a smile so wide it brought both his dimples out.
“Are you coming in, or are you going to ogle me all night?”
Margot didn’t feel like she had much of a choice in the matter. Who could resist that look?
“Maybe if you weren’t posing,” she muttered, stepping onto the warm cedar planks of the shower floor. She pulled the door shut behind her. Immediately, the steam thickened, now trapped in what previously felt like a very large shower, but what she now realized was a normal-sized space for him.
Because Theodore was fucking massive.
Why hadn’t she noticed it before? Well, she supposed, she had, but it was only in terms of how threatening he might be, how close he was to her. Standing in the warm, damp space, buck naked with Theodore was a very different experience than sitting in the back of a car with him.
The steam was so thick that even standing three feet away, she struggled to make out his facial features. All she saw was the occasional flash of blue skin, jet black hair, and dark, hooded eyes.
The voice that cut through the fog and patter of water between them was a low, masculine purr. “Why are you so far away?”
