If he could go through with it.
“Do what you want.” Her voice was resigned but her eyes still quick, darting, wary. Interested.
“I plan to.”
He unfurled the rag and scrubbed it across the back of his neck, around the front of his throat, and up his face. The tattered washcloth didn’t have the bite of a stronger rag, but the hot water made up for it. Tallis couldn’t help but exhale in a shuddering sigh of pleasure as the warmth soaked into his skin and assuaged tensions he hadn’t acknowledged. He’d been too tense for too long. As the tendons of his neck softened and relaxed, he only wanted more.
Meeting Kavya’s slack-jawed expression of amazement added to his hunger. He was a man of the earth and the sea, but he’d lived among the human world so long that luxuries had become part of his definition of a good life. Circumstance meant he didn’t have many opportunities to indulge. That made moments such as these more precious.
“Are you watching, goddess? This is only the start.”
“You’re not . . .” She pressed the back of her head against the wall. She couldn’t get any farther from him unless she made a run for it, back into the snow. The amber flame in her eyes promised that wouldn’t happen. “You’re not going to go through with it,” she said with more conviction. “I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t believe me? Which part of my behavior has led you to think I don’t follow through with threats? Or that I don’t have it in me to be more nasty or underhanded than you can imagine?”
“I don’t have to imagine nasty or underhanded.” Her voice was tart and her expression fierce. “I’ve seen it and lived it. Give me softness and promises—that I wouldn’t imagine.”
“Alas.” He banked an impulse to take her by surprise yet again, by giving her exactly that. “This is the best I can come up with. And for inexplicable reasons, you want to think the best of me. Strange, I know. So watch and enjoy. A living god is going to do his best to keep your mind thoroughly occupied.”
“A living . . . Wait.” She stood and crossed her hands as if to stop anything and everything happening in that small, drafty room. “Why did you call yourself that? ‘A living god.’ Why that phrase?”
“Not a clue. You’re my false goddess. I might as well return the favor.”
“No. I don’t . . .” Frowning so fiercely that Tallis wanted to ease his thumb between her brows, she backed flush against the wall and tucked her hands out of sight. “Never mind.”
Tallis shrugged, although her behavior set him on edge. Fuck it. He wanted her on edge, and he wanted to get clean. “Suit yourself.”
He pulled off layers of shirts and basked in Kavya’s quiet inhale. The water was still hot enough to numb the ends of his fingers. He rinsed the cloth, then set about rubbing away grime and sweat. The aftermath wasn’t as pleasant, as drafts skittered chills across his skin. Whenever he closed his eyes to better absorb the sting of heat and the shudder of cold, he wondered what she was thinking. Was she equally affected by the moment? For all he knew, he could strip naked while sporting the hard-on to end all hard-ons, and she’d only stare at him with an expression of disdain and wariness.
Kavya was a hard woman to understand. Rather than feel vulnerable, as he often had during dreams of the Sun, he was excited by the unknowns she presented during every minute of their acquaintance. She was the virgin, and yet as he washed more of his body, he felt inexperienced. Adrift.
This was supposed to be about distracting her. Seducing her.
Tallis opened his eyes and was surprised to find Kavya had stepped away from the wall. She was within touching distance. Had he been so lost in his thoughts that her quiet steps went unnoticed?
“You want something?” he asked with a lift of his brows. “Have you come to help me out or to hit me?”
“Both?”
“I like that, although it might depend on the order.”
“Give me the rag.” She snatched it before he any chance to reply. “Turn around.”
Scalding cloth met the stretch of flesh between his shoulder blades. He hissed, then let the breath out slowly. She didn’t caress him; she definitely meant the rough up-and-down to be a hearty scrub. But Tallis smiled to himself. She was washing him. Life had turned unexpectedly sunny, despite weather and terror and confusion that demanded he think otherwise.
“I didn’t know I’d be getting help,” he said. “Shall I offer to return the favor?”
“You know I already washed.”
“In the equivalent of a glacial stream.” He bent at the waist and shucked his cargos without pretense. Kavya gave a little squeak. “Now keep washing, or give it to me before you pass out.”
She slapped the cloth into the water, splashing droplets of fire across his stomach. “I was only doing you a favor.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
Kavya retreated until she once again connected with the wall. She was looking at him—all of him, with particular attention to his ready cock. That she remained clothed was lamentable, but she remained luminous. He’d never met anyone who seemed made of light. He was only thankful he’d discovered that she was a genuine woman with a temper and a hefty dose of arrogance. She was real. And she was still made of light.
Tallis continued his wash. He rinsed and scrubbed, rinsed and smoothed. She never took her eyes off movements meant to be practical yet provocative. At least he’d reclaimed his self-control, especially when he wrapped his cock in the hot cloth. Had he been alone, or had she been any more experienced, he would have stroked more than the once, twice he permitted.
Back around to his balls.
Back up to his aching, swollen head.
Then two more strokes.
As such, he managed the one part of his hands-off seduction he’d known would be most difficult—washing the physical expression of his desire—without indulging too much.
He turned away on a heavy exhale and washed his hair with their sliver of soap, rinsed out the cloth, and dried himself with his last clean flannel shirt. He stood naked before her for an endless span of seconds.
She only pulled the blanket more closely around her shoulders.
“Now, unless you want to stroke my prick as well, I suggest you lie down and get some rest.”
Tallis grabbed the blanket from her slack hands and settled onto the single bed, his body crammed against the wall. There was plenty of room for her to join him, and they’d barely need to touch. Yet whether she joined him or not, he wouldn’t be sleeping that night. Either he’d stay awake listening to her little sounds and intakes of breath, or he’d lie stock-still with her body tucked against his. Not touching. Only imagining.
She didn’t seem ready to sleep either. She dimmed the room’s one lamp, walking and moving as if in a daze. Using his coat as padding, she lay down in a corner of the room and made herself into a tight ball.
So he spent the night listening—dreading, hoping, wondering when she’d relent and come to bed.
—
Kavya sat in the corner wrapped in Sherpa, leather, flannel, and silk. So many textures, and so many scents. The scent of one man in particular would’ve kept her awake all night, had she been inclined toward sleep.
She’d never seen anything so erotic, all the while knowing Tallis had performed his taunting striptease for reasons that had nothing to do with enjoyment. He’d been distracting her; that much was legitimate. He’d also been mocking her, with his curling smile and arrogant stance. Everything about the casual grace of his body said he knew what it was to touch in ways she’d never experienced. He had kissed her, and now she knew what had been hidden under the bulky coat she used as bedding.
Male perfection.
She couldn’t think past that word. Perfection. His limbs were long and strong, with muscles defined by lithe, sweeping curves. He reminded her of an acrobat or a dancer, where bulk wasn’t prized so much as agility. Lines bisected his abdominals and marked the boundary of each cluster of muscles.
His pectorals and lean, strong thighs were dusted with dark hair. She could see his power in the flex of every movement, and in memories of how he’d carried her through the blizzard.
And his cock.
Kavya pressed fingertips against her eyelids and kept pressing. She’d never seen its like. The male anatomy was not a mystery, telepathically or physically. Even aroused men were familiar to her—too familiar, in some circumstances. To stand in such close proximity, so that she could see every ridge and vein, was entirely new. He pulsed with energy that built and built and gathered right there. Yes, that was new indeed. That was new like seeing fire for the first time.
The sight of fire wasn’t as impressive as its warmth. Feeling its warmth wasn’t as daring as getting closer, closer, wondering how it would feel to be consumed by something so beautifully elemental.
Had she been some other woman, perhaps, she would be lying next to him—or beneath him, or straddling him. Huddling deeper into the safety of his coat, tucked in a corner beset by icy drafts was perhaps . . . oh, she didn’t like the word, but it was cowardly. She was hiding from him. She could come up with a thousand protests as to why enjoying this man was a bad idea.
But she couldn’t think past one. If she gave her body to Tallis of Pendray, she would want to give her heart as well. At least she knew that much about herself, even if her naiveté and arrogance had taken her by surprise.
She led with her heart.
The Indranan were supposed to lead with their minds, with thoughts always the first into the fray. In any conversation, in any battle, the mind over body and heart and soul. In that, she’d always been different from her clanspeople. Perhaps that was why she strived to bring her people together in peace and with hopes for the future—hopes that had everything to do with letting the heart have its say.
Love. Trust. Families without fear.
“You’re not sleeping.” Tallis’s voice was so low that it blended with the moan of the storm’s wind.
“I don’t sleep if I can help it.”
“Stubborn?”
“Self-defense.”
He shifted on the narrow bed, where the springs composed songs to the slightest shift of his body. “Tell me?”
Snow-white light stripped the room of color and replaced it with shadow. He was hugging a pillow. The tops of his shoulders and upper back peeked out from beneath the covers. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she felt their keen interest. Perhaps that layer of darkness allowed her to think of his interest as genuine, rather than a prelude to more ridicule.
“If an Indranan sleeps, she’s vulnerable to suggestions from outside minds. It’s an invitation for others to come play. I could wake up with totally foreign impulses deciding my life.”
“How do you know you’re not already under the influence of those impulses?” He sounded genuinely curious, speaking words touched by wariness.
“I don’t, necessarily. A Mask is one thing. It’s a canvas to disguise pieces of a personality. But thoughts born of a Mask can slip deeper during sleep—I’ve felt one or two. They don’t ring true. Like a splinter in my brain. Usually I can root them out and categorize them as not me. Not me,” she repeated softly.
“But you still avoid sleep?”
“If I can help it. Or I had allies like Chandrani. We’d sleep in shifts. One would protect the other.”
“Like having each other’s backs?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Your people . . .”
Kavya sat up. “You’ve lived among the Indranan for what, a few months? And only in an attempt to find me. That doesn’t mean you’re any more accepting of our ways. You only collect information to search for weakness.”
He chuckled, like a teasing caress emerging from the blackness. “So quick to assume, goddess. I meant nothing cruel.”
“Then what?”
“Your people—I don’t know how you’ve survived. All gifts come with a price, but the Dragon chose the Indranan to suffer most. Nothing is as sacred as the mind, yet you have access to everyone’s innermost fears and desires. To be honest . . . I’d read your mind right now, if I could, when I’ve thought the practice despicable.” He shifted again on that telltale mattress, still hugging the pillow, biceps flexing in stark relief. “It’s that tempting. Why speak, when I could just peek in and know?”
She needed to be closer. Elementally, she’d known this would happen. The compulsion to read any aspect of his body for truthfulness joined with her physical curiosity. Tallis of Pendray was a snake charmer—just charming enough to overcome her fear and frustration.
Kavya crawled the two paces toward the bed, dragging her makeshift bedding as a turtle would its shell. Hands shaking, she reached out and touched his forearm. His breath was sharp. He covered her hand with his and brought it to his face, where micro twitches of tiny facial muscles revealed so much. She was coming to think of touching his face as the sincerest means of knowing what was true and what was placating mockery. Coming from Tallis, the two were sometimes one and the same.
“What would you want to know?” she asked softly. The blizzard’s winds kicked up in a frenzy of force and tiny, pelting ice crystals.
“What you thought of my body.”
A laugh huffed out of her lungs. She was smiling when he cupped her cheeks, too. “How egotistical is that?”
“Very,” he said. “I wanted to impress you as much as I wanted to distract you.”
“And intimidate me. And tease me for my lack of experience.”
His smile bunched beneath her palms. “Yes. All that, too.”
“What else?”
“I’d want to know why you hadn’t come to bed. Why is a cold corner better than lying with me?”
“You just admitted it: because you wanted to intimidate me and tease me. If I lie with any man, it will be because I’m desired, not the object of a dare or vendetta.”
Tallis threaded his fingertips into her still-damp hair, tunneling down to her scalp. He tugged, gave a little shake. “This has nothing to do with vendetta.”
“Then . . . what?”
“We’re back to that pesky beast in my blood.” His chuckle shone a light on his own failings. “Wanting. I’m not used to being denied.”
She pulled back and sat on her haunches. “I don’t believe that at all. The man known as the Heretic? I think your choices have denied you a great deal.”
He withdrew the warm gift of his touch. The room went cold for reasons that had nothing to do with the storm. “Go to sleep.”
Another burst of the blizzard’s power slammed against the loft’s window. Ice and terrible winds and the unpredictable nature of a squall. Tallis slipped from her thoughts. She couldn’t stand remembering how much distance remained between them. No trust. No affection. Instead she reached out to find Chandrani. Was she safe? She couldn’t have made it home over the Rohtang Pass so quickly, but maybe she’d been able to find shelter.
Kavya closed her eyes, reaching out, concentrating. Searching.
Chandrani.
She exhaled softly when she found her dear friend well on her way to Leh. The snowstorm had passed to the south of her path. She would be home with family soon, perhaps free of the scandal she’d face if associated too closely with the attack in the valley.
But then . . . another mind found her.
Kavya flinched in pain. She pushed her fingertips against her temples. Dragon help me.
By searching for Chandrani, she’d given away their location. He must’ve been waiting for any opportunity when Tallis wasn’t dead center of her thoughts. Aside from the shocking pain, Pashkah’s invasion came in the form of a single sentence.
I’m coming for you, sister.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Tallis jerked upright when Kavya screamed. “What?”
“Pashkah.”
“What? What happened to keeping you distracted?”
“I . . . The storm . . . I wanted to know if
Chandrani had made it to safety.”
Tallis jumped out of bed and stumbled until he found the lamp. A turn of the wick and he could see where Kavya knelt on the floor. She’d been touching him. They’d been sharing barely formed ideas. Now panic turned her usually placid expression into one of abject fear.
“What happened, exactly?”
“I searched for her. Out in the world.”
“I thought only Trackers could search that far.”
“In most cases. But if you knew someone for twenty years, you’d know how to communicate with little more than raised eyebrows or a blink. Chandrani and I are that way with our minds. I have more range with her than with anyone I’ve ever known. But Pashkah . . . He barged in. Cut us off. He’s so powerful, Tallis. You have no idea.”
He kicked into what remained of his clean clothes. The rest he stuffed in his pack, along with their scant provisions. “Next time I’ll distract you with a game of twenty questions. Might be more effective than keeping the interest of a frigid snob who volunteers for trouble whenever she can.”
“Frigid?”
“That’s the word you focus on. Fantastic.” He pulled on another shirt, then shoved tired feet into his boots. “I hope whatever scattered bullshit is in your head has to do with surprise and being frightened out of your wits. The relative state of your sexual experience and my effect on it ranks well below getting the fuck out of here.”
“You’re vulgar.”
He thrust the blankets into her hands. “And you’re a dead woman if you don’t figure out some way to duck under his radar. How much does he know?”
“Where I am.”
“Dragon damn it. And there’s no way you can confuse him now? Focus back on me and my enthralling body? Maybe if I slap you for being such an idiot, I’ll scramble your gray matter.”
She surged to her feet. Anger hardened her features like a warrior being frozen by Medusa—Medusa, that ancient Trickster of the Tigony. The tale of a trusting, ridiculously empathetic young woman who didn’t account for her own safety wouldn’t become a story told through the ages. Instead Kavya would be a cautionary tale and a reason why the Indranan should remain a people divided.
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