Page 123 of Reign
His eyes close. “I hate that you know me well enough to hear that.”
“Tough.”
“One day,” he says, very dryly, “I’m going to be difficult just to make your reading less accurate.”
“You’ve always been difficult.”
“Yes, but before it was charming.”
I laugh into his skin. “You’re still charming.”
“Liar.”
“Self-pitying cunt.”
He tilts his head farther back so I can finally see his face, and the smile there is small and tired and so fucking beautiful it almost puts me under.
“There he is,” he murmurs. “I was wondering how long it would take you to insult me.”
“I’ve been soft for at least twenty minutes. That’s saint-level patience for me.”
“That’s disgusting. Never call yourself saintly again.”
“I live in a monastery,lyubimiy. It’s all very aspirational.”
He gives me a look over his shoulder, and I know exactly what he sees reflected in me because I feel it too hard to mistake it for anything else.
Affection. Possession. Something dangerously close to peace trying to work its way into my bones where it has no business settling.
I won’t tell him I feel more in love with him right now than I did in the bed, or the kitchen, or the runway, or any of the stolen places we used to make do with.
I won’t tell him it’s this that destroys me more—the bath, the talk, the ridiculous intimacy of hearing about his wife, his traitor, and his quiet little failures while he sits naked between my legs and trusts me not to weaponize any of it.
I won’t tell him that hearing him speak in this room with no rush and no need to protect my pride makes loving him feel so fucking easy, it scares me.
Instead, I slide one hand from his stomach to the center of his chest under the water and feel his heartbeat there. Steady now. Slower than when we first got in.
“You’re calming down,” I say.
“Because I’m drunk.”
“No.” I drag my thumb lightly once over his sternum. “Because I’m good at this.”
He breathes out a laugh, but it’s softer now, less guarded. “Are we back to you being comforting?”
“We never left.”
“Dangerously smug.”
“Correct.”
He turns more fully then, shifting in the water until he’s half sideways between my legs, one knee brushing mine beneath the surface, his expression opened up by steam and whisky and the intimacy of the room.
He studies my face for a long second, and for once, I let him, and I feel the full dark weight of his gaze on me.
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
I should lie.
