LITMIR.BIZ

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moving toward him warily, not quite sure why.

      Perhaps it was all to do with lulling him into a false sense of security. Getting him to trust her. Yes, that was likely the reason. It had nothing to do with the tightness in her stomach, the pressure on her lungs, the dry feeling in her throat. Had nothing to do with the deadly beauty he possessed. Like a rugged landscape that beckoned you to explore, while waiting to swallow you whole.

      None of that mattered. It meant nothing. It was only that fighting the entire way wouldn’t help her cause, so there was no purpose in it. She had to wait and strike when it counted. So she would obey. But only for now.

      It was his turn to touch her hair. He reached out slowly, and she could do nothing more than watch as he reached for her as he rubbed his thumb over the dark, silken locks. He said nothing; he only stared.

      She wanted to ask if he liked it, but she realized that she shouldn’t care whether he liked it or not. She didn’t need him to find her beautiful; she needed him to find her sympathetic. It would probably work to her advantage if he didn’t find her beautiful.

      No matter how compelling he was, no matter how handsome, it didn’t change what he was. He had told her in no uncertain terms. He had betrayed his brother. Not out of any real need, or great affection and love for the woman in question. Just because he could. Just because he lived to please himself. That, more than anything, should repel her. Should make his opinion on her appearance moot.

      When she thought of her mother and father, of what they’d done with their positions, the changes they had died for...it should make him repellent. That he had such power and did nothing with it.

      It didn’t.

      How disappointing to discover that she was as vulnerable to this kind of thing as any other woman.

      Suddenly, he changed their positions, wrapping his arm around her waist and taking hold of her hand with his. “We’re here to dance,” he said. “Do you know how?”

      She knew that he had asked a question, and that the question required a response, but she couldn’t seem to cobble one together. He was strong. She had known that. He had plucked her out of the bathtub and carried her across the room as though she weighed nothing. Still, she had forgotten somehow. Or she hadn’t fully realized. Or perhaps the memory simply couldn’t do it justice.

      He was strong, yes, but the true test of that was the way he held her without crushing her. Firm, but gentle. She could feel the heat of his skin radiating through the fabric of his suit, had a sense for the hard muscle beneath. So much only hinted at. Another piece of evidence to support her theory that he was hiding his real self beneath a mask.

      “Put your hand on my shoulder,” he said.

      She obeyed again, because that was easier than trying to form words and actually figure out how to speak them. She felt every inch the creature he had accused her of being on multiple occasions. Completely ill-equipped to handle interaction with a man. As though she really had been raised by wolves and not just by a family who had a simpler lifestyle.

      “You don’t know how to dance,” he said, answering his earlier question for her.

      She shook her head, trying not to focus on the places where his hands were making contact. The way his fingers were laced through hers, the way his palm rested on her lower back. This didn’t feel as if she was going along with it simply to keep him sweet. This felt like something else. It was confusing. Terrifying.

      It couldn’t happen.

      Attraction had no place in any of this. It had no place in her life, not until she figured out what she wanted her life to look like. How could she even begin to answer that question until she got to know herself better? For some reason, standing in the center of this ballroom, held tightly in his arms, she was so acutely aware of how thin her life experiences had been until now. Every single thing was tied to her title. A title she had never been able to claim or use.

      But oh, how she had suffered for it. The realization should feel...desolate. But for some reason, standing there in his arms, it was cushioned. Perhaps because someone was finally touching her. She finally felt connected. And so she asked him.

      “Do you like my hair?” She couldn’t bring herself to look at his face in case she caught him in a lie.

      “Yes,” he said, the answer slow, cautious. “Though I quite liked it before. There is something captivating about the wilder aspects you carry, I must confess.”

      She couldn’t stop herself from looking up at him now. He was still holding her, neither of them moving. This was no way to conduct a dance lesson, and yet she found she wasn’t interested in discontinuing the conversation. “What do you like about my wildness?”

      “You are fierce. You fight. I can’t help being compelled by that. You are everything you feel, rather than being what others should see. How can I not be intrigued by that?”

      “Because you can only be what is acceptable?”

      “Because I’m surrounded by people who behave themselves.” It was a deflection, she was aware. He didn’t deny her accusation, but he didn’t admit to it either. “It is refreshing to see someone who doesn’t.”

      “You’ve only seen me here. I spent a great many years behaving myself by the standards of my surroundings.”

      “Tell me,” he said, and then he started to move. Leading her in a dance that had no music.

      She held tightly to him, trying to keep from stumbling. “Tell you about my life with the clan?”

      “Yes. Tell me what it meant to behave there.”

      “It’s hard to explain. They cared for me. But I wasn’t one of them.” Standing in the palace, in this dress, she suddenly realized it was true. “I lived among them, but I could never say that I was accepted. Sometimes I felt as though the leader and his wife might actually... Sometimes I thought they might see me as another child...but once they had children of their own, it became very clear that wasn’t the case.” She’d never spoken these words out loud before. Had hardly formed them in her mind. “They were surrogate caregivers. Not a family. They observed a kind of careful distance with me, and I was expected to do the same.”

      “Then you didn’t spend your childhood running wild?”

      A smile tugged to the corner of her lips. “I did. I had all the freedom a child could wish for. I spent a lot of time wandering through the forest on my own. Talking to myself. Talking to the trees.”

      “Were you lonely?” he asked, and there was a strange edge to the question, a roughness that scraped against raw places inside her.

      She swallowed, ignoring the discomfort inside her. “I don’t know how to answer that. It was my daily life. It was normal for me. I wasn’t aware of anything missing.”

      It was this place, this man, that made her so aware of all she hadn’t had. Of the life she should have lived. Of the years she’d gone without being touched.

      She and Andres weren’t even lovers and he touched her frequently. As though it were the most casual and easy thing.

      He was touching her now. Holding her close. And she was forgetting what she was here to do. Forgetting her ultimate goal. That she was only playing along now so she could use his trust later.

      Right now all she could focus on was this. The way his hands felt over the flimsy fabric of the dress. The way it felt when he said she was beautiful.

      The way it felt to have a man look at her, not through her.

      What did those things matter? What did beauty matter? It had never mattered before.

      She looked away from him, trying to regain control of her thoughts. “What about you?”

      “I did not wander through the woods,” he said.

      There was something strange in his voice. She couldn’t

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