Chapter 68: Chapter 68

~ NYSSA

Working with Aria was surprisingly fun.

Unlike the last time, she wasn’t playing any games or trying to rest my loyalty. She showed me around, explaining the ins and outs of the business they did with humans and as much as I hated to admit it, I was impressed.

I helped her handle the accounting because they were short staffed. One of their workers was gone for a maternity break.

It was a bit difficult at first, I kept making horrible mistakes but everyone was patient and within an hour, I was documenting information like I’d been working with them for years.

It was a good way to keep my mind off Rowan and everything else.

By the time evening rolled around, I was exhausted. My shoulders hurt from leaning over a computer screen all day, and I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and take a long fucking nap in that soft bed.

“You look drained,” Aria mused as we walked through the doors of the palace. “Tell me you at least have the energy for dinner. You didn’t eat anything at all today.”

I weighed my hunger against my exhaustion and shrugged. “I don’t think so. I just want to—”

A throat cleared behind us and I turned so fast that my neck screamed in protest.

Rowan stood a few feet behind us, his face carefully impassive as he took us in. He wore a simple pair of slacks and a plain button up shirt that did nothing to hide his bulging muscles and the toned chest that peeked out from the top of his shirt that was unbuttoned.

“Welcome back,” he drawled, voice low and rumbling and his eyes fixed on me.

The tips of my ears flushed as I looked away, embarrassed at being caught staring.

“Can I borrow Nyssa for a moment?”

Before I could refuse, Aria mumbled something about needing to rush upstairs. She’d barely finished her sentence before running down the halls, leaving me alone with Rowan.

Traitor.

I should have known she’d abandon me at the first opportunity.

“You look beautiful,” he said softly,

I hadn’t noticed him walk up to me.

He stood so close that I could count the scars on his chest. His scent was so fucking overwhelming that I took a step back, desperate for some reprieve.

If he noticed, he didn’t mention it.

“It’s the same thing I wore earlier,” I answered dumbly and he shrugged.

“You looked beautiful earlier as well. I should have told you.”

He said the words so matter-of-factly that I couldn’t help but believe him. My cheeks flushed, my eyes finding the ground in front of me.

“Thank you,” I managed out.

“You can thank me by having dinner with me.”

My head snapped up comically fast.

I thought I’d misheard but when he repeated the words, I quickly realized that the problem wasn’t with my hearing.

He’d actually asked me to dinner.

“You don’t have to do this, you know?” I told him. “You don’t have to pretend you’re interested. I accepted your apology earlier and I’m going to stay.”

His face remained impassive as he spoke. “I also said I’d give this a fair chance.”

“Yes, but—”

“And a fair chance involves courting you, does it now?”

“Well, yes—”

“IF I also heard correctly, you haven’t eaten anything all day.” My stomach took that as a cue to rumble loudly and Rowan smirked. “It’s settled then. We’ll have dinner together.”

I sighed deeply, desperately searching for an excuse to get out of this, but none sounded good enough.

“This is weird,” I said finally, an edge of defeat in my tone. “It feels like you’ve taken a complete one eighty and I don’t know how to deal with that. It was easier when I knew to expect cruelty from you.”

A foreign emotion flashed across his face… something akin to regret. “I apologize for being cruel. I wanted to keep you as far away as possible. I thought it would help how I felt.”

“And it didn’t?” I asked.

He shook his head, a bitter smile crossing his face. “I think you already know the answer to that.”

He stepped closer, erasing the distance between us.

My heart hammered in my chest as my breath caught. I craned my neck to look up at him only to find him already leaning down.

All I had to do was stand on the tips of my toes and my lips would be brushing his. We were so fucking close that I could feel the heat of his own skin and I felt my own skin prickle.

The hair on my arms stood on edge as I fought the urge to just reach out and touch him.

“You don’t have to join me for dinner if you don’t want to,” he began, his voice nearly an octave lower. “However, I would prefer if you had something to eat. I can send your dinner to your room.”

I didn’t speak, not because that wasn’t a batter option, but because I couldn’t trust myself to not beg him to touch me if I were to open my mouth.

My body reacted violently to his. It made my head fucking spin.

He hadn’t even touched me and yet all I could think about was how good his fingers felt inside of me and how badly I wanted to feel it again.

His nostrils flared. “Whatever you’re thinking about… stop.”

“I can’t exactly help it when you’re right in front of me,” I ground out. “This is your fault.”

“Would you like me to move?” Like the slut that I was… I said nothing. “I thought so.”

“Fuck you,” I spat, but the words held no venom and he knew it too because he laughed, his finger gently brushing a strand of hair away from my face.

“I’d love to, little wolf, trust me, but I know you’ll only run come tomorrow.”

With a sigh, he stepped back.

“We’re going to do this the right way. Have dinner with me.”

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