aggression—the kind he hadn’t been able to indulge for her first time.
Kavya hissed when the cold water sluiced over her feet. “Oh, Dragon be. That’s just mean.”
“At least it’s not the mountains?”
“I’ll never be warm when thinking about that day. Not ever.”
She began to shiver in earnest. Tallis held her closer, sharing his warmth. He rubbed her upper arms and the tops of her thighs. A gentle moan worked out of her throat.
“I guess that’s not so terrible,” she said.
“But we don’t need you frozen either.” He used one of the towels to pat dry her soles. The terry cloth came away tinged with watery pink. “Not perfect, but better.”
He hoisted her from the sink and sat her on the pile of white he’d tossed down from the wire shelf. She still huddled into one towel, but it didn’t cover beautiful glimpses of her body. Copper skin poked out everywhere. The backs of her hands, the slope of her throat, the tops of her knees. He shook his head and focused on his task. He couldn’t get them up to a room without looking the part of a guest.
The hotel room was the goal. He wanted her there, in bed, in his arms.
Then they’d talk about Scotland. He had a plan, finally. She needed to know why he was contemplating the unthinkable.
Tallis pulled on his new clothes.
“That’s hardly fair,” she said with a smile.
“You’re the invalid. Get better, then you can make the rules. I’m not playing nurse while kneeling naked.”
“You just don’t want me to see you when you’re not so Dragon-damned impressive.”
He wiggled his eyebrows above a smirking smile. “Doesn’t matter. You know what’s waiting for you when you want it.”
“I want it.”
She didn’t look away or blush like a girl, nor did laughter tickle behind her words. It was a blunt, assured statement that unmoored him again. Tallis knew how things ought to have been. This wasn’t it.
Only, he couldn’t find it in himself to wish for anything else. Just him. Kavya. A cold cement floor. And a magnet-strong attraction between them that neither could deny.
“Did I hurt you?”
“Not any more than I wanted.” She trailed her fingertip up down his forearm. “It was . . . There aren’t words.”
With his gaze riveted to hers, he said evenly, “You’ll have it. Me. My prick. At your beck and call.” He paused, but realized he had one more promise to make—for him, a man who didn’t make promises. “And I’ll have your back.”
She stilled her petting caress on a soft, “Oh.”
Tallis had to look away. She infected him with a complete loss of perspective. He’d experienced that same feeling before, when under the spell of his dream version of the Sun, and swore he’d never again fall for that spinning, twirling sense of losing his way.
Being with Kavya was being lost and found.
He used the point of his seax to shred pieces of a towel, then fashioned them into neat bandages that looked a little like socks. Not the most traditional of Indian garments to be worn with a sari, but he only needed to fake their way upstairs. Carefully, he smoothed her new slippers over the wrapped cloth. He helped her stand and retrieved the simple blue sari from their collection of new purchases.
One look at the yards of fabric and he simply handed it over. “Can’t help you there.”
“Oh, but you help getting it off just fine.”
She pleated and twisted intricate folds until she was swathed in blue. The color didn’t bring out her eyes so much as create an undeniable contrast. The purest sunrise blue against amber-brown mountains. With a few deft moves, she braided her hair and tied it off with a piece of the ruined maroon sari. Up and around, she curled it into a dark, lustrous crown, then wrapped the last swatch of blue cloth over her head, around her throat, and down one shoulder.
Tallis stared, blinking only when she asked, “Respectable enough?”
“Just enough.”
While packing their things and setting the laundry room to rights, he shivered. Only once, but it penetrated into his marrow and every cell. The basement cold wasn’t to blame, but the realization that with regard to Kavya of Indranan, he was in very deep trouble.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Tallis escorted Kavya up the rear steps and toward the check-in desk. A young clerk sat on a narrow stool reading a celebrity tabloid. Through the use of her gift and an extra bump, bump of her hips, Kavya seduced the clerk within moments.
“Key to the top floor.” Her voice was the essence of sweet innocence.
His reaction was as predictable as phases of the moon: the clerk nodded and retrieved the key. His eyes were unfocused, his jaw a little slack.
Kavya placed a finger on her lips. “Shhh. Don’t tell.”
Only when they were up the stairs and out of sight did Tallis level her with a questioning glare. “And if he does tell?”
She shook her head and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “He won’t remember us in a few moments. We’ll be nothing more substantial than a story he read in that paper.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you could do that in the first place?”
“You seemed so heroic in trying to find a back way in.”
“You’re teasing me. What’s the real reason?”
“I told you,” she said with quiet sobriety. “I don’t use it for personal gain. Two times now, both for a roof over our heads. It feels as wrong as prostitution.”
He gripped her shoulders until they stood face to face. “Then I won’t ask you to do it again. Promise.”
“You can do that?”
“I’ve made more promises in the last hour than I have in a decade.”
After a quiet intake of air, her eyes wide, Kavya keyed the lock. Tallis was equally taken aback by his words, but that didn’t make them less true. He followed her into a long room with narrow walls and a low ceiling. The bed would accommodate two people, and the sink had faucets. There was a mirror and a small padded chair, the upholstery of which was worn but serviceable. In all, he was pleased with his choice of hotel.
“How many guests?” he asked.
“Nine people in the building,” she said, her concentration plain. He liked the reassurance of being able to recognize when she used her gift. “That will probably change come evening.”
Tallis shut the door, caught her by the waist, and pressed her against the white-painted wood. Her sensual mouth was within inches of his. “You
“Plans? Do tell.”
“Later. Right now we have better things to do.”
Tallis kissed her with a degree of feeling he’d never experienced. There was passion, the mating of mouths and the struggle to taste, feel, explore even more. There was tenderness, so that his gift didn’t overpower his higher-level thinking. He wanted to make love to Kavya with both halves of his nature.
Always in the past, that balance had been a struggle to maintain. He’d stay too cloistered in the logic of a
