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She looked up at him from beneath her wet lashes. “What?”

“Up,” Theon repeated. “I’ll wrap you in a towel.”

He expected her to resist, but a quick look of determination filled her face before she gripped the edge of the tub and pulled herself up. Theon didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was looking at her. Her long hair covered most of her breasts, but the apex of her thighs was fully exposed, and his entire being was well aware of that.

As she stepped over the edge of the tub to the bathmat, he draped a towel around her shoulders. She gripped it between her fingers, covering herself, and he unfolded the second towel to squeeze the water from her hair. When he was done, he went to the closet while she dried off. He didn’t grab her clothes though. He came back with a warm, black fleece bathrobe.

He turned her so she was facing away from him before he pulled the towel from her body. His eyes dropped to her ass as he held the robe open for her to slide her arms into it. Tessa quickly pulled it closed around herself, tying it at the waist. When she reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, the sleeve slid up her arm.

“Many of your wounds are already healing,” he noted, one of the surface scratches nearly faded.

She sent him a bland look before she stepped around him and moved to the vanity. “I know I am not a Legacy, but I am Fae. We do heal faster than mortals,” she retorted, digging out a comb from the drawer and beginning to run it through her hair.

As soon as she finished, he was behind her. He braced his hands on the counter on either side of her body, caging her in. Startled, she met his gaze in the mirror.

“You never answered my question, beautiful,” he murmured into her ear, and he watched the faint pink color creep into her cheeks. “What does the bond feel like when you let me touch you?” He brought his hand up, trailing the tips of his fingers down her neck, barely touching her. She shivered against him. “I have other ways of discovering the answer to that question if you will not tell me.”

Her face instantly hardened. “You will entrance me over this?”

He gripped her hips, turning her in his arms before lifting her up and setting her on the vanity counter. She gasped as he stepped between her legs.

“I do not need to entrance you for this,” he purred sensually.

“You said you’d never force this,” she rasped, that flush returning as he held her gaze.

She was still so off balance from the events in the garden, she couldn’t hide her emotions as well, and he hated that he didn’t know how to read everything playing out on her face. Soon it wouldn’t matter. The Mark she would receive on the fall equinox would allow him to feel her emotions, and if she somehow had still not accepted things by then, this would all be much easier to navigate.

“I will not force anything, Tessa. You are free to tell me to stop whenever you wish. Or in the alternative, answer my question, and I will stop immediately,” he replied, his fingers skating up her calves. She was practically eye level with him when she was sitting on the vanity, and he slowly brought his mouth to hers. “I will kill those motherfuckers for touching what is mine,” he murmured, his lips feathering across hers as he spoke.

She sucked in a breath. “I’m not yours.”

“Lie to yourself, but not to me,” he murmured, his fingers slipping behind her knees and under the robe. Another shiver rolled through her at the touch.

“I’m not lying.” Her voice was breathy and not at all convincing.

“Your body says otherwise,” he argued, running his nose along the length of hers.

“It’s just this bond,” she gritted out, her hands gripping the edge of the counter, knuckles turning white.

“Is it?” He began trailing his lips along her jaw until he reached the space beneath her ear. “What does it feel like when my fingers trail up your thighs, Tessa?” She tried to hide it, but he heard the soft whimper that escaped from her. “Or when my lips touch here?” He pressed his lips to her throat, sucking lightly and scraping his teeth along her skin.

Her breathing was becoming ragged as he trailed his lips lower, and she leaned forward when he began dragging them along her collarbone. His fingers were crawling ever so slowly up her thighs, and for a heartbeat, he thought she was finally going to give in. For a fleeting moment, he thought she was finally going to give the bond exactly what it wanted, but then she spoke.

“It feels like coming up for air when I’ve been shoved underwater for too long.” Her voice was thick with desire. “When you touch me, it feels like pleasure igniting under my skin. When you touch me, it feels like nothing else matters as long as you never stop. It feels like safety and warmth and light.” The last words were such a soft whisper that Theon barely caught them, but he had halted his movements the moment she had started speaking. Not because he had told her he would, but because he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“If that is what it feels like, why do you resist it so adamantly?”

“Because it’s not real, Theon,” she blurted, the desire in her voice shifting to frustration. “It’s just the Source bond making me feel that way. My body responding to physical touch. It’s not real.”

“It could be,” he argued.

“Even if that were true, how would you know? How would you know what is the bond you forced and what is real? How could you tell the difference?”

“Is this what is keeping you from accepting this?”

“Yes. No. Part of it, maybe? I don’t know,” she answered, her eyes darting away from his. His hands were still beneath her robe, halfway up her thighs.

“You know if you would accept the bond, you wouldn’t think about any of that, right?”