Chapter Eleven
Rilark
“It isn’t finished!” Rosalyn objected as I reached forward to snatch Galsthenn's upcoming speech to the rebels. She, of course, was offering to read it for him while secretly spending all her time with me. She batted my hand with the paper and finally let the paper lay on the conference room table.
We'd been in the Koth building for hours. We'd spent weeks where I had to follow her around, guarding her and trying not to put my hands all over her. I knew she thought so long as we were here, I wouldn't touch her, but she was wrong.
“Fine,” she said and crossed her arms playfully, “just don’t read it out loud.”
I smiled and skimmed through the speech, first rolling my eyes at what I read until slowly taking a solemn expression. Rosalyn wrung her hands twice in nervous anticipation, all but biting her lip with antsy discomfort, knowing he was judging her thoughts. She assumed he didn’t even get through half of it when he leaned forward and flopped it back onto her lap.
He resumed his former position and rose and eyebrow; his expression sullen.
“Well?” She giggled.
“Well, I find this odd,” I confessed.
She stared at me curiously, and I continued, “I’m reading the words of your chosen when all I want to do is get you wet.”
“Rilark,” she protested fiercely.
“You think I won’t take you here?” I dared.
“I think you shouldn’t, and it’s dangerous and there are a hundred other reasons why it’s a bad idea.” She looked around the room nervously and moved away from my side. “Are you afraid to have a real conversation with me? Can we have one interaction that doesn’t end with us ripping each other’s clothes off?” She laughed in frustration and for the first time I felt it; jealousy.
“You saving it for Galsthenn?”
“Pardon?” she asked indignantly, but we both knew she heard me.
I inhaled strongly and looked up at her. “Well,” I repeated, seeming unsure how to proceed.
“Rilark,” she said with a sigh, and my ears perked up. “Do you think I’m a good person?” she asked in earnest. The matter seemed to consume her, the right thing to her always seeming hidden amongst complications and confusions that life offered to the table. I knew she wanted a reason for me to validate her feelings for me, but I wasn’t about to do that.
“What does it matter?” I said simply.
She frowned. “Because it does,” she responded with just as much importance to her tone as she had prior. “It matters a lot. Integrity, purity…”
“Nobody’s pure,” I interrupted. “Why’s it so important to you? You got a guilty conscience?”
“I guess I’m trying to rationalize some things, yeah.” She gave a light sigh that held no intentions of growing annoyed with me, for once, and continued: “It is because… I guess it’s just how I gauge someone’s intentions.”
“You mean it’s how you judge them,” I snapped matter-of-factly.
She shook her head and seemed slightly flustered as she stammered, “No. It’s just how I determine the quality of–”
“It’s how you judge them.”
“You’re being irreverent.”
“Snarky.”
“Crass,” she corrected.
I crossed his arms behind his head and gave a cool laugh. “We’re having a battle of words.
“Seriously, Rilark,” she huffed, her frustration coming through now but only lightly. “I’m trying to ask you about something I think is important, and I really want to know what you think, and you’re just teasing me,” she said while shaking her head and looking down into her lap flustered as she uncrossed her legs and smoothed out her skirt
“You wanna know how I gauge what goodness is?” I asked, puzzled as she nodded impatiently, raising her brows. “Or you want me to say that you’re not a good person so you can have even more reason to judge yourself?”
“You think that’s what I’m doing?”
“Well, aren’t you? Am I supposed to say you’re some worthless adulteress and you’re–”
“Screwing over your brother?”
I blanched at the statement and backed away from her, smiling in surprise at her sentiment. Was this just her set up? “So he told you.”
“Why didn’t you?” she shouted, smacking my chest hard with her hand. “I thought we were… I don’t know. I thought you would tell me that, at least!” I stared her down; feeling suddenly vulnerable and hating every minute of it. “And do you know that he knows you’ve,” she leaned in close to my face and whispered angrily, “helped the rebels?”
“Shh!” I insisted and lowered my hands, telling her to hush.
“I just said he already knows!” she scoffed.
“And… and what?” I paled. “He’s doing nothing?”
“He said that he loves you and that he knows you’re not a threat,” she said, her voice going thick with guilt and her hazel eyes glowing with questions unasked. I knew what she wanted; she wanted me to demonize her or excuse her, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do either.
My mind was racing. Why would he tell her that?
“And I’m supposed to feel bad about this?”
“You’re supposed to feel… something,” she instructed gingerly, her hands caressing my arms now as I knelt in front of her feeling like an idiot.
“What do you want me to say? That I feel bad? You want to take me down with you?” I laughed, and she waited endlessly for a response. “I feel bad.” And it was true. “Happy?”
“Delirious.”
“So, are you going to let me touch you, or what?” I demanded; my brows furrowing deeply at the woman and my hand poised under her skirt.
“Admit it,” she demanded.
“That I’ve done work for the rebels?” My eyes glanced the room over, and I shrugged unwillingly. “Fine.”
“No,” she shook her head, and that familiar tease filled her eyes. “Admit that you like me. As more than just a toy.”
I gave a whispered laugh and shook my head, reaching my hand into her underwear and relishing the game as she gripped my arm, digging her nails into my scales. “Aren’t we supposed to be having fun?”
“Yeah,” she relented with a devilish smile. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t like me.”
“Fine.” I felt the heat of her and sighed, reaching up with my free hand and drawing her lips down to mine. I kissed her, nipping at her lip as our lips parted and admitted, “I like you.”