To Seduce An Assassin (The Omaja Series Book 2)(41)

He reached for the placket on his trousers, and she ducked back down to give him some privacy. After a few moments, she thought she heard the sound of him rummaging in a drawer, and inched back up to take a quick peek.

Six-and-a-half feet of male splendor stood by the armoire, naked except for the emperor’s ruby around his neck. His backside was facing her direction, and she couldn’t help but stare. His buttocks looked firm, sculpted in muscle, with a slightly concave plane on either side of his trim hips. He wrapped a towel around his hips before turning to pace toward his washstand, and she ducked quickly. Soon there was a sound of water splashing, being squeezed from a sponge, splashing again.

She risked another peek, and was rewarded with a second view of his backside as he stood in front of his washstand. His bed was between them, so she could only see him from the thighs up, but there was plenty of muscular flesh to stare at from that vantage point. And stare she did, watching his back muscles ripple as he sponge-bathed from neck to groin.

He finished washing and used a towel to dry himself, then wrapped the towel around his waist again. When he turned away from the washstand to walk back to his armoire, she caught a view of the bulge of his groin. It strained against the towel, pushing forward as if it wanted to escape, as if it were beckoning her to come rip the towel off him and climb on. And she wanted to answer its call, by Zehu; she wanted to dive onto his bed and beg him to take her right then and there, like some slattern.

And speaking of slatterns, the horrifying thought came to her that it was possible he was washing up for Kitran, who hadn’t arrived yet. He rearranged his belongings for a moment, shut the armoire, and went to open a window. He stood there in his towel, allowing the frigid air to blow over his face and chest a few moments before closing and latching it. When he turned toward the bed, she sank back down out of sight. The bed creaked lightly under his weight, and she waited a moment longer, then rose up just enough to peek with one eye. He was stretched out on his back, the bedspread covering him up to his waist. He lay still, resting one hand over the emperor’s ruby on his chest.

The clock on the far wall ticked loudly in the silence. Three, four minutes passed, with no appearance of the washing girl. Relief began to wash over Graciella in hopes that she’d been wrong about the tryst. Now if she could just wait until he slept and manage to slip out of his room without him waking up, she’d be golden.

He turned over on his side, putting his back to her, and resettled his head into his pillow. Graciella wondered briefly what he would do if she slipped into bed beside him and snuggled up to his back. He might throw her out in disgust for sneaking around in his room, so she decided against it and rested her chin on her hands on the lid of the trunk to stare at his muscular back and wait.

Thirty minutes later she realized she was dozing a little, and her eyes flew open. The fire in the fireplace had died down to just a few glowing embers, and she could see from Yavi’s outline in the shadows that he was still in exactly the same position as before, on his side facing away from her. She cautiously rose to her feet, tiptoed around the trunk in the darkness, and stealthily approached his bed. His masculine scent of musk and bergamot reached her senses, and she had another strong urge to climb into bed with him. Instead, she leaned over the bed to try to hear his breathing.

Finally she heard a steady breath in, and a steady breath out. Steady in, steady out. She crept to the door, turned the door handle very carefully, and pulled it open just wide enough to slip into the hallway. She shut the door as silently as she’d opened it, and then hurried out of his wing as fast as her slippered feet would carry her.

Back in her room, she stripped down to wash up for bed, then threw on her nightgown and brushed out her hair. She blew out her candle, slipped under the blankets and the covering of filstoc fur, and lay still in the darkness thinking about what she’d learned tonight.

One, he hadn’t arranged a tryst with Kitran. That was foolish paranoia on her part, and she was ashamed of herself. However, it didn’t mean he wasn’t involved with Kitran for certain, so Graciella would still have to be alert for any clues about the nature of their relationship.

Two, he hadn’t wanted to spend any more time with her after dinner than was necessary. That meant she still had some work to do in attracting him, so she needed to make good use of her last night alone with him before Jiandra and Yajna returned.

Three. She’d witnessed his glorious naked body, and it was good. He had a warrior’s build, and every inch of him was well-proportioned from head to toe. Every inch, especially the generous inches that stood out from his groin. It made her squirmy and warm just thinking about it. She knew she should feel guilty for spying on him and invading his privacy in such a way, but she wouldn’t trade the view she’d gotten for anything in the world.

She rolled over, sighing. She needed a plan. Tomorrow she’d do her best to get invited to his study after dinner. Once there, she’d casually suggest they sit together on the couch, and in the midst of conversation, make another attempt to go in for a kiss. All she knew was, if she didn’t get some kind of affectionate touch from him soon, she was going to explode. She pictured herself hiking her skirts up and straddling him on the couch, then desperately hugging his face into her bosom, with him looking up at her like she was addled.

And with that picture in her head to amuse her, she drifted off to sleep.

§

A little crowd of villagers was already gathered when their coach stopped in front of the temple to Tejeshwar in Nirren. Jiandra surveyed their desperate, drawn faces, some of them carrying ill children in their arms, some of them with the sick laid out on wheeled carts. More were coming down the lane through the village, too. Thankfully she’d had a good night’s sleep at the inn in Atulya, the larger village just to the south of Nirren, because it looked like it was going to be a long day.