The Executed Empress Proposed to His Scarred Brother novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: Hands on the Glass
The carpenters went home at midnight and left four lanterns burning on the scaffold.
Iseult stood at the tower window in her nightgown and could not stop looking.
Black cloth hung from the rail, and the boards were new and pale.
It was exactly the height she remembered, to the hand's breadth.
Behind her, Ilarion had finished banking the fire.
He crossed the stone floor without a word and she heard him stop at her back.
His chest was warm against her shoulder blades.
"You've been at this window for an hour," he said.
"I know."
"Come to bed."
"I can't stop looking at it."
He did not ask what it was.
He took her by the shoulders, very gently, and turned her until her face was toward the glass and her back was against him.
"Then look at it with me," said Ilarion. "Hands on the window."
She laid both palms flat on the cold pane.
Through the iron bars outside, the Courtyard of Bells lay below her in the lantern light, small and far and silent.
His hands slid down her arms and gathered the hem of her nightgown.
He lifted it slowly over her hips, up her back, and over her head, and dropped it to the floor.
The cold air touched her bare skin.
The glass was icy under her palms, and his body was warm behind her, and the combination made her shudder.
"Someone could see," she whispered.
"It's four floors up. No one is looking."
"The guards."
"Are on the stair, and they can't see around a corner." His mouth moved against her ear. "Keep your hands where they are."
His fingers traced down the line of her spine and over the full curve of her bottom.
One thick finger slid between her legs from behind and she gasped, and her breath fogged a patch of the glass.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Executed Empress Proposed to His Scarred Brother are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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