Then, because humoring him for fifteen minutes would be much faster than arguing with him, she did just that. After all, it wasn’t as if she had never worn makeup before. She had worn makeup countless times. During the Roman Empire, she’d had a cosmetae just for the purpose of putting on her cosmetics. She had worn her face and hair powdered in the Rococo style, in mid-eighteenth-century France. She had grown to find the canvass of her own face so utterly boring she had walked away from all of it long ago.
But for Rune to take such a ludicrous notion into his head, to do this here, now. It turned something that had become old, cynical and eventually tedious into something utterly strange, erotic and somehow touching.
She gripped the edge of the counter with both hands in the effort to hold still as he made love to her face. He stroked brushes over her sensitive skin. He prompted her to tilt her head with a featherlight touch of fingers and barely audible murmur. She felt the heat of his body burn against the outside of her knee as he leaned his hip against her leg. She smelled the scent of his arousal as she listened to the sound of his unhurried breathing and the light shift of cloth against skin when he moved.
It was clear that he had no agenda of seducing her into sex, and none of it felt like objectification. He merely enjoyed her, and it was such a new experience it threw her back to that first new experience, that terrifying time when she was made up with kohl, green malachite and red ochre so that she could seduce a god. How strange, that something that happened so long ago could still have the power to fill her eyes with tears.
Or maybe that was just Rune, reawakening her soul.
And she let him.
“Purse your lips,” Rune murmured.
She did, and he kissed her mouth with soft lipstick. She opened her eyes the merest sliver to look at his quiet, intent face. The light from over the bathroom mirror shone in his eyes and filled them with light. He put a forefinger under her chin to hold her in place as he studied her.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m done.”
She opened her eyes. They stared at each other. His gaze dilated, fixed totally on her. He wiped the edge of her lower lip with the corner of his thumb, and breathed, “‘She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that’s best of dark and bright Meets in her aspect and her eyes.’ Darling, you have always been gorgeous but now you are now officially the shit.”
One corner of her mouth trembled, and lifted. “You really think so?”
“I know so,” he said, and his voice was lower, rougher than it had been before. He pulled her off the counter and turned her to face the mirror, and once again, she stared at herself. She ignored her own features to concentrate on the deft delicacy with which he had enlarged her eyes, emphasized the high cheekbones, and brightened her full mouth. He had not put a single brush stroke wrong. She looked bright and beautiful, and she glowed like a cherished woman.
Cherished.
She leaned back against his chest. He put his arms around her. Their eyes met again in the mirror, that elegant dangerous Rune and the strange new woman, and the impact of the connection was as raw as when Paris and Helen first looked into each others’ eyes and brought a world of gods and men to war.
Or maybe that was just the cyclone that roared into the bathroom to coalesce into the tall figure of a haughty prince.
Carling and Rune both turned as one to look at Khalil.
The Djinn held out his hand. On the broad white palm lay a black, half-crushed length. Time had corroded it so badly it was barely recognizable as a knife.
FIFTEEN
Rune stood like stone, his body clenched.
Carling reached out slowly to pick up the knife and closed her fist around it. She looked up at Khalil’s strange diamond-like gaze. The Djinn was watching her, head cocked, his expression filled with curiosity.
However, he did not ask for an explanation. Instead, he said, “This completes the second of the three favors I have owed you.”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “Thank you, Khalil.”
He inclined his head. Something else flickered across his spare features, and in a rare gesture, he touched her fingers. Then he disappeared in a whirlwind of Power.
Carling turned to Rune. He was staring at her fist, the skin around his mouth white. A vein in his temple throbbed visibly.