“You’re a sneaky man, Robin Hood,” she said, taking his elbow when he offered it to her.
“In my line of work you have to be. And if you are no longer a genie, then at least while not within the safety of my camp, I too must be someone else.”
“Oh.” She grinned. “I think I’ve got a few names in mind.”
*
They walked through the stalls together, and if it seemed odd to others that she was definitely not from around there, no one acted much bothered by it.
The men walking through the stalls looked much like Robin did. Wearing dun-colored breaches and leather boots, of course he looked much more stately and sexy than the rest of them. The women were dressed much more covered up than she was, though. From their necks to their ankles, not a bit of flesh showed.
Unlike her pants that did absolutely nothing to hide the shape of her body, not to mention the top that showed off a good three inches of her belly and pushed the ladies up to nearly obscene proportions.
But this was Kingdom, not the medieval ages. Women like her weren’t all that uncommon here. Vendor after vendor attempted to catch their eye, waving piles of silks and undergarments at them.
Robin shrugged. “Any favorites?” he asked, looking at her.
He looked like money; it was no wonder everyone was salivating to get at them. Nixie shrugged. “I don’t care. Just pick the least obnoxious one.”
His fingers tightened around her elbow, making her feel like she’d just been burnt by a hot iron. Her entire body tingled with a rush of blood, all of it centering on where he now touched her.
Nixie cleared her throat, chanting to herself that her reactions to the man were merely a result of needing to get laid. She barely paid any attention to where he guided her, deciding to step off to the side and let him handle the sales.
In this, Robin was more of the fashion expert. Every part of Kingdom seemed to be divided into its own little portion of a fairytale; here, things were more medieval. Which yeah, she’d missed that period by…oh a couple thousand years, give or take.
Nixie tuned them out for a while, until jewelry got involved in the picture.
Robin tilted the golden circlet in his hand, glancing at the vendor. An overweight woman missing both her front teeth. Her bloodshot eyes practically gleamed with greed.
“And you’re sure,” he drawled slowly, “that a circlet is the latest in women’s fashion?”
Nix covered her mouth with her hand. Robin wasn’t an idiot, he knew as well as she that the middle-aged woman was trying to play him for a fool. Not that she could blame the chick—that circlet alone was probably worth a year’s salary.
“Aye, absolutely sure. And if you’ll note the brilliance of the jade inset”—she pointed to the polished oval shaped gemstone—“it’s a truly one of a kind piece. Fit for a princess.”
Brows rising, Nixie fought the smile trying to take over her face. “Well, you heard the lady, Charming”—they’d agreed not to use his name because there was one aspect of his story that was absolutely dead on, Robin was a wanted man—“a princess is deserving of no less.”
“Indeed.” His eyes glowed with the promise of retribution. Robin might have a pocket full of infinite gold, but that didn’t mean the man wasn’t a skinflint. Looking back at the brown-eyed merchant who was practically drooling with the sale, he nodded. “You heard my lady, madam. We’ll take it. And any other baubles beside,” he hastily added when she lifted a finger to point out a section of ear bobs.
“Oh, thank ye, Prince Charming. Truly, thank ye.” The gal bobbed, doing an odd looking curtsy before bagging the gown, shoes, corset, stockings, jewels, etcetera into a bag.
“Prince Charming, my royal arse,” Robin bit out under his breath, casting Nixie another annoyed glare.
But she knew it was all in fun.
“Hey, you left me to decide the names,” she leaned in to whisper in his ear, pressing her body into his as she spoke.
The air between them sparked with a white-hot flare of heat when his electrifying blue eyes turned toward her dark ones.
Lifting a hand, he trailed his knuckles down her cheek, breaking her out in a wash of warmth that made her stomach sink into her knees.
“I did at that, Marian.”
Nixie grabbed his wrist. She didn’t know if she meant to pull it away, but she wound up just curling her fingers around it instead, wondering if he could read the chaos of her mind through her eyes.
Their look was so intense, so powerful, that the world around them faded down to nothing but pinpricks of blurred color. She wasn’t standing in a busy shopping stall, there wasn’t an imposing castle—the very one Robin wanted to penetrate—just a few paces behind them, or a woman cramming as many wares as she could fit into her enormously oversized bag…it was just them.