Already his distraction as proving effective; Acton felt his earlier frustration washed away as soon as her leonine eyes turned on him.
He has never had trouble talking to women – certain women, anyway. It was the keeping that proved difficult; he was too brash, too immature, too reactive. Beyond that, he was just uninterested in a relationship that carried more than a couple days; he’d seen Reich and his lifelong string of lovers, had watched the way that relationships could make a fool out of even the most stolid, logical horses (Raum, for instance; a fact that he’d never let the Ghost live down).
No – Acton had no interest in any of that. But he loved to look, to talk, to touch. That first smile was always a little like the feeling he got on stage after performing his first trick, a rush of applause that warmed his blood.
And hers was no different.
The buckskin was pleased by her response – the irreverence of it that matched his own – though he only let it show through a quirk of his brow. “Not by my standards,” he answered her. Oh, if she knew he was the source (or one of, anyway) of much of the strain between Denocte and the others – how would her striking, setting-sun eyes see him then? “But nobody has told me what our honored guests might consider disobedience.”
Care to enlighten me? the spark of his amber gaze asked her, but this time it didn’t linger long; he looked past her to the bright courtyard, where early spring light fell on the stones and the green beginnings of wildflowers. It was not a day for staying indoors, not with a breeze this warm, not with a stranger this intriguing.
“Have you had a tour yet?” His gaze swept back to her, lingering again on the tones of her coat, the silver of her hair. Acton was reminded of the bruised, rich colors of storm at sunset. Certainly he could feel something like electricity just below his own skin. “I could show you anything but the library. Not sure I remember where that is.” Another teasing grin; no sense in waiting to find out which Dawn Court stereotypes were true.
@Liesel terribly keen xD
these violent delights have violent ends
