Author's Note: For the Dark Lady Adrienne, my darling Beth, because I love her so. J My first ever Kel/Joren bit. I need to learn to write drabbles better. ::sigh:: Did this for a challenge meme on my livejournal. Check my profile for the link and leave me a challenge! It's one of the most recent entries!
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Ms. Tamora Pierce!
Perfect
Keladry of Mindelan had always thought that there was something decidedly perfect about Joren of Stone Mountain, as much as she wished she could hate him. In a flash he was the perfect gentleman (if sometimes the slightest bit aloof), the perfect knight, the perfect opponent in a sword match--all flying steel and flawlessly executed attacks, the perfect enemy. The perfect lover.
Keladry had hated him since the day she met him, at the time, nothing but a lowly "probationary page."
He knew the perfect ways to get under her skin. He always had.
When she was younger, it had been snide comments, his aloof demeanor; the things he'd made her do as a naive page.
But now, now in her second year as a squire, it was something entirely different. It was that look he gave her. That perfect look that said everything through glittering blue eyes and that smirk of his that he couldn't have said better using every single word he knew.
You, Keladry of Mindelan, are mine.
He was right, of course. He always was, and that annoyed Kel to no foreseeable end.
He knew the perfect way to brush by her in the halls to make her turn and look at his retreating form. He knew exactly how to pull her into the concealing darkness his room--or hers, depending--and kiss her in just that sinfully, disgustingly perfect way, knew the exact way to touch her to make her knees buckle. He knew the words to murmur in the quiet after their love making.
She would spend hours on end wondering. Just wondering. How did he know her so well? Why had he initiated this dalliance of theirs? Why couldn't she get his crystal blue eyes out of her head?
Why did he have to be so gods damned perfect?
Why couldn't she control her thoughts enough to hate him like she was supposed to? He'd done everything in his power to torment her as a squire. Granted, he'd changed since then, but to what extent?
He still could make her scowl with just a look; insult her with the slightest ghost of a smirk. He knew how much control he had over her, and he knew it well.
She told herself time and time again that she should hate him, but she couldn't help herself when he'd favor her with that occasional real smile. When he kissed her so very softly on the lips.
She couldn't help it. She loved the bastard anyway. To her, he was perfect.