When the words slipped out of him, Yuri couldn't be sure which one of them was more surprised.
There they were, tangled up in his bed. The inn below was quiet now, moonlight spilling in through his window, and Repede was out in the hallway. She was on top of him, her hair spilling out of its bun, the breath no longer quite heaving out of her, skin glistening with sweat in the pale light. Neither of them naked, because when they did this it was often too spontaneous for getting all the way out of their clothes.
There she was, straddling his lap, wet and hot around his dick, fingers curled against his chest, and as he gazed up at her, watched her eyes slip shut and her lips part with lazy satisfaction, somehow he'd said it.
"You don't have to go, you know."
Her eyes snapped open, and he had to resist the urge to slap himself in the face.
It was the afterglow talking, obviously. Wouldn't have been the first time that unguarded moment had made him do or say something stupid. Wouldn't have been the first time he'd seen it happen to someone else. But this time was different. This time, five little words might have ruined everything.
Judy's gaze was so intense, for just a few seconds. Then she blinked, and her eyes were lidded, almost sensual. Her smile was easy and noncommittal. And she was already sliding out of his lap, even as she said, "What a sweet, thoughtful offer."
From anyone else, Yuri would have called the whole display sensual - flirtatious - teasing. From Judy, he'd come to recognize it as a diversion. She wanted to distract him and then slip away before he knew what had happened. If he let her go, it would be weeks before he next saw her again, and a lot longer before he next saw a real, genuine smile.
He shouldn't have said anything, and definitely not what he had. It was just that she'd looked - so beautiful, face flushed and eyes unfocused... soft, for once. Well, at least he hadn't reached up to cup her cheek, the way he'd wanted to. That would've made everything even worse.
But he couldn't let her go now, not like this. He'd just have to... push forward, and hope it didn't push her away.
Yuri reached out and caught her wrist.
She went very still. It would've been so easy to miss the tiny tremor, the twitch in her shoulder as she almost yanked her arm free and literally ran from the room. It would've been so easy to believe the smooth smile she offered instead, less than a second later.
"Ooh," she said. "Are you going to be rough with me this time? That might be fun..."
He smiled back at her fleetingly, but he didn't let go of her wrist. "I said you don't have to go. You don't have to stay, either."
Judy's eyes darted over his face, but if anything her smile was even smoother now. "Those certainly are all of my options," she agreed. "It's very nice of you to list them."
Yuri let himself grin at her wit. "...I guess I'm just trying to say, I wouldn't - mind if you stayed."
Her lips curved high, but he could feel her pulse between his thumb and forefinger. Her heart was beating so hard.
But there was nothing else he could say. Every word out of his mouth so far had only made her even more tense. And as long as he'd known her, he still had no idea how she was going to react now. Really, it was always like this with her. She was beautiful, powerful, and deadly, but for all her predatory grace she could be as skittish as a wild quietta when cornered. If you approached her too quickly, sometimes she just ran.
All he could do now was hold his breath, and wait.
It couldn't have been another thirty seconds, but every second felt like an hour before she finally relaxed against him and said, so sweetly insinuating, "On this little bed?"
This time, the grin came much more easily. "I don't think I could buy a bigger one at this hour, even if I really wanted to."
Judy gazed at him measuringly for a beat. "Then maybe I'll stay tomorrow night," she pronounced, almost completely back to her usual whimsical self.
He let go of her wrist, and wasn't surprised when she bent her head to kiss him and he felt her weight shifting off the bed in the same moment. He told himself, At least I said something, and tried to pretend that made it better. "Does that mean I'll be seeing you tomorrow?" he teased, light and soft.
Her eyes flashed as she bent to gather up her strewn clothes. "It depends," she said, already making her way to his door.
Yuri was curious in spite of himself. "On what?" he asked, turning to prop himself up with an elbow. He didn't really expect an honest answer. Why should she help him, when this obviously wasn't something she wanted to have happen?
She paused, her hand on the doorknob, and he thought she smiled at him over her shoulder but it was hard to be sure with her so far from the moonlit window. "On how much I like the bed," she told him sweetly, and then she was gone.
Leaving him to spend the rest of the night wondering, not for the first time, if he'd misjudged her completely.
He wouldn't really know until tomorrow night. Maybe this was a new way of brushing him off, since the usual thing hadn't worked - but he didn't think so, somehow. He'd seen her lie before, and she did it with shameless ease. There had been nothing shameless, or easy, about any of this.
Slowly, Yuri sat up in bed. He retraced the entire conversation in his mind, from his first thoughtless word to her exit. He remembered her tension, the way she'd stared at him so... searchingly.
And then he slammed his fist into wall, because he was an idiot and he deserved the burst of pain. How long had he known her? How many years had he spent, misjudging her constant smiling distance?
It wasn't that she didn't want to stay the night. He was sure of that now. What he'd seen on her face in the moonlight and even in the shadows hadn't been impatience or irritation. She wasn't annoyed with him for ruining a good thing. She was... afraid.
The one word he'd never have thought he would ever be applying to Judy.
Well, he thought, settling back down again, he would just have to get the best bed he could find. He would just have to give her the reason she needed to stay.