Though, as I turned to leave, her voice rang out to stop me.
"I see. So you’re abandoning me in this lonely chamber at this early hour?"
I turned back. One eye was open, watching me with a look that straddled the line between performative disgust and mischievous scheming.
I didn’t think such a specific look could exist, but there it was, plain as day on her perfect face.
"I thought you were asleep," I said in my defense.
"That was my design, yes," she replied primly. "I wanted to see how you’d treat me in such a delicate position. Would you be gentle and sweet, or would you give into your basest urges and attempt to sample my virginal flesh?"
I shrugged. "The thought had occurred to me, but I did the first thing you mentioned."
Then she frowned, looking around. "Oh. This is not your room. Meaning, I suppose, you intend to leave me here to sleep on my own and not even return later."
I scratched the back of my head. "I mean, that’s what we did last night," I muttered.
She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling with theatrical melancholy. "How disappointing. I suppose I shall suffer here alone, cold and abandoned, fantasizing about what might have been."
"Did you... want to share my bed?" I asked, hesitating by the door.
She flopped onto her stomach with a huff. "Not if you’re going to be so crass as to ask directly," she mumbled into the pillow. "Where’s the spontaneity? You were supposed to carry me there, spurred on by your own urges. Asking politely is so... lame."
"I thought asking for consent was the gentlemanly thing to do."
Silence. Pure silence, save for her throwing the covers over her head.
I shrugged and headed for the door. There was always tomorrow. I wasn’t about to try to correct the course now.
"Wait!" she squawked, sitting bolt upright. "You were actually going to leave? Just like that? Without even attempting to persuade me?"
"You literally just gave me the cold shoulder. What was I supposed to do, throw you over my shoulder like a caveman?"
Instead of answering, she furrowed her brow, held out her arms, and made grabbing motions.
"You are fucking impossible," I muttered, but I was already walking back to scoop her up.
"Anything of value takes some effort to maintain," she cooed as I carried her to my room. "I am of extreme value, therefore there is a bit of a learning curve, perhaps. But you’re doing well so far, all things considered."
"If you say so," I grumbled, but it was hard to be mad at her since, in the end, she was about as bad at playing hard-to-get and tough-to-please as I was at reading her mind in the first place.
My bedroom was dominated by my California king-sized bed, which was a luxury I allowed myself since, you know, I had hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank.
I set the elfmaid down and started removing my own armor, setting it aside neatly to deal with later.
When I peeled off my sweat-soaked shirt, I caught her watching me in the mirror before she quickly pretended to notice something interesting about the ceiling fan.
Down to my boxers, I turned to face her. "I should shower first," I muttered. "I’m sweaty. And covered with monster stuff."
The elven beauty reached lazily in my direction and snapped her fingers, then wiggled them.
A second or two later, a thin, pale stream of light emanated from them in my general direction.
It took me a moment to realize that she just used some elven purification magic on me or something, because the blood, at least, was gone—but not necessarily the rest of the stink.
"I still need to clean up," I noted. "But that’s a neat trick."
She shook her head and patted the mattress beside her.
Wincing, I crawled into bed. She immediately attached herself to me like a sexy little leech.
"You smell like heroism," she murmured against my chest. "And exertion. And slightly still like behemoth innards, but I can let that one go."
"That’s just a fancy way of saying I reek."
She shook her head. "It’s intoxicating. Very masculine. Makes me feel safe." Then she pulled back and fired up her frequently weaponized eyelashes. "Though perhaps a bath wouldn’t be such a bad idea for me. I have used magic to keep myself fresh since I arrived, but a bath would be very relaxing."
"You didn’t earn it. You sat on a log," I protested. "That hardly warrants a full bathing ritual."
"The chilly night air is harsh on my skin," she countered smoothly. "Besides, you promised to pamper me if I exerted myself, and I’ll have you know that maintaining proper posture while spectating and cheering for you was very stressful."
I smirked. "Figure the tub out for yourself."
Her resulting pout could’ve launched a thousand ships. A moment later I found myself trudging to the bathroom, defeated by a five-foot-nothing-on-a-good-day princess with the fortitude of a soap bubble.
I filled the tub with hot water, adding bubble bath mix to it too. Yes, I had bubble bath mix. Shut up.
When I returned, Elsa was sitting up in bed, her cheeks strangely pink.
"I know I didn’t truly earn such treatment," she admitted, suddenly shy. "But would you... help me bathe? My chambermaids used to assist me, you see, and I find I rather miss the companionship."
Every sensible part of my brain started flashing warning signals, but they were all drowned out by Grey 2: The Dickening making executive decisions on my behalf.
"Sure," I heard myself say a bit hoarsely. "If that’s what you want."
Her face lit up like Christmas and her birthday had both arrived at once.
In the bathroom, steam curled around us as she slowly pulled her pajama top over her head, revealing the red lingerie we’d bought earlier.
My mouth went Sahara-dry as she slipped out of her shorts, then reached behind to unhook her bra with grace.
She hesitated only a heartbeat before sliding off her panties.
Standing before me, she looked so perfect, so indescribably beautiful that I felt a little guilty for witnessing her nudity at all.
She was petite but imposingly busty, with pale skin that shone from her sweat under the yellow bathroom lights.
Her taut, athletic figure, which somehow seemed waxed to perfection from the chin down, made me so immediately turned on that I worried I might tear through the fabric of my boxers.
"What a savage beast you are after all. You’re staring so intensely," she noted softly, but I didn’t miss the pleased tone of her voice.
"Can you blame me?" I managed, but my vocabulary beyond that was more or less reduced to caveman grunts.
She shook her head and held out her hand. "Help me in, Sir Grey? My champion?"