Chapter Twenty-Eight
“I’ve never tried to seduce a king before,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear how my voice wobbled.
“You haven’t tried to seduce anyone before.”
Xander was right. And it was why I felt a bit foolish.
“Are you certain I can’t just take off my clothes? You told me no man alive could resist me when I was naked.”
His eyes lit up with interest. “I wouldn’t advise it. Anyone could walk in. And I wouldn’t want my third act as king to be murdering the man who saw you that way.”
His words infused me, giving me strength. Challenging me. I never could back down from a challenge. I started disarming myself. It wouldn’t be a successful attempt if I accidentally stabbed him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Removing my weapons.”
“You possess others,” he said, his gaze hotly raking over my body. “Ones you cannot discard.”
“I am how the goddess made me. You can’t blame me for that.”
“I don’t. I praise her for it. Hurry.”
The shivers had already started and we weren’t even touching yet. “Be patient,” I scolded him.
“You have no idea how patient I am.” His words were heavy and thick with desire, and I again had to worry about my ability to stay upright.
“Take off your weapons,” I told him in a soft voice. I felt awkward. I was no seductress.
But he watched me like I was the most enchanting thing he’d ever seen. “Should I be worried?”
“About?”
“Our contract is ended, and as I recall, you did swear that you would kill me. Perhaps you disarm me now to carry through with your promise.” The mischievous smile on his face let me know that he was teasing.
“You are perfectly safe.”
He shook his head. “You have that look where I can’t tell if you’re planning on kissing me or stabbing me.”
“Maybe I haven’t decided yet.”
That smile turned into a grin as he continued to take off knives and daggers and dropped them onto the floor. “You’ve both kissed me and stabbed me before, so you should know which one you want more.”
“I’ve never stabbed you,” I said.
“I still have the scar on my throat.”
“That was your fault,” I reminded him. “You pushed against my blade.”
“So that I could kiss you. Of your options, I know which one I prefer.” He held his hands out to show me that he was weapon-free.
Summoning all the courage I possessed, I moved closer to him. His gaze felt weighted, like he was touching me.
Then he did touch me, as if he couldn’t help himself. He reached out and ran his fingers along the length of my hair. “You never did tell me how you got your long hair back.”
“I woke up the day of our wedding and it was like this,” I said. “I don’t know how to explain it. Io thought it was a sign.”
“A sign of what?”
That we were meant to be together. I couldn’t tell him that. “She thought the goddess was blessing our marriage.”
His expression shifted, as if considering my words. I didn’t want to talk about signs or anything like that. I just wanted to be with him.
Grateful that I wore one of my training tunics, I climbed up into his lap and straddled him.
Heat coursed through me when we made contact, my soft and warm places against his hard ones. Xander hissed a curse as I settled. His hands went to my hips, his fingers digging into my curves.
I took him by the wrists and placed his hands back on the arms of the throne. “You’re not allowed to touch me,” I said in a breathy voice. “I’m the one seducing you.”
This was an entirely necessary precaution, as I knew how easily he could make me forget myself. I felt like a novice being handed a finely honed weapon. I was more likely to cut myself than I was him.
“If you touch me,” I said, “that means that I win.”
He liked my challenge. I could see it in his eyes.
I tried to think of what to do next, the things that he had liked in the past. He seemed to have liked everything.
So perhaps I should be doing the things that I liked. His eyes were hooded and his pupils were so large, they looked like two deep pools that I could happily drown in. I reached up to the pin at his right shoulder and undid it.
“What did I just tell you about the possibility of being interrupted?” He sounded both amused and aroused.
The idea that we might be caught made it seem more exciting and strengthened my boldness. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to the base of his neck as I pushed the top of his tunic to one side. His breath caught, and he made a soft groan at the back of his throat that I both felt and heard.
I continued to softly kiss along his exposed skin, loving the warmth and feel of it. The way his muscles would tense and pulse everywhere that my lips touched him.
“How is my seduction attempt going?” I asked.
“Passable.” His judgment might have wounded me, but I could hear the strain in his voice, as if it took everything in him to hold back.
“Passable?” I repeated. “That won’t do.”
I heard his breathing, each inhale and exhale coming quicker than the one before. “You always have to be the best, don’t you, my little princess?”
It drove me wild when he called me that, but I did my best not to react. The roaring of blood in my ears made it almost impossible for me to think or speak for a few moments. “I suppose I’ll have to redouble my efforts.”
I began to kiss and taste his skin, reveling in the tautness of his muscles as he strained to hold still.
I could tell that all he wanted was to reach out and grab me.
But he was too competitive to do so. I sat up and studied him, watching the different emotions flitting through his eyes, how his mouth tensed as he drank me in.
“How does this make you feel?” I asked, putting my hand over his chest so his thundering heartbeat could move against my palm. My own beat just as hard and just as fast.
“I’m indifferent.” He could barely get the lie out.
I smiled. “Yes, I can feel your heated indifference against me.” I canted my hips and he made a strangled noise that sounded as if I had ripped it from his chest.
I was not unaffected. Threads of pleasure wound their way through me and I trembled, my skin feverishly prickling with need. But I held still.
“Do that again,” he ordered, his pretense of being unaffected completely dropped.
“I didn’t hear you say ‘please,’” I taunted him. This felt like when I had discovered I could do magic. I wanted to wield it, play with it, test my limits. It was exhilarating.
What could I do?
I ran my fingertips lightly along the ridges and planes of his torso. I let out a little sigh. “I do so enjoy your chest.”
“The feeling is entirely mutual,” he said, and his desperate tone caused crackling pleasure to race along my veins. His eyes roved over my body and the muscles in his jaw clenched when I reached up to run a finger along my own collarbone.
“I am so soft,” I breathed. “As I recall, you like how soft I am. You like many things about me.”
He didn’t respond. Given the look on his face, I wasn’t sure he could.
I returned my hand to his chest. “I like how it feels when my bare skin is against yours.”
No response. Just his ragged, broken breathing.
I thought of the night of his birthday, what his words of desire had done to me. He had given me those words. I had never done the same.
Would mine have a similar effect on him?
Longing curled and twisted low in my gut, and it gave me the nerve to continue. To be honest with him, even if it was entirely foolish. “I owe you an apology.”
He hadn’t been expecting that. “You owe me an apology for so many things you’ll have to be more specific,” he teased.
“I think I control the dreams. And the nightmares. I didn’t realize it until recently, but it seems that they come from me.”
“You didn’t have to resort to dreams if you wanted me. You only had to ask. And climb into my lap,” he said, looking down at where my body pressed against his.
“The dreams started on the Nikos,” I said, rocking against him once, twice, before stopping. “I wanted you to be with me. To feel what I was feeling, to touch me the way that I longed to touch you.”
“You’re finally admitting that you want me?”
“I do want you,” I said. “Then, now, I always want you.”
His eyes darkened. “Are you saying these things to win your game?”
I shook my head. “I’m saying them because they’re true.”
His pulse beat so hard at the base of his throat that I could see it. I leaned forward to kiss it quickly before continuing.
“I’ve never told you how safe you make me feel. How all day long I wait for the moment that I get to lie in your arms because I know nothing will happen to me so long as you’re there.”
The knot in his neck bobbed slowly.
“I haven’t admitted how I’ve become an oath-breaker. I’m not going to kill Thrax. I’m not going to kill you. But I can hardly hang on to my vows when you kiss me. And worse, I’m not sure that I want to.”
“Don’t tell me that,” he pleaded with a groan.
I continued my exploration of his torso. I didn’t think I would ever tire of doing so. “You told me once that you could satisfy my curiosity. But there is so much I’m curious about.”
“Such as?” His heated voice was thick in his throat.
“What it will feel like when you’re inside me, and how I ache when I think about it.”
He growled in a way that completely thrilled me, his eyes turning hazy and unfocused. He gripped the arms of his throne so tightly that his knuckles went white.
“Have you imagined that?” I asked innocently.
“Many, many times. Can I touch you now?”
“Not if you want to win,” I said, despite the fact that my stomach quivered and desire beat through my superheated blood. “You’ve done so many amazing things to me, and I think constantly about how to return the favor. How I could use my mouth on you to—”
He groaned and swore and then his lips were on mine, his arms around me. At first I gloried in the fact that I had won, and then I gloried that he was touching me.
He slid his tongue into my mouth and I moaned in response. Complete and total bliss. I melted against him as he turned my blood into liquid sun. Burning and bright and more than I could take.
I instinctually moved against him because of the unbelievable pleasure it gave me, and the promise of what was to come next. He let out a ragged groan of approval.
Especially once I realized that the faster I went, the better it felt.
“So beautiful,” he murmured in a raspy voice. “So good. So, so good.”
Pressure built, accompanied by shooting stars and heated sparks that twisted and swirled inside me. So many parts of me ached in a way I didn’t completely understand. His kisses kept pace with me, twining his tongue with mine over and over again.
The hardest part of this was that it didn’t feel wrong. It never had. It had always felt fated, as if the goddess herself had decreed our relationship.
I needed more of whatever this was. Molten fire radiated through me until I felt like I might burst. Somehow I knew that there was an ecstasy waiting for me, I just had to reach it.
“Lia . . .” His frayed words were against my lips. “I’m going to—”
His body arched, drawn taut, and he shuddered as he roared my name.