Chapter Six
IT HAD BEEN difficult to keep his hands off of her when he had been in her room. And the dark thoughts that had taken hold of him had almost made it more difficult, instead of easier.
Part of him wanted to push her. She wanted to use her body to manipulate him then…
Maybe he could show her.
Show her that if it became like that, he would have power over her too.
No.
He was not going to do that.
She was nothing more than another tool that he was using to bolster his country, and he would not allow her to become more than that. He got her itinerary, and didn’t read it before he printed it off. But once he did read it, he found himself storming toward the study where she asked to meet him.
“Dancing?”
“People do love a dance,” she said, standing up from the chair that she was sitting in.
She was dressed in a white dress that fell just past her knees, the fabric diaphanous.
Nearly see-through. It flowed when she moved, the bodice molded to her breasts.
She looked like a virgin sacrifice. A goddess of old sent from Valhalla.
The lust that gripped him was visceral. Beyond reason. It nearly blinded him.
And he felt his ancestors rising up inside of him. If he had a sword by his side he would’ve brandished it now and roared. Threatened to slay all enemies. Just for her.
“I don’t,” he said. “And I will not be doing it.”
“I can dance with other men, but that will create conversation.”
“If I don’t dance, there doesn’t need to be a dance.”
“It’s a party,” she said. “There will be spectacular food, music and dancing. People enjoy it.”
“It is opulence.”
“People like opulence. And your people deserve a bit of opulence. Which is why I have suggested that a certain number of citizens should be invited to this.”
“I’m not opposed.” He was attempting to cool down the fire in his blood. “However, I am opposed to dancing.”
“Why?”
He gritted his teeth. “I don’t know how to do it.”
“Is that all? I am an excellent dancer. Because of course I had to be, because I was being fashioned into a lovely, biddable puppet to best represent my country as the sort of feminine woman that my father wished me to be. I can teach you how to dance.”
“Teach me?”
“Yes. Teach you. You wanted me to teach you things, and I can. But you don’t get to be picky about what it is I teach you. How can you know what you don’t know?”
“This is ridiculous.”
She picked up a remote control and pointed it at the corner of the room, and music began to play.
“Don’t be silly.”
She crossed the space and draped her hand over his shoulder.
On instinct, he put his hand on her waist. And he regretted it instantly. His fingertips burned. The dress was as thin as he had thought it was. He looked closely, he could see the shape of her pert breasts beneath that thin fabric.
It had been his opinion that pursuing sex would be a distraction as he had been reestablishing his country.
He saw now that it had been a mistake to deprive himself.
Because he was on edge. On edge in a way he certainly wouldn’t be if it had been more recently that he had satisfied himself.
Surely then he would not be half so taken in by the feel of her beneath his palm.
“Come on,” she said. “I’m going to lead, just for the moment. I’m sure that you’ll pick it up.”
And then she was counting, as she gripped his hand in hers and began to guide him along. Her steps were decisive, perfectly in rhythm. He could hear the rhythm. He could feel it. He was used to the hoofbeats of his horse, the pounding of his heart, establishing the tempo.
He could understand dancing in that sense. But he was distracted. Wholly and completely by the warmth of her body. By the shape of her.
The incendiary beauty when she looked into his eyes. All that green.
The song switched to something faster, and her steps picked up as well.
And soon, he had simply lost hold of himself. The time, the place, and why he had objected to the dance in the first place. There was nothing but this. But her. But him. There was no world outside these walls and it made him feel like he was something different than he had been all these years.
Perhaps a man and not simply a king.
The music changed again, this time going slow.
He found himself tightening his hold on her, his hand on her waist moving lower as he brought her body in closer to his. Her breasts touched his chest and he felt a shiver move through her body.
She looked up at him, and her cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkling.
She wanted him.
That much was clear. She was responding to his nearness, his touch.
As if you aren’t being taken in by her.
For this moment, it didn’t matter. As long as he knew what was happening. This was a dancing lesson and he was enjoying having a woman in his arms again. There would be no broader implications. Nothing that reached beyond that.
It was just a moment.
And in the moment it was all that was real.
“You lead,” she whispered.
And then she was no longer guiding the steps. He took over, patterning his movements after hers. They moved together, the seamless rhythm shocking him as they hit each step in sync. Another man would be tempted to make a metaphor from it, but he didn’t believe in romanticizing things.
He didn’t believe in romance at all.
But the heat being generated between them now wasn’t romance. What it was, though, was impossible to deny.
They were spinning around the room; he moved as if he were on air, and she was in the clouds with him. Perhaps that was close to romance as he would ever get.
Then he backed her up against the bookcase on the wall, without realizing he had gotten so close.
She gasped, and his body brushed hers. They were still then, only an inch of space between their mouths. He could claim her like this. Make her his wife in truth rather than just in name. He could lower his head and claim her mouth now. Taste her. Consume her.
She wanted him.
She was… She was enticing him.
He let out a hard breath and pushed away from her.
“I think you’ve proven your point. You are certainly an excellent teacher.”
“You’re an excellent student,” she said, her voice sounding scratchy.
She seemed undone enough that he had to wonder if it was as calculated as he had let himself believe for a moment.
But the truth was, it didn’t matter what the truth was. The truth was, he was better off believing that she was a potential adversary, rather than simply believing she was a woman caught up in the moment as he was a man wrapped up in it as well.
“What else do we need to go over?”
“Probably manners.”
She moved away from him. He had to hold back a growl.
“Are my manners lacking?”
“They could be a little bit more polished.”
“Perhaps you simply don’t understand my culture.”
“I believe that you have a distinct culture here, don’t mistake me. I just also believe that you personally have been out of society for enough time that you probably need a little bit of help. It isn’t just about your culture now, it’s about global relations anyway.”
“I probably had excellent manners at one time. Pity that it’s lost along with everything else.”
She turned toward the bookcase and touched a blue spine, then looked at him. “You really don’t remember anything?”
“No. Nothing.”
He didn’t feel inclined to elaborate. So he wouldn’t.
“Did people have a lot of questions for you when you…when you appeared?”
“No,” he said. “I’ve barely talked to anyone who isn’t part of my…”
“Your personal military attaché?”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“People will have questions for you. They’re going to want to hear your story.
Eventually, all of the people in your country are going to want to hear your story.
And why wouldn’t they? I was reading up on the history of your country.
You’re part of the history of this country.
And people are going to want to know everything. ”
“They don’t need to know everything.”
“Well, maybe you can figure out something to tell them. About how you lived, about how you saved them. You’re so difficult sometimes.”
“I wasn’t aware that entertainment was in the job description.”
“But you know that it is. Because people want to feel like they know and understand their leaders. I’m sorry if it seems silly to you, but it is true.
One of the reasons my father is able to get away with being so slimy behind the scenes is that he is so charismatic when he’s on stage.
He’s a man who understands that he has an audience.
And that the audience has to be played too.
Understandably, your country has been in survival mode.
And so things have been different for you.
But somehow, all those years ago, your relatively happy, harmonious country was overthrown.
And the horrendous dictator that led the charge was supported by your people at first. People blame their problems on the government.
That’s just the way it is. Even if the government didn’t cause them.
Their anger and their desperation allowed them to walk right into authoritarianism. ”
“Are you implying that charisma on my part might prevent that from happening again, or rather that a monosyllabic answer might send us tumbling back into the Dark Ages?”
“Yes. Yes, I am saying that. People want to feel a connection from you. I know that you care. I know that you lived, to spite everyone. Despite everything. That you survived for these people. They should know it too. They should understand how much you do care.”
“Do you really think that people want to hear about the days and weeks and months that we spent camping out in the wilderness, trying to evade detection? Do you think they want to know that I lived as a farmhand? What kind of confidence will that instill in them?”
“Plenty. You are truly a man of the people. You fought for them. You have lived for them so strongly up until this point. And I think that you should talk about it. This is what you have me for. Whether you realize it or not. It isn’t just about royal protocol. You need somebody to make you human.”
“I don’t want to be human. Humans are weak. They are weak and they are susceptible to cold, to fear and to hunger. Exhaustion and hopelessness. A symbol cannot experience any of those things. I would rather that they saw me as a warrior.”
“Does it have less to do with how people want to see you and more to do with what you want? Because you don’t want to feel those things anymore?”
“If you think that you can trick me into some sort of sharing moment, you will find yourself disappointed.”
“If you don’t want to share with me, then you don’t have to.”
“You sound like a kindergarten teacher.”
“You’re acting a little bit like a kindergartner.”
Her gaze went steely. There was something about that challenge that ignited a flame inside of Ragnar. What he wanted to do was close the distance between them and push her up against the bookcase. He wanted to bring his mouth down on hers. She was being insolent. A brat.
One thing he could not recall was the last time a woman—anyone—had challenged him. Not outside of a life-or-death situation, at least. And so it created this bonfire of adrenaline inside of him that left him breathless and trembling with the intensity of it, yet also gave him no immediate relief.
Because what he truly wanted, he could not have.
“I will go to your ball. And I will dance with you,” he said, moving toward her, his heart raging now.
He felt dangerously close to being out of control, and that was not something he had experienced in a very long time.
He didn’t like how raw it made him feel.
How precarious. How much it reminded him of…
Of something he didn’t want to know about.
“But I will not be manipulated into sharing. I will not be manipulated—”
“And why are you so convinced that I am manipulative? What is it that makes you think I’m trying to trick you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Except that I have watched you. I have watched you play your father, and I am not convinced that you aren’t playing me.”
“And what makes you feel that you would be vulnerable to that?”
He growled and moved toward her, trapping her between his arms, pressed against the bookcase. He glared down at her. “I told you. I’m not sharing my feelings.”
She smelled like the field that he had found her in. Like spring, fresh and new. Like the kind of tender hope he himself could not recall ever experiencing. She was devastating to him, and it made him want to beat his chest. It made him want to start a war.
It made him…
She reached up and touched his face, and he drew back. It broke the spell.
“Do not,” he said.
“Ragnar,” she said, her voice steady. “What are you afraid of?”
He laughed. “I’m not afraid of anything. Are you? But perhaps you should be.”
“I’m not impressed by dark muttering. I’m not impressed by the way that you deflect constantly. You’ve turned it back around to me, when we were talking about you.”
“I did not choose to talk about me. You did.”
“Maybe I’m not thinking clearly. But it seems to me that there is something,” she said gently, slowly. He didn’t like it.
“There is nothing,” he said.
And he felt like he needed to claim control of the situation. Felt like he had no choice. “The only thing it’s bringing up, is this.”
And then he closed the distance between them, and claimed her mouth with his.