Chapter Seven
SHE HAD PUSHED him into this. She couldn’t lie to herself. She had wanted it. She couldn’t lie to herself about that either.
But she wasn’t prepared for it. He claimed her mouth like the conqueror he was.
It was an absolute undeniable conquest. His mouth was hot and firm, forceful. She parted her lips for him, and he claimed yet more ground. Sliding his tongue against hers. The guttural moan that rattled through him sending a sharp shock of pleasure down between her legs.
This was desire. All at once, she understood.
She had so deliberately held herself back from it.
And who wouldn’t? When your whole life already belonged to a man you didn’t want, why would you ever let yourself think about sex, about desire or about what being married would mean?
She had deliberately shut that part of herself down.
And now, here it was, awake, alive with the pleasure that he was creating in her body.
This was the kind of thing that she had feared for all of these years.
And here it was. It wasn’t scary. It was glorious. The kiss was hot and slick and created a cascade of sensations that weren’t confined only to her mouth. She could feel him everywhere. It was like a brand that heated her entire body. That scorched her from the inside out.
His hands were large, and he moved them down and grabbed hold of her hips as he continued to kiss her, deeper and harder.
Like everything else about him, there was nothing soft or tender.
But she would rather have that. The honesty of this moment. Free of…manipulation.
He was so very afraid of manipulation.
Just as that thought passed through her head, he pulled away from her. And she could breathe again. Except she didn’t want oxygen; she wanted him.
And suddenly she was furious. That he had accused her of manipulating him. When he had all this power. All this experience. When she had been left with no choice but to use the cleverness at her disposal in order to turn the situation into anything other than captivity. Lifelong captivity for her.
Why was it wrong for her to try to get whatever she could out of this? Why was it wrong? It made no sense.
His worries were those of a man. Knowing that emotions that he hadn’t cared for or honed could be used against him.
That his baser appetites could be used against him.
While her worries were those of a woman.
Knowing that she could be physically forced into whatever a man deemed her lot in life. Whatever he decided.
Because he had been so angry. But as long as it had been his idea, he got to kiss her.
She pulled away as much as she could with the bookcase still at her back. “Who is using manipulation now?”
“That was not manipulation.”
“Oh no. I forgot. Forcing your way is an asset. Trying to have some diplomacy is apparently duplicitous.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Here’s a question I have for you. Why shouldn’t I use what I have in my arsenal?
Why should I lay down to be a conquest for you?
In any capacity. I am a human being. And I have hopes and dreams. You can laugh at them all you want.
You can say that I have no choices, but I want to see for myself, and I deserve that.
I don’t deserve to be passed around by men.
As they decide what they think is right for my life.
I deserve to decide what is right for my life.
And if you find that selfish while you remain in total control of everything, then perhaps you need to ask yourself why you don’t think a woman deserves the same rights that you do. ”
She slipped away from him, and he grabbed her arm. “It has nothing to do with you being a woman. And everything to do with the fact that you were what I needed to accomplish my goal.”
“Even better. It isn’t personal. So it isn’t women that don’t matter to you. It’s everyone.”
“I have sacrificed my whole life to liberate my people. I care for the greater good. Not for the individual.”
“I don’t think you care for anyone or anything.
I think you’re driven. Driven to win. Driven to dominate.
Everything. Including me. You thought you were going to a convent to pluck a helpless woman out of her life and force her into yours.
You call manipulation me having a voice.
Me pushing back. Only because I’m not what you expected.
Only because you expect everyone and everything to fall in line for you.
I will help you with your ball. I will do what I said. Beyond that… I will please myself.”
She turned away from him, and she stormed out of the study, down the hall and toward her chambers. She was done. Done with all these men. With their designs on her life. She was not a chess piece. Why was it that when men could do something it was a strategy, while she was…manipulative?
She stormed into her room and shut the door behind her loudly. If he could hear, if everyone in the palace could hear, that was fine with her.
What was the point of being a queen if she had to keep her voice down, had to close the door quietly? What was the point of being a queen if she still had no control over anything?
This life…
This was her life for the next two years. Dealing with this man.
She was trembling still. From the kiss.
He was…
Outrageous.
Yes. He was outrageous.
He had given her her first kiss. And it was still echoing inside of her.
Need was warring with anger. And she found that even more outrageous.
How could she want him when he made her so angry? How could she want him when she also wanted to strangle him?
Two years of this. At minimum. That was depending on whether or not he found that things were secure enough by that time.
He had all the control. That bastard. No. She had some control. He wouldn’t be worried about manipulation if he didn’t think that he could fall prey to it. Like she had said to him directly.
She definitely had power over him. He wanted her.
That was a part of herself that she had ignored. And certainly not something she had ever sought to use as a weapon.
She still didn’t want to use it solely as a weapon.
But…
Two years.
She wanted it to mean something. She wanted to count for something. She was learning things. About herself. She was learning by planning this and…
She was innocent. Physically. Maybe there was something that she could learn here about that. About men.
She had been promised to marry a man twice her age. More than twice her age. And then Ragnar had stolen her, and his initial intent had been to make her his wife in truth.
Men had played games with her, and with her sexuality for her entire life.
The idea of having the choice for how she would express it, when she might claim it, made her feel powerful.
Maybe it shouldn’t. No, she knew that it shouldn’t. Because it should be something that was innate. Something she expected. It never had been.
She had never been able to count on such a luxury.
So maybe now she would. Maybe now, she would take what she wanted.
She could seduce him.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t have any experience. She had gotten a glimpse of her own power in that library. Had truly tasted it as she had tasted the desire on his tongue.
More to the point, she wanted him. Whether she liked him or not.
Even as the thought filtered through her mind, she let out a long, slow breath.
She did like him. Unfortunately. If she didn’t like him, then him calling her manipulative wouldn’t have hurt her feelings.
But maybe it was a good thing he had called her that.
It had forced her to take a look at herself. At her whole life.
She didn’t feel any guilt for what she had done to give herself just a little bit of agency.
She refused to.
He was just…
Traumatized.
She really didn’t want to feel sympathy for him. But it was impossible not to.
He had been traumatized. Absolutely and completely. The little bit that he had told her…
But he couldn’t remember anything. Not about his parents, not about his life here in the palace.
He couldn’t remember anything.
It must haunt him.
Perhaps it wasn’t as haunting as remembering. That did make her feel sympathy for him, even though she didn’t especially want to.
He was human. It would be easy to let herself forget that. To tell herself that his humanity didn’t matter in the face of all of the ways in which he was difficult. But the truth was, he wasn’t entirely different from her.
He had experienced a life that was laid out before him; he had been taken as a child, and treated like an object. His life had not been of his own making.
Maybe she wasn’t feeling benevolent; that was pushing it a little bit far. But maybe they could both have something nice in these two years.
Maybe if she asked he could do something for him.
Not just to set herself free. But to free him too.
And something about that made her feel powerful in ways she hadn’t expected.
He had managed to avoid her other than the few times he had been pulled into her orbit during the planning of the event. She had asked him to consult on the menu. That had been interesting.
Truth be told, he hadn’t expanded his palate much beyond meat and potatoes. And meat had been a luxury for many years. Not always guaranteed.
But she was asking him to try seafood and pastries, hors d’oeuvres and tiny cakes that looked like they would be at home in a bakery window.
In fact, looking at the tray had given him a visceral memory of walking by a bakery in a small town very soon after the coup.
He had pushed it aside, and hadn’t allowed himself to make any connections between the past and the food in front of him.
But now it was the night before the ball, and he could no longer outrun her.
“There are three suits for you to choose from,” she said.
“I had thought that I would wear a military uniform.”
“I appreciate your commitment,” she said. “But I think that in the spirit of the evening you should go with a suit.”