Goner #2
In fact, Tanyn had barely said hello to Nayden before he guided me up to his chamber, and the games began.
I was glad he did this, and not only for the obvious reasons.
Being back in that room, bad memories could emerge.
He didn’t give them time to do so.
We were there, then we were making love.
Now those memories weren’t gone, but the barb they held was dulled completely.
And now, I was wearing his sweater, he’d pulled on his jeans, and two members of staff (both I did not meet when I was there the last time) arrived, one carrying a tray with two bottles of red wine and two glasses, the other carrying a tray covered in cheeses, bread slices, crackers, spreads, cured meats, olives and nuts, with two enormous toffee cashew cookies.
The tray of food, now mostly decimated (we’d worked up an appetite), sat on the bed. The wine (we’d already been through one bottle and were into the second) on the nightstand. The glasses were in our hands.
Hurley was also on the bed with us, lying on his belly, jaw on his paws, blinking rapidly at the food on the tray in hopes we’d take the hint and give him some (and, okay, this might have something to do with the fact I’d secreted a slice of cheese to him…or three of them).
“No, we’re not leaving this room until I have to let you go tomorrow morning,” Tanyn answered my unasked question.
I considered if I was down with this.
A nanosecond later, I decided I was down with it, reached and grabbed an olive.
I tossed it in Hurley’s direction.
He caught it in midair and swallowed it without chewing.
I laughed, only to have the laughter kissed from my lips when Tanyn caught me at the back of my head and pulled me to him.
When he finished with my mouth, he ordered, “Stop feeding him being food.”
“Olives are vegetables,” I defended.
“Stop feeding him being food,” he repeated.
I opened my mouth to retort.
Tanyn got there before me, “Either you stop feeding him, or I’m sending the tray back.”
I wasn’t done nibbling, so I gave in ungracefully, that being with a roll of my eyes.
He let me go and lounged back against the pillows.
“I wonder which of your seven hundred members of staff would come get the tray,” I muttered with an I’m sorry look at Hurley before I loaded a slice of bread up with some red onion marmalade and brie.
“Pardon?”
I turned from my food to my male. “You have a lot of staff.”
“I have a big castle.”
“You do indeed. You still have a lot of staff. And their obsequiousness is more than mildly creepy.”
His brows drew together.
“You haven’t noticed it?” I asked.
“I’m king,” he pointed out.
“So is King Fillion. And he does expect protocol to be observed. But not like your staff does it.”
His tone was very curious when he asked, “How do my staff do it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it. But, like, when Laura showed the last time I was here. A member of your staff announced her like she was arriving at an official event.”
“That’s not how it’s done?”
I froze at his question, because of course he wouldn’t know how it was done.
He didn’t grow up with royal protocol.
“No,” I said softly. “Perhaps sharing she’s arrived, but not who she is, because I already know who she is.
Mom and I were the only ones in the room.
She’s my bestest bestie. Maybe the staff member didn’t know that, but I can’t imagine how she wouldn’t, considering it’s all over the tapes and the media.
You don’t announce a best friend when they enter a room. It was weird.”
His attention drifted to his dog, who he reached out to pet.
Immediately, Hurley lost interest in the tray of food and turned his attention to snuggling with his daddy.
Mm-hmm.
My male could be adorable.
“I’d have to talk to your butler and your housekeeper,” I went on cautiously. “But if they’re good at their jobs, I believe even they’d admit you’re overstaffed.”
“We can’t have bots in this house. It’s historically registered.”
“I know, honey, but—”
He looked at me. “It’s Tatra.”
“Sorry?” I asked.
“I’ve looked over the accounts myself, as well as had them forensically inspected.
Arnaud was a wastrel. He had a great number of parties, most of them, I’m sure it won’t surprise you, were debauched.
He spent an astronomical amount on clothing, cufflinks, wrist units.
I was told his clothes filled that closet.
” He jerked his head toward the closet. “And the closet in the queen’s chamber. ”
“Holy Hecate,” I breathed.
I liked clothes, but even that was beyond me.
“Yes,” he agreed. “He commissioned a luxurious space yacht, which I already auctioned off and gave the proceeds to charity because I’ll never use it. It was a monstrosity. The interior is covered in gold leaf.”
I made a face.
He nodded his agreement and kept going.
“He bought an island off the coast of Land’s End. An entire island. He was in the middle of planning to build a space station, one for his personal use.”
A personal space station?
Good gods.
“He was well-known for spending money,” I noted. “But that’s crazy. Did he drain the treasury?”
“He gave it his best shot. Fortunately, there are safeguards in place where he couldn’t get to the seed funds. I tightened things up when I took the throne, but maybe I didn’t tighten them enough.”
Well, if he had the money, beings always needed jobs.
But from what I could tell, he could definitely tighten things more.
“Tatra was the same,” he continued. “Actually, worse. Clothes. Jewels. Art. Depending on her wont, daily she had fresh fish or rare delicacies flown in from all over the twenty realms. She did not use machines to do her hair and makeup. She had a full-time stylist and makeup artist. And a dresser.”
“A dresser?”
“Someone to help her get dressed.”
This was not next level.
This was about ten levels up to the next level.
“Like, in days of old, where they needed them because they couldn’t truss themselves up in the layers of clothes and laces all by themselves?” I asked to be sure I knew what he was saying.
“Like that. Except, as far as I know, she didn’t wear corsets.”
“She had three beings here just to do her hair, her face and put clothes on her?”
“Full time.”
“I assume you let them go.”
His lips tipped up. “I can dress myself, sweetheart.”
And he did it very well, even if he was usually in just jeans and sweaters.
“And she certainly was one for bowing and scraping. No one escaped having to figuratively or literally kiss her ring,” he carried on.
This was no surprise, she was well-known for this too.
And it explained the staffing.
Plenty of beings around to bow and curtsy and rush to do your bidding, making you feel important, solidifying in your head that you were important.
Although Tanyn seemed at one with living in a big castle and being served wine and heavy nibbles while he lazed in his bed with his female, he was very down-to-earth.
And although he seemed made for his current surroundings, because he was, he seemed more at one with the way of life at the citadel on Sigil Isle where they did not have staff to cater to your every whim.
Was I going to do this?
I should do this.
Right, I was going to do it.
“Do you want me to…have a word with your butler and housekeeper. See what’s going on?”
“Right now?” he teased.
I shot him a look. “No. And I’ll admit, I don’t know the ins and out of running a castle. But I could talk with Queen Calisa, or more to the point, whoever does that for her. And then I can sit down with them sometime when I’m up here for a spell.”
“And when would that be?” he asked, slithering closer to me.
Damn, he looked good slithering.
Hurley read the room and jumped off the bed.
“After the engagement party, when we’re out and beings know we’re together, so I can take you shopping and you can meet the real me.”
He was taking my wineglass away from me. “I haven’t met the real you?”
“No male who hooks himself a female who likes shopping has met her unless he shops with her.”
“Should you have made me do that first when you were trying to put me off?” he asked while pulling me under him (under him! again!).
“I wish I’d thought of that,” I joked. “It’s a very daunting trial that many males before you have failed to best.”
Red was seeping into his gaze. “Many?”
“Let’s avoid body counts,” I whispered.
“Agreed,” he whispered back. “And I don’t give a fuck you like shopping, you’re used to the best and expect it.”
“I also work for it.”
“Which is why I don’t give a fuck about it.”
“Are we going to have sex again?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Nice.
“How many times are we going to have sex before I leave tomorrow?”
“I’m thinking twenty, maybe thirty times.”
My eyes got big.
He smiled at me (Lord Hellfire, that smile), touched his mouth to mine, and then said quietly, “Until we’re exhausted, so my female will sleep well before she jets away from me.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
His eyes darkened.
His lips took mine again.
And he set about exhausting us.
“Yes.” Pause. “Yes.” Pause. “Yes.” Pause and again, “Yes.”
I looked from my tablet where I was sliding through all my ideas for Sigil, and these answers from Tanyn were all I’d gotten.
Therefore, I squinted at him. “Are you just going to agree to everything?”
He didn’t squint at me, but he looked at me. “You have exquisite taste.”
Was I going to preen?
Why, yes.
I was preening.
“So why wouldn’t I agree?” he concluded.
“Some of these pieces are up for auction. We might lose them if I don’t—”
“Buy them. I’ll get Jorda to find some space to warehouse them until they’re ready to be fitted at Sigil.”
Oh my gods!
How fun was this?
“Do I have a budget?”
“You will. All the bids aren’t in for the work there. Once those are finalized, I’ll know what it is. But so far”—he tipped his head to my tablet—“all of that is doable.”
Fabulous.
I smiled at him.
He took the tablet out of my hand, tossed it to the end of the bed, and pounced on me.
So I guessed our brief sex respite was over.
That was okay by me.