Chapter Thirty
“Pretend what?” I demanded.
“Pretend that I am your manservant who lives only for your pleasure. That painting over there. Don’t stare. Do you see a set of eyes that blink?”
Zain began to kiss my neck, giving me a way to tilt my head to the side so that I could look at the painting. I scanned each face until I found—there. He was right.
Someone was watching us.
I was so very tired of people spying on me. “If I had a dagger, I would stab them.”
“It’s not their fault.” He breathed the words over my skin, and I inadvertently closed my eyes against the delicious sensation. “It’s most likely a servant who has been ordered to verify our affair.”
“Why?”
“Thieves collect secrets. Especially ones they can use against people.”
It was difficult to concentrate on what he was saying because the way he dragged his lips across my throat . . . “What secret? They already know about ‘us’ and have threatened to tell Xander.”
“The king will need witnesses,” he murmured into my collarbone. “A servant tonight, and then a nobleman tomorrow so that they can testify against you.”
“Isn’t Actos married?” I asked. Why would the Ilionian queen “cheating” be such an issue when it obviously wasn’t for him?
“And everyone knows it, including his wife. It’s not a secret. You, on the other hand—word has spread about how much the king and queen of Ilion adore one another. If this were real, it would be an incredible piece of leverage to have.”
His hand moved up my back until it was between my shoulder blades and he urged me forward, pressing me against his chest.
My brain whited out at the contact. Then his hand went to the base of my skull, holding it in place, and I lost the ability to control my neck.
“Just because you’re my ‘manservant’ doesn’t mean that we have to do it every night.” Surely there would be some nights when we were just tired.
“We don’t have that option as you spent the evening bragging about my prowess to the king.”
But I had only done that to keep the king from throwing his concubines at me.
“If Actos believes that we are not together,” he said, “that we have been attempting to trick him, my fear is that he will try and make you his newest concubine.”
“But . . .” It was difficult to speak when he was running his lips around the outside of my ear. “But Lia’s married.”
“That wouldn’t stop a man like him. Thieves are a covetous and jealous lot. We want what we are told we can’t have.”
Then he moved my sleeve aside so that he could kiss along my clavicle, over to my shoulder, and I told myself that I should not be having this kind of reaction to something so small and innocent.
I wanted to push against his chest and have him step back so that my head would clear, but all I managed to do was touch him. “What are you saying?” My mouth was so dry, my throat as parched as it had been traveling to Epirius. “We have to have sex to throw them off?”
A piece of me was thrilled with this notion. Having to have sex with Zain because we had no other choice? That wouldn’t count! I could still be furious with him later!
“Things don’t have to go that far. We’ll take it very slow and try to bore them.”
Then he did step back and took both my hands in his. He led me over to the bed and had me sit on the edge. I realized that from this angle, the spy would only be able to see me and my reactions, and not what Zain was doing.
He reached into my dress and parted it on both sides over my legs. I’d had no idea that these slits existed. But the skirt became three parts—one on the outside of each leg and then a large strip that hung down the middle.
But every inch of my legs was visible to him.
He began by stroking his fingers from the top of my thighs, down over my knees, and then all the way down to my feet. I shuddered.
“What is happening inside that mind of yours, my illora?”
I didn’t even know what that word meant but I wanted to snap at him and say that he’d lost the privilege of using it.
Although that would reveal too much about how he affected me.
I leaned forward and stroked the side of his face, looking at him with what I hoped depicted desire. I ignored the way he leaned into my touch. “I was thinking about how easily and quickly I could kill you.”
He swallowed his laughter, shaking his head. “Epirians take contracts seriously. They would question why you killed your manservant even though a contract is in place between us.”
“We don’t have a contract.”
“The Epirians don’t know that. They have contracts with all their servants.
” He leaned down and kissed the inside of my right knee, then my left, and I sucked in a sharp breath.
“I understand that you’re very angry with me, and you have every right to be.
But we have to work together if we want to get out of this mess. ”
Then he began kissing his way up my right leg. I told myself to be strong but it didn’t work. My thighs clenched and I balled my hands into fists so that I wouldn’t be tempted to reach for him.
I had to lean back, using my hands to prop me up because I had been that close to moving his head where I wanted it.
He made it all the way to the top of my right inner thigh and I held my breath, waiting.
The next place I felt his mouth was at the top of my left inner thigh and he began to kiss his way down again.
Given that the spy couldn’t see what he was doing, Zain didn’t need to actually be kissing and touching me but I couldn’t bring myself to say that. Instead I just soaked all the pleasure up.
I hated that this fire still burned between us. Or, it burned on my end and not his. How could I still want him this much after what he’d done?
“Still there?” he asked from somewhere around my ankle.
At first I thought he was asking if I was still there, which was a valid question because I felt like my soul might actually leave my body, this felt so good.
But he’d meant the spy. I flicked my gaze to the right and saw the eyes.
“Yes,” I said.
What if the spy was some kind of voyeur who enjoyed this? What if we had to keep going?
Because none of what Zain was doing was boring. If he thought this was boring, what would exciting look like to him?
“Are you enjoying this?” he asked me, his fingers stroking my calf while he licked around my anklebone.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I said as my legs trembled and my breathing quickened. Which was true.
We should not be talking at all when there were other things we could be doing.
He straightened up, still on his knees. “Then don’t talk. Keep pretending.”
“What is it you want me to pretend?”
He pulled me by my legs so that I was flush against him. He put my legs around his waist and I couldn’t help but squeeze him. A flurry of sparks lit up everywhere his fingers touched my legs.
With me in place, he reached out to run his thumb over my lower lip. “Pretend that nothing bad happened between us. Pretend that you want me.”
Zain lowered his head to capture my lips in a soft kiss that set me on fire.
“Pretend that you are dying for me to touch you,” he said and then kissed me again. “Pretend that you have thought of nothing else but lying beneath me.”
He pushed me back and turned me so that I lay lengthwise on the bed. He stood and started removing his tunic.
“Why are you standing?” I asked. What an inane question. I had only asked it because I’d wanted him to remain where he was, kneeling between my legs.
“If I stay down there, I’m going to do things I shouldn’t. Also, it’s much easier to undress this way.”
My brain wasn’t functioning properly, so it took me a moment to understand what he was saying.
And he already had his tunic off before it registered.
Oh, goddess help me.
I might have been able to handle this, barely, if he’d stayed clothed. But he’d removed his tunic.
And this room had so many torches it was lit up like it was daytime. His undergarment was still on, but I could see everything else and I just stared. How could anyone be this handsome? This attractive?
This perfect?
Like one of the gods descending and deigning to join us mere mortals.
Then he went and made everything worse. He crawled onto the bed like he intended to devour me, never taking his eyes off mine.
He began to undo my belt. Watching me. Silently asking for permission.
Which he knew he had because I would have stopped him otherwise.
The belt slid off and the dress went loose, the careful folds and tucks the maidservants had done melting away. He lifted my head by the back of my neck so that he could get the dress off me.
I had gone swimming with friends in my breast band and undergarment many times and it had never seemed very significant.
But with Zain watching me? I felt naked.
He drew in a sharp breath. “Eramis help me, but the chance to look at you and not have to look away . . . to be able to just drink you in . . .”
I hated that I knew exactly what he meant.
He used the fingers of his right hand and started at the base of my throat, running them straight down my torso without touching anything interesting.
Heat coiled in my stomach not only from his touch, but from the lazy, predatory, and all-consuming way that he looked at me.
It was then that I realized he was also shielding me from the spy’s view. He’d made a show of taking off my dress so the spy would know it had happened, but they couldn’t see me.
I needed to remember who we were and what had happened and not let things go too far. “You’re a very good actor.”
“I’m not acting, my illora. I have no need to pretend.” His flattened hand glided along my stomach, moving from side to side.
I put my hand over his, stilling it. “What?”
This time he didn’t look me in my face. “Nothing has changed for me. I didn’t lie about liking you. I didn’t lie about wanting you.”
Goddess, how I wished nothing had changed for me, either. Or that I could trust anything he was saying now. He had lied to get close to me. And to my eternal shame, it had worked.
“Just be honest now. You don’t need to lie to me anymore.”
“I’m not lying, my illora.”
I swallowed something hard and painful. “How am I ever supposed to believe you?”
His gaze came back to mine. “Pretend.”
He moved his body so that he was over mine, settling himself on top of me, and desire-laced shivers coursed through me at the contact of his skin on mine. I was too hot, my body felt too tight.
His hips rocked against mine and I made a sound I was desperate not to make.
“Pretend we’re just worshipping your goddess.”
Now his hands were exploring, grasping, soothing, inflaming.
“Pretend that the only thing you want is my kiss.”
I didn’t have to pretend that, pathetic as it made me. When I didn’t say anything, he lowered his head to mine and began to kiss me.
Soft and firm at first, as if he had all the time in the world to explore my lips.
Such thorough devastation from something that seemed so small.
It felt as if he were leaving tiny scars all over my lips, scars that only he would ever be able to soothe, and my lips would ache until he kissed me again.
He lifted his head. “You were right. That flush does go everywhere.”
Goddess, I needed more. I lifted my hands up, tangling my fingers into his hair and trying to pull him closer.
He got the message.
Fire snaked its way through my veins as his tongue fitted against mine in a devastatingly sensual caress. I moaned against his mouth, not able to help myself. I could feel his lips rising into a smile but I didn’t care.
I plunged into the kiss the same way I would into battle. With everything I had.
One still-functioning part of my brain wondered what it said about me that I was lying partially naked in a bed with a man who had so grievously betrayed me. I wanted to ask myself where my honor had gone. My pride.
And why did every deep moan I wrenched from his chest feel like a victory?
He made me quiver. And ache. And long for him even though he was already touching and kissing me.
Streaks of intensity began to build up inside me, filling me with a pressure that felt like only he could release.
I moved against him and he made a deep, masculine sound in the back of his throat that thrilled me. Our tongues began to move in time with our bodies, in a rhythmic frenzy that promised unbelievable pleasure at the end of it.
As we moved, I explored the parts of his chest I’d so enjoyed. Outlining, brushing, feeling the spasm of muscle everywhere I touched. Then I began to make my way down his chest, feeling that deep vee before I moved on to—
Then he suddenly stopped, lifting himself up and away from me.
I lay in the bed, not sure what had just happened. Or why he had stopped. My lips felt swollen, my skin reddened from his stubble, my mind dazed.
And I ached for him everywhere. I didn’t even know that was possible.
“What . . . what are you doing?” I finally managed to ask when I got my voice working again.
“The spy is gone and someone is approaching. You should get dressed.”
I had completely forgotten about the spy. And how did he know someone was coming? I reached for one of the new tunics that Dione had laid out for me and put it on over my head. My limbs were trembling, my heart thumping, and my breathing still hadn’t returned to normal.
Did he know the effect he’d had on me? Had he smiled because of how easy it had been to coax me into bed? I needed to keep my distance from him.
Because if I didn’t, I would pull him back into this bed so that we could finish what we’d started.
“How was that?” I asked in the calmest voice I could manage, as if none of it had mattered.
His tunic went over his head and he tied on his belt. “You pretend very well, illora.” He said it like he knew I hadn’t been pretending.
I didn’t know why I jumped when there was a knock at the door—he had told me that would happen. Needing the distraction, I practically sprinted to answer.
“You should let me open the—” Zain started to say, but I ignored him and threw the door open.
Dione stood there with a very serious look on her face. “Queen Thalia, may I speak with you?”
“What is it?” I asked, concerned.
She looked down the hallway in both directions before taking a step closer to me and whispering.
“I know that you are not Queen Thalia.”