The muscles in my abdomen tightened.
It was pain; it was pleasure.
It built and built, my nails raking over the curve of his shoulders, until I loosed a shuddering whimper, my body leaving me to contract and relax all at once, my legs losing control as waves of sharp euphoria hit me in exploding bursts, one after another.
Kye’s mouth rode the shudders of my body, claiming me until at last I lay still, listening to the sound of my heart pumping heady intoxication into every vein. My legs and arms were somehow spent, though I’d seemingly done nothing at all.
He propped on his elbows, head between my knees. A satisfied smile curved into his lips, the corners of his young eyes crinkling, and for a moment, I could imagine an older Kye—hair streaked with silver, dimples deeper in the creases of his grin—giving me that feline smile.
A ringing blared in my ears, loud enough to block out the sound of my rasping lungs.
Don’t cordae with him.
Spasms still carving tunnels through my limbs, chest heaving with my gasps, I stared into Kye’s eyes as his hand slowly drifted down my left hip and onto my leg. He stopped.
Stopped and laughed, cruel and mocking, the sound of disbelief evident in his breathy voice. Steel whispered against leather as he unsheathed the knife tied to my garter, and he brought it slowly to my skin, pointing it at my bare chest.
52
“What’s this?” he asked, eyes flashing with mistrust and something else. Something akin to embarrassment. Shame.
“You said you’d kill me,” I answered, my voice thick with gravel and ice.
He slid off me, his arm stretching as he kept the knife aimed at my heart. “Stand.”
A voice inside my head screamed to sing. He could lunge at me at any moment, and the chance would be gone. If there was ever a time to heed my instincts, this was it.
But I didn’t. Raising my chin, I unraveled onto my feet, though I’d never felt more vulnerable than I did at that moment. Naked. Raw. Exposed. My energy spent on the pleasure he’d given me only moments before, my own blade clutched in his hand, primed to kill me.
“Why did you come armed to your wedding bed, Leihani?”
“Oh, please,” I said with all the smooth confidence I didn’t feel. Inside my chest, my heart ravaged my ribcage, my blood wild between the ghost of his hands on my flesh and the fear of beingspilled over his sapphire rug. “You have nine swords on the walls in this room alone. More in that chest, along with bows, arrows, spears. You expected me to come unarmed?”
Dark humor etched into the corners of his eyes at my words, though the defeat in his gaze didn’t quite vanish. He pointed my knife at the corner behind me. “Chair. Sit.”
I turned from him, lowering myself in the chair like a queen on a throne, my back straight and proud as I draped one leg across the other. I wanted to slink and hide, to pull my shoulders in and protect myself from his eyes—but that would give him a victory I wasn’t willing to surrender. So, I threw them back instead, puffing my chest as I tossed my hair behind my shoulders with the whip of my chin.
His smile stretched as he leaned against his bedpost and watched me, eyes sparkling. “Feeling pretty?”
“I feelravishing,” I purred.
His heart skipped a beat.
I heard it, and I know he felt it. His smile faltered as he pretended to carelessly clean his nails with the tip of my knife. “Good,” he said, low and husky. “That is your only weapon in this room without Thaan or Selena here to protect you.”
Singsingsingsing.
Mihauna,I was a fool.
I’d never been one to play with fire, but it had never danced before me, so dark and tall and painted with hostility. Its glare had never been so scorching, and it had never licked my skin and made me moan and shudder with sharp, engulfing relief. I was still burning in its aftermath, my liquid center still undulating with hunger, begging for more.
“Going to murder your wife on your wedding night?” I taunted.
“I could,” he said slowly. “I’ve already taken what I wanted.”
“You’vegivenplenty.” I waved my hand casually over my lap. “You’ve taken nothing.”
Long, black lashes flickered as his eyes burned into me. Seedy arousal pulsed through the air. “No more games.”
