Page 110 of A Dance of Lies

Keys jingle from outside the door.

Anton scoops me into his arms—and lowers me onto the bed. He wrenches the sheer canopy shut for the modicum of obscurity it offers. Drawing back the covers, he presses me deep into the sheets, slides my slip high enough to reveal my bare legs—

A click, and the door swings wide.

He covers my lips with his own.

One beat, two. His mouth moves against mine, urgent.Sell it,he seems to plead, coaxing my lips apart, one hand threading up the base of my neck and into my hair.

And so I do.

I curl my hands around his shoulders. Press up into him. Hook my legs around his waist. He deepens the kiss, his chest heaving; I pull him closer. My heart slams against my eardrums. Surely he can feel it, but he only leans harder against me, using his body to shield my own.

He is a client and I am his muse.

We are supposed to be here.

At least the light is dim, almost nonexistent, and the canopy veils us somewhat, but none of that slows my roaring pulse . . .

“It’s nothing,” comes the general’s voice, the door slowly screeching shut. “Let’s go.”

“You’re certain?” Illian says.

I rake my nails down Anton’s back, relishing the moan he releases onto my lips. And when he glides a warm palm along the back of my thigh, one escapes my own. Then he drags it up, up, until he captures my arms—

He raises them above my head.

Instinctively, my hands clench, but he opens them, parting my fingers with his, and the intimacy of it, that slow, languid glide . . .

Reality slips from my grasp, and I forget.

I forget who I am, who he is. I forget my chains or the man who holds them, standing feet away. I forget how little I trust Anton; how all of this means nothing—especially to a king like him with a Glory Court at his fingertips. His lips aren’t soft and neither are his kisses, but I don’t want soft. I don’t want to feel fragile; no, I wantthis.I want passion, hunger, the beat of a rapid pulse. After he left me under that tree, after what he’d said, I hadn’t dared imagine what it might be like with him. Butthis—

“One of our newer girls,” says Mistress Sezar. “But the merchant paid well, drunk as he is, and I’d rather not lose a client. I won’t risk disturbing them any longer.”

Anton’s lips break from mine, sliding to my shoulder. He pants along the curve of my neck, damp and soft. His scent, his warmth—it clouds my head until there’s nothing else, not even the faint receding of footsteps.

I come to only when he cups my face, thumbs brushing the hair from my cheeks. I glance up at him, dizzy, and he presses a last, chaste kiss to my lips before whispering, “They’re gone.”

I can’t seem to move. It takes me a moment to remember myself and why we’re here. Anton slowly pushes off me, then holds out a hand. “My most sincere apologies, Miss Stova.”

Stova.

It’s the wakeup call I need, like a smack to the cheek. I run my hands over my face, then straighten my slip of a dress. Anton snatches my cloak from the floor and wraps it around my shoulders, but it does little good. I’m trembling, and not from the cold. What we just did . . .

Another wave of heat spirals beneath my skin.

Nothinghas ever felt like that.

But I can’t focus on it. Can’t dwell on why that was even more invigorating than the most intimate dance.

That,of all things.

Him.

He kissed me like it was inevitable. I suppose we had been dancing around each other all this time, and yet we moved like it was achallenge.

I shake my head, trying to regain a bit of sense. I tell myself it was just the unexpected rush of it all. That’s what got to me.