Page 21 of Queen of War and Ruin

There’s a low ripping sound, and I open my eyes to see Lilias tearing one of the thin towels into strips. I keep my mouth shut and vow to leave a few extra coins on the table. She brings one of the strips over, and I raise my arms while she wraps it around my ribs.

“How does that feel?” she asks.

Her hand is still pressed to my chest. She’s so close that I can trace the way the wet strands of her hair cling to the back of her neck. And I really shouldn’t look down, but⁠—

Oh, gods. The thin towel she’s wearing clings to the curve of her chest, leaving very little to my fevered imagination.

“Your heart is racing,” she says, her voice thick.

I meet her gaze. Her cheeks are dark, and she stares up at me with wide eyes and parted lips.

She looks like she’s expecting to be kissed. That’s the way she stared at me in a dozen different town squares, under banners and lanterns, the light catching on her lips as she waited for me to take her, to fill her mouth with my tongue, to taste her on my lips.

Gods fucking damnit. I try to breathe, but my chest feels too tight. I back away from the intensity of those dark eyes, but I’m already against the fucking ceiling. I can’t back up any further.

“Well, a beautiful woman has her hands all over me,” I snap.

And then I kiss her. Or maybe she kisses me, our lips crashing together as the space between us vanishes, and my gods, she feels good. I drink her in, opening for her as our tongues dance. Her hands sink into my hair. Her towel is rough against my chest, and her hips rock against mine, sending sweet agony and blinding need racing through me.

Fuck. I pull back while I still can, panting from the ache of being so damn close to her.

“Y-You can get under the covers,” I stammer. “I— I’ll go⁠—”

Away. Somewhere. Some dark corner where I can frantically jack off thinking about the woman who’s far, far too good for me.

Lilias’s face crumbles; suddenly, she looks like she’s going to cry.

“Damn it,” I sigh. “Gods, Princess. It’s not that I don’t want to. You, I mean. It’s not that I don’t want you to⁠—”

I take a deep breath and meet her gaze.

“I’m not even a prince,” I say.

Lilias frowns. “I know.”

“And you, I mean, you’re—” I stammer, trying not to stare at the way the towel pulls tight over the swell of her breasts, revealing the hard outline of her nipples. “And— I’m not,” I finish, in a rough whisper.

Shit. I shut the fuck up before I can sound like even more of an idiot.

She sucks in a breath, then meets my gaze.

“Zarek,” she says, her voice thick and low. “I don’t want to annul our marriage.”

And then she pulls off the towel.

She’s wearing a thin silk shirt that clings to her chest, outlining the hard pebbles of her nipples. I groan as my mind frantically grasps for the meaning behind her words.

Annul our marriage. That’s what I offered her back at the hunting lodge, isn’t it? A way out of this marriage, so she wouldn’t be tied to the false prince of Dungal. The snake of Vsenrog.

And I said our marriage could be annulled because it hasn’t been consummated.

Lilias pulls the thin silk shirt over her head. Lamplight dances over her breasts. I try to speak, but it comes out as another strangled groan. She runs her fingers up the bandage on my chest and across my shoulder.

“You…want to consummate our marriage in a barn?” I manage to gasp.

She smiles at me in a way that makes every part of my body burn.

“The happiest times of my life were in barns,” she says.