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“You’re just going to fight me on my refusal to have sex with you.” This whole situation was ludicrous. If she’d been any other female, I would have been inside her at the club. I would have carried her off into some dark corner and taken her there in the shadows, uncaring if someone saw us. But she was Avi.
“You want me!” The shout came out defensive.
“Of course I want you!” I ripped my hands over my hair. “You don’t think I go to sleep with your taste on my tongue? I scent you and I’m hard. I see you and I’m fucking starving for more than just your blood. It’s a mile past want. I need to be inside you. I need to feel you come around me. I need to memorize every curve of your body, every sound you make, so I can replay it over and over once you’re gone, because as much as you want my body, you don’t want my mark.” There it was, all out on the table, like some feast of truths.
She swallowed. “You don’t want it either.”
“I don’t deserve it. There’s a difference.” Being mated to me would be hell to her—an embarrassment. I fucking hated Samuel with every fiber of my being, but at least she’d be able to hold her head up with his name. At least until you make her a widow.
But how long would it be before I fulfilled that oath? Ten, twenty, thirty years? Alek’s throne had to be stable. Just the thought of Samuel putting his hands on her sent white-hot rage into every cell of my body.
“Yeah, well, you deserve far better than me,” Avi argued. “Far better than someone who would sacrifice…” You. “...everything to prevent a war. You deserve someone who would fight at your side.”
My eyes locked on hers. “There is no one better than you.”
She waved her hand between us again. “And yet here we are.” She turned my own words against me.
“You would really risk strengthening the bond for one night?” I kept my back on the wall. One step and I’d be on her.
Her gaze ran down my body with a palpable heat. “I would risk it to know what it feels like to be with you, Hawke. And we don’t just have a night. We have almost two weeks.”
It was official. She’d lost it.
My cock beat at me to say yes.
“You think if I keep you in that bed until you sign that fucking contract, the bond won’t solidify?”
Her pretty lips pursed. “I was actually hoping you wouldn’t just keep me in the bed. I’ve been reading, and I think against the wall—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I shoved off the wall and started pacing the length of her dresser, needing something, anything, to work out this nervous energy. “Maybe I should take you just so that damned bond keeps you from selling yourself as some kind of treaty!”
“It’s my choice! The only one I’ve ever been allowed to make in my own life. And you could just reject the bond, you know!”
I paused, turning slowly to face her. “So. Could. You.” Because I wouldn’t. Not knowing it was the only way to break her contract. Then again, that’s what had gotten us here in the first place, right? Alek’s father’s bond to his wife. “I’m holding on for the slightest possibility that you’ll change your mind and want out of this deal with Samuel. Why are you holding on, Princess?”
She swallowed, her eyes flying as wide as a doe in the headlights.
“Why, Avianna?” I took one step, then two. “You know the words. You can say them just as easily as I can.”
But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
“Because I’ve wanted you since the moment I met you,” she admitted. “Because when I take off my clothes at night, I imagine you’re watching.”
I let a groan slip out.
“Because this mark has been on my hand for so long that I can’t remember what it looks like without it. Because I wanted this bond—wanted you to realize it on your own, but now it’s too late and I’m terrified I’ll never know what it’s like to touch you! Because you walk into a room and I get slick between my thighs. Because I kiss you and my body goes liquid with how good you make me feel. Because when your hands are on me, I’m not just the princess—I’m yours. Pick any of those reasons!”
“God, Avianna.” My eyes slid closed, my chest drawing tight as the beast within me pummeled my common sense, demanding I claim what was mine and put us both out of our misery.
“Do this and I’ll reject the bond.”
My gaze snapped to hers. “What?”
She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “Be with me for the next two weeks, and I promise I’ll reject the bond before I sign the contract.”
