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CHAPTER NINE
HERWORDSECHOEDinside of him like doom.
Or grace, whispered a voice within.
Zeus had almost forgotten himself, and that never happened. But the taste of her had exploded through him. She had rocked him. He had found no defenses when usually he was the king of them.
The kiss in the ballroom had nearly undone him. He, who had spent his life chasing every sensation available, had nearly been brought to his knees by this woman. In the middle of a ballroom, with the eyes of the world upon them.
And he wasn’t sure he would have cared.
Zeus had never cared about making a scene. On the contrary, he went out of his way to cause as many as possible. But he could not bear the idea of further exposing Nina to the same censure.
He’d already done that.
And he, who regretted nothing, had regretted the scene he’d set up in Haught Montagne ever since.
But he shoved those things aside. The rest of the evening had passed in a blur, of faces and names he knew he ought to know, because she’d kissed him. Nina had dismissed the Princess who had caused her so much trouble with a wave of her hand. Then she’d looked around, every inch the perfect queen, and smiled when she’d seen him.
Then Nina had kissed him.
Entirely of her own volition.
With all that melting, glorious heat.
There could be no concerns that he had seduced her this time. There were no worries that he was exerting pressure on her in any way. Zeus would have sworn to anyone who asked that such things did not concern him—so confident was he of his appeal—but Nina was different.
She had been different that night, and he hadn’t been prepared for it.
And now she was the mother of his unborn child. She wore his ring. And she had kissed him like she was the one who’d chosen him from the first.
It was as if that kiss had woken up a part of him he had come to believe no longer existed. Or had never existed. She had chosen him, and she made him believe that he might have a soul after all.
And, more unimaginable still, a heart.
He had felt it pound in him, like it was pounding out her name.
Then they had come to this room of stone and fire, high up in yet another castle filled with so many of the same people doing the same tedious things, and once again, she had humbled him.
She had done it that first night. She did it with ease. She made him new, scrubbed him raw, and he didn’t like it. He told himself hecouldn’tlike it.
He didn’t know what to do with it.
So Zeus had done the only thing he could. He had closed the distance between them, the hunger in him a wild and uncontrollable roar, and he had taken her in his arms at last.
Here, where there were no witnesses. No paparazzi and none on call. There was no press release, no story. No narrative to tinker with.
There was just this beautiful woman who was only his, who had danced with him tonight as if he was a dream come true.
He wanted to be that for her in every possible way.
And then, finally, he’d placed her on the bed and taken her the way he’d begun to imagine he never would again.
It had felt sacred.
Like a vow.
Like a simple, honest truth, stark and irrevocable.
