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“Your day’s over,” he contradicted. “At my insistence.”
Her heart turned over in her chest. “When will you learn I don’t like being bossed around, your highness?”
He dropped his head lower, so their lips were separated by only an inch. “When will you learn that your use of my title makes me want to take you right here and now?”
She sucked in a quick breath and bit down on her lower lip to catch a moan before it could erupt. Her eyes flittered to the side. Across the room, a guard in uniform stood sentinel, resolutely not looking at them. Nonetheless, she suspected he’d notice if they began to make love against the wall.
“That’s probably not advisable.”
He followed her gaze, looking over his shoulder, barking a simple command. “Leave us now.”
Without so much as a dip of the head in agreement, the guard vacated the room. Ella’s breath puffed out of her, anticipation making her knees weak.
“A demonstration of your power?” She was aiming for a hint of sarcasm, but it emerged hoarse and strangled.
“Is such a demonstration necessary?”
He laced his fingers through hers, lifting her hands above her head and pinning them there, his eyes warring with hers over a silent and unknown battle. She clamped down harder on her lip so he freed one hand from hers, using the other to continue the entrapment of her limbs, his thumb padding across her lower lip, liberating it from her teeth. He parted her mouth and slid his thumb inside, his eyes never deviating from hers.
“I want you to go to your room and sleep. Tell Anya you are not to be disturbed.”
“Anya?”
“Your chief of staff.”
“Right, of course.” She vaguely remembered the woman introducing herself the day before, but it had been such a whirlwind of names and faces that it was a bit of a blur.
But she didn’t want to accede to his wishes. Oh, she was utterly exhausted, just as he said, and the idea of sleeping held immeasurable temptation, but Ella hated being told what to do, and always had. “I’ll be fine. My day’s been scheduled; I don’t want to break with that.”
“Unacceptable.”
She blinked up at Elon, then burst out laughing. “I’m sorry?”
“No need to apologise. Just leave now and rest. Your afternoon can easily be rescheduled.”
She ground her teeth together, wondering how even when she was spitting mad she could feel an intense need for him? If anything, her anger was making her hungrier for Elon, a frustration zipping through her that she wanted to indulge. “You asked me to marry you, didn’t you?”
His head shifted in a minute gesture of agreement.
“So I’m going to be Emira of Salim in – what? Weeks?”
He glared at her. “Four weeks.”
Her heart thumped. “Four weeks?” That was soon. A rush of something like anticipation fluttered through her – but panic was there too. She swallowed past a throat that was constricted with emotions suddenly.
“What is your point?”
“I have only a few weeks to show your people that I’m the kind of Queen you deserve.” She massaged her lip with her teeth once more, running through the permeations of that statement. “I don’t want to be known as someone who can’t make it through a day’s work. I already have a reputation to contend with, and I’m aware of how difficult that will be to overcome. Cancelling my afternoon’s schedule will simply compound the low opinion your people have of me.”
He stared at her for several seconds, his eyes giving little away. She pulled on her wrists and to her disappointment, he released them. She rubbed at them distractedly, her eyes shifting to the side.
But his hands caught her wrists once more, gently, lifting them higher. Pale pink marks brushed across her skin, reminding her of the heated way he’d appraised her body the night before, studying each and every mark on her flesh.
“I didn’t mean this.”
She frowned.
“I’m sorry.”
