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I raised my hand, and he snatched it, his massive fingers engulfing mine.
“Move with me, Deyanira.” Orin’s commanding voice was a purr and growl, and I melted a touch in his embrace.
But there was no time for swooning over a dangerous man when the angry music roared to life, and he whipped me around, tassels flying, and locked my arm behind his neck, my back colliding with his broad chest. The way his calloused fingers, rough from playing his cello, slid down the bare skin on my arm, sent a rush of heat directly through me. Orin’s warm breath trickled along the sensitive curve of my neck.
The passion laced with anger was unending when he spoke. “This is the price we both pay for your careless bargain.”
“Is it so painful to be seen in public with me?”
“Painful? No.”
His hand creeping across my stomach, splayed wide to hold me firm to his chest, he stomped and swayed, and before I could catch a breath, he spun me again.
“Foolish. Yes.”
Quill’s magic felt different, pounding through the room in a thick coating of lust. More than intrigue, more than awe. It was suffocating.
We glided across the floor in a rhythm that was charged with tension, gazes locked on each other. Every moment between us to this point, every fiery argument, and every lingering touch raced through my mind.
He dipped me, holding me by the small of my back while trailing a single finger down the exposed skin between my breasts so very slowly. I gasped, nearly slipping, praying he would go lower, crowd be damned.
“Focus,” he demanded.
Jerking me upward, Orin stopped mid-turn, yanking me in, staring directly into my soul as he lifted my thigh, until those thick fingers pressed firmly into flesh, stretching every muscle, testing just how limber I could be.
“Does it feel good? To show them you’re my weakness, Wife?”
His confession shocked me, but he must have known it would. The mischievous grin that inched across his beautiful face gave him away and heated me thoroughly. He danced with perfect grace and posture, and though each powerful grip was met with stone-cold eyes at the beginning of the song, somewhere in the middle, the thin line of his pouty lips had faded. He’d softened. Whipping me around, yanking us together over and over. Immersed in the power that held us both writhing with desire.
I wanted him to touch me. To slide his fingers over a body that thrummed for him alone until he could feel just how much I needed him. But when I circled him, fingers splayed across his broad chest, I could see the same in his eyes. I could feel the reaction to my touch in the way he pulsed, leaned toward me, and responded to only me. And gods, did I love the command of him. The weakness we’d shared as his gaze burned into mine. All eyes were glued to us, watching as that handsome creature seduced me on a stage of lies, just as the poem had said.
Instead of removing Quill, as had been my fear, the Maestro had likely asked to use her magic more powerfully at this moment because he had planned to use it against me to create a distraction. Probably she’d agreed because, to an innocent child, that might’ve been helpful, if not for the fiery passion that already held the space between us charged with tension. This was a place Orin and I were intimately familiar with.
Drexel’s plan might have worked, had Orin not been so perfectly clever and wholly aware of the games his boss played. He had never let me falter. Never once loosened his grip. Perhaps his confession of weakness was a lie, but I could see the desperation on his face. Could feel the small gasp and smaller exhale every time I touched him.
The music slowed, still a genuine spice to the sharp notes, but a challenge, nonetheless, forcing our bodies together as our feet stilled. That grip of his was unwavering. He reached between my legs. I had no clue what he was doing, what our next move would be, but at that moment, I didn’t care. When he lifted, spinning me as I stretched, the only thing I could think of was how close he was to parts of me that could’ve been his.
I landed soundlessly, and again, the music took off, carrying us across the stage, locked in each other's arms.
“Your blades, Nightmare,” he rumbled into my ear as soon as he’d pressed me up against the icy exterior of the giant, golden hourglass. “Focus.”
I’d nearly forgotten, so swept up in him and the way he’d consumed me flawlessly. Removing the latch that held Chaos in place, I waited until we were nose-to-nose again. The next dramatic note, I whirled away, pausing at the final graze of our fingertips before slicing the knife through the air with another spin, fully in control as the crowd gasped the second my dagger landed upon his throat without so much as nicking him.
He hadn’t flinched. He’d trusted me so fully, so uncomfortably, I nearly stumbled on the heel of my gold stilettos. Completely unphased, in one sudden motion, he struck, stepping forward, weapon be damned, and grabbed my throat.
The music grew into a glorious escalation, drums, strings, even the singer dragged my anxious nerves to an absolute peak as I managed a glance at the fading grains of sand seeping through the funnel of the hourglass, swallowing around his grip.
“Forgive me,” he whispered seconds before I dropped the blade, and his lips captured mine with an intensity that ignited an inferno within me. It was a kiss born of passion and aggression; a collision of conflicting emotions that melded into something all-consuming. His mouth was demanding yet tender, his grip on me unyielding yet gentle. Our lips moved with a desperation that spoke of months of tension, of battles waged and unexplored desires.
The world fell away as the kiss deepened, becoming a whirlwind of sensations that left me dizzy and yearning for more. In that stolen breath of time, the winds had changed, our hostility transformed into a fusion of need, a realization that the lines between lust and conflict were blurred beyond recognition. When we finally pulled away, our foreheads touching, I knew that this kiss had rewritten the rules of our dance, setting us on an unknown path.
The theater was quiet. Absolutely, deathly still. And then, as if a dam had burst, the crowd erupted into a frenzy of applause and cheers that reverberated through the theater. The sound was deafening, a tidal wave of approval crashing over us. It wasn’t just our dance they celebrated; it was the raw intensity, the palpable connection that had ignited between us and blazed to life in that unforgettable kiss. And my husband had absolutely conducted that.
He bowed quickly once before walking off the stage as if nothing had happened. I watched him go, feeling every gaping inch he placed between us as fast as he could. But when I turned back, the crowd who’d stood so boldly faded into darkness as the back of the theater burst to life, every guard, every man at Icharius Fern’s disposal pouring in, weapons drawn, all eyes on me.
Chapter 42
“Run!” Althea screamed, frantically waving her hands from off stage.
