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“I hate thisplace,” Al said. Because she had so much anger twining with so much of that unsettled feeling, she simply needed to rage.
“I suppose both these things will only aid in my goal of revenge.”
She turned to face Lysias, the odd note to his tone causing her some confusion. She thought perhaps he was trying to sound bored, but it did not come out with quite the same sarcasm he usually managed.
For the first time she considered that perhaps she should not have poked at the king like that. “Did I mess up your plans?” she asked. It struck her suddenly that she was not worried about upsetting his plans for the right reasons.
She didn’t want him angry with her. She wanted him pleased. Approving. When she shouldn’t care aboutthat. She should care about enacting his revenge so she could get paid.
“No,” Lysias replied, still hovering near the door, though he studied her with an intensity she could not fully understand, even if it made her heart begin to beat double time, and something improbably bloomed deep within.
“If anything,” he continued. “I believe that little performance only adds credence to the belief we are devoted to one another. Which is good, as once it is proven you are the princess, a marriage to me will be his second-worst nightmare.”
“But how can you prove...”
“I have worked for many years to get the people in the king’s employ on my side. Some were glad to be the minute I approached...some took more time. Just this morning, I received confirmation that the palace doctor will falsify the DNA results for us.”
Alexandra nodded, but his words did not bring her comfort. He was staring at her a bit like they had never met, like he knew nothing about her and was surprised to find her here at all.
She didn’t know what to say to him with that expression on his face. She did not know what the next step of any of this was. They were in the palace. They’d met with the king—who was as determined to prove them liars as Lysias had promised he would be.
He crossed to her then, and the look on his face sharpened, turning into something she might have calledferal. There was something in his gaze—like last night, but not. He reached out and cupped her face with his large hands. He studied her for a moment more as her heart clattered about and her breath backed up in her lungs. As her body seemed to simplycome alight.
And when he kissed her, it was not like yesterday. There was heat, yes. Passion. But something softer. Deeper. Whatever sharp-edged anger over Diamandis that had still been swirling inside of her settled, melted.
She leaned into him, into the kiss. She did not feel comfortable in this palace, and the only thing that seemed able to penetrate her unease was her anger.
And now this.
His hands smoothing over her back, large and possessive, drawing her closer against the hard evidence of his arousal. His mouth a dangerous demand of heat and somethingmore.
When she managed to flutter her eyes open, his golden gaze was on her. Even as he kissed her rough and deep, he watched her. Lust bloomed suddenly, a bolt so hot and sharp it was nearly painful.
“Touch me,” she managed, though her voice was ragged with that drugging need. She pressed herself against him, desperate for the way he could make her feel.
“You have forgotten the magic word, Alexandra,” he said, his voice a deep purr. He’d stopped kissing her, and now he held her hips, his fingers curling in the fabric of her skirt that was held to the top with little fanciful ties of fabric.
She tried to move against him, find some satisfaction for herself, but he managed to hold her just out of reach. “Perhaps you should be the one saying please to me,” she replied, looking for that balance they’d found last night. None of the disquiet she’d felt today.
He laughed darkly. “That will never happen.” Then he ripped her skirt from the little ties in one hard jerk. She gasped at the arrow of pleasure that shot through her at such a reckless act. The skirt fluttered to the floor, but before she could even step out of it, he swept her into his arms and strode across the room to the bed—even larger than the one in his home.
He laid her down, straddling her body as he removed the top from her. She reached out and fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. She wanted to feel him. The heat of his skin, the power in his muscles.
He shrugged out of his shirt, then pulled her up by the shoulders to kiss her again, hard and deep. The tenor had changed from that first kiss, or so she thought. This one so fierce and wild and much more like last night.
Then he kissed down her neck, her chest, in between her breasts to where she still had a bandage. He brushed a light kiss over it. “Ah,asteri mou, no one will hurt you again. I will not allow it.”
A warmth spread inside of her, along with all this passionate want. A strange moisture collected behind her eyes. It was a promise that he would not be able to keep, even if he meant to, because he would not be there once their little mission was finished. They would part. He had made that clear and she expected nothing more.
But he made her yearn for a more she had not imagined when she’d been Al and alone. She had never known anything of passion, but he had shown her last night. She had never known anything of whatever this was. She did not understandthis. A tenderness that she had never seen in her life. A connection that felt beyond what physical sensations they could draw out in each other.
Like they were two sides of the same coin, melded together at last.Belonging.When she knew better than to belong to anyone or anything. The only permanence in life was oneself.
But his hand smoothed down her body, then cupped her and the pleasure arrowed so deep, she was flying through her climax in mere moments. “Lysias...”
“More,” he growled, and sheathed himself in protection before he thrust inside of her in one delicious slide. She moaned out his name, met each thrust with her own. She clung to him and chased every sensation wildly and wantonly, as he told her how beautiful she was, howgood.
It never seemed to end, and she did not think her body could stand such pleasure, over and over, and yet the wave built. Larger and larger.
