Longing curled and twisted low in my gut, and it gave me the nerve to continue. To be honest with him, even if it was entirely foolish. “I owe you an apology.”
He hadn’t been expecting that. “You owe me an apology for so many things you’ll have to be more specific,” he teased.
“I think I control the dreams. And the nightmares. I didn’t realize it until recently, but it seems that they come from me.”
“You didn’t have to resort to dreams if you wanted me. You only had to ask. And climb into my lap,” he said, looking down at where my body pressed against his.
“The dreams started on theNikos,” I said, rocking against him once, twice, before stopping. “I wanted you to be with me. To feel what I was feeling, to touch me the way that I longed to touch you.”
“You’re finally admitting that you want me?”
“I do want you,” I said. “Then, now, I always want you.”
His eyes darkened. “Are you saying these things to win your game?”
I shook my head. “I’m saying them because they’re true.”
His pulse beat so hard at the base of his throat that I could see it. I leaned forward to kiss it quickly before continuing.
“I’ve never told you how safe you make me feel. How all day long I wait for the moment that I get to lie in your arms because I know nothing will happen to me so long as you’re there.”
The knot in his neck bobbed slowly.
“I haven’t admitted how I’ve become an oath-breaker. I’m not going to kill Thrax. I’m not going to kill you. But I can hardly hang on to my vows when you kiss me. And worse, I’m not sure that I want to.”
“Don’t tell me that,” he pleaded with a groan.
I continued my exploration of his torso. I didn’t think I would ever tire of doing so. “You told me once that you could satisfy my curiosity. But there is so much I’m curious about.”
“Such as?” His heated voice was thick in his throat.
“What it will feel like when you’re inside me, and how I ache when I think about it.”
He growled in a way that completely thrilled me, his eyes turning hazy and unfocused. He gripped the arms of his throne so tightly that his knuckles went white.
“Have you imagined that?” I asked innocently.
“Many, many times. Can I touch you now?”
“Not if you want to win,” I said, despite the fact that my stomach quivered and desire beat through my superheated blood. “You’ve done so many amazing things to me, and I think constantly about how to return the favor. How I could use my mouth on you to—”
He groaned and swore and then his lips were on mine, his arms around me. At first I gloried in the fact that I had won, and then I gloried that he was touching me.
He slid his tongue into my mouth and I moaned in response. Complete and total bliss. I melted against him as he turned my blood into liquid sun. Burning and bright and more than I could take.
I instinctually moved against him because of the unbelievable pleasure it gave me, and the promise of what was to come next. He let out a ragged groan of approval.
Especially once I realized that the faster I went, the better it felt.
“So beautiful,” he murmured in a raspy voice. “So good. So, so good.”
Pressure built, accompanied by shooting stars and heated sparks that twisted and swirled inside me. So many parts of me ached in a way I didn’t completely understand. His kisses kept pace with me, twining his tongue with mine over and over again.
The hardest part of this was that it didn’t feel wrong. It never had. It had always felt fated, as if the goddess herself had decreed our relationship.
I needed more of whatever this was. Molten fire radiated through me until I felt like I might burst. Somehow I knew that there was an ecstasy waiting for me, I just had to reach it.
“Lia ...” His frayed words were against my lips. “I’m going to—”
