When Charming had been atop her, he had only been concerned for his own pleasure. Raveena doubted the prince knew that a woman's body could grip a man's cock in a way to heighten their own release. He hadn't given her enough time to show him with his singular performance. She really didn't want to go back for a repeat show. But she would have to if she wanted to keep this castle.
And she would keep this castle.
Now that Graham was back, this time, she would keep him as well.
"Goddess, I missed you. The look of you. The feel of you. The smell of you." Raveena wrinkled her nose. He smelled of horse. "You didn't wash before coming to me?"
Graham flinched, just slightly, the corner of his mouth twitching with memory.
Raveena wasn’t trying to wound him with an insult. She was trying to pull him back into her bed. Maybe they'd share a bath first. They could fuck in the bath. In the perfumed depths of the waters, she would remind him that she belonged to no one but him. That she’d only ever surrendered herself to him.
They stood there, inches apart. The hem of her gown tangled in his fists. Her skin was bare and burning. His jaw clenched like he was holding back a scream—or a kiss.
"I didn't come to fuck you, Raveena."
"Then what? To kill me?" She looked down at the dagger.
"I should. Turnabout is fair play."
"I did not send you to war." It was an old argument. One she did not want to revisit, not when they could be tangling in the sheets. It had been three long years.
"You might as well have. What other choice did I have?"
"You could've stayed."
"And been your lover."
"Yes."
"I told you, I don't share. I won't share you. Ever."
"My husband is dead."
"Yet you're jockeying for a newer model."
"Because I failed with the first to produce an heiress."
Graham's nostrils flared. He bared his teeth like a wolf ready to go in for the kill. That had been the worst of their arguments, the thought that another man would get her with child. With a harsh growl, he turned away from her.
Raveena reached for his chin and got a handful of beard. It was softer than she'd suspected. She turned his head back to face her. "Put your babe in my belly. I'll marry Charming. Then I'll kill him. And we can live happily ever after."
"You'd do that? You'd take a man's life?"
"How many lives have you taken these last three years?"
"I was at war."
"So am I."
CHAPTER SIX
She was a queen. This was how they thought. The lives of men meant nothing to them. Males were all pawns on the game board as far as any snow queen was concerned.
Graham looked again at the spot on her neck where his dagger had pierced. He'd felt the break of her skin viscerally. But not as deep as he'd felt that bruise on her inner thigh.
There had been nights he'd envisioned her head on a platter. But when he zoomed out in those dreams, the rest of her body was also on a serving tray. Naked. For him to feast upon.
He would never be able to kill her. This had been a fool's errand. This woman held him by the heart just as much as she held him by the balls.
