“Well, I'm a bottom so it's nearly the same as being with a woman.”
He snorted. “Somehow I doubt that.”
A snort! A snort after a laugh! Oh, that snowball was soon going to be large enough to demolish a town.
“You're right,” I admitted. “I'm so amazing in bed, I'm in a class of my own. There are men, women, and Sebastian Dahl.”
King Shaleros burst out laughing again. Yup, town-crushing size. He just couldn't stop now that he'd let go of his control.
I knew the entire room was staring at him, but so was I. The Dragon King was mesmerizing. His entire being glowed. That smile was incandescent. Nothing like it in the whole of Serai. And those fangs. Fucking hot. And sharp. Kissing him would be dangerous. Sexy dangerous.
But the King's humor quickly vanished. It was as if he remembered he was supposed to be stoic. His glorious laughter died a swift death, then his expression froze, and his eyes went cold. A shiver ran down my spine, and it wasn't the good kind. Fear. Stark fear. It was a shock to my system. The Dragon King had just been laughing. My body was under that influence. But with one look, he had spun the joy inside me into its opposite.
My breath left me. Had I been thinking that kissing King Shaleros would be dangerous? Flirting with him was akin to flirting with death. That town-crushing snowball was now headed my way. The fucked up part was—it didn't discourage me. Not in the least. Because underneath my fear was lust. Just as sudden, and just as shocking. Pure, hot, raging lust. Bend-me-over-this-table-right-now lust. I had to be with this man. Hadto feel him above me. Inside me. I knew with a clarity I'd never experienced before that the experience was worth dying for. Bring on the snowball. I'm a child of the cold; I can take it.
“Too fast?” I whispered, not daring to raise my voice. But I held his stare and let mine go molten. “It's all right, Your Majesty, we can take it slow.”
The Dragon King's eyes twitched. His hands clenched. Then they flattened on the table, and he shoved himself to his feet. His throne/couch made a roaring rumble as he pushed it back with his thighs. At first, I thought it was he who had made the sound.
The dining hall was already silent, but with the King's sudden rise, it went still. The stillness of a herd of prey sensing an approaching predator.
King Shaleros didn't look at me. He didn't speak. Probably couldn't have if he tried, what with the way his jaw was clenched. He spun away from me, his hair slashing at my shoulder as if to wound me, and marched to the dais steps.
The room came to its feet as the King plowed across the neutral zone between his dais and the other tables. Then he was moving down the central aisle, looking like a ghost. His courtiers bowed to him as he passed—an undulation of people. Behind the King marched two of his knights.
Unable to move, I watched the Dragon King until he left the room. I hadn't stood for him. I probably should have, but my brain couldn't process what was happening, couldn't react. Then the dining hall doors were shutting behind King Shaleros, and every eye was turning toward me.
Well, fuck me.
I heaped food onto my plate, speared a fork into the pile, grabbed my wine glass, and stood. Then, with as much dignity as I could muster, I left the dining hall, taking the same path as the King. I certainly couldn't stay at the King's table without him there, and I wouldn't be welcome at any other table. But I wasn't about to forgo dinner because the Dragon King got butt hurt over someone piercing his emotional armor.
The courtiers, back in their seats, stared at me as I passed, but I kept my chin lifted and ignored them. The door was a little hard to manage, but as soon as I started pushing it with my back, one of the guards on the other side opened it for me.
“Thanks, man,” I said and sauntered past him.
The guard frowned at me, then into the room, then after me. I kept walking, and as I did, a smile started to spread across my face. I had finally gotten through to the Dragon King. Yeah, his reaction had been less encouraging at the end, but it had begun with a smile and progressed quickly into a laugh. Laughter! That was huge. I'd even say the progress I achieved with him that night was greater than all the progress I'd made in his garden. King Shaleros the Indifferent wasn't indifferent. Not to me. Not anymore.
And he had shown me what kind of man he was. I had made the Dragon King furious, pushed and poked at him until he got so mad that I thought he might hurt me. But he hadn't hurt me. Not even in his rage. He had walked away. And even in his fury, there was hope. Because that was yet another emotion he could feel. Everyone thought he felt nothing. But the King himself had denied that. Love. That's all he couldn't feel. How he had made himself numb to that particular emotion I didn't know. But I was going to get him to tell me. Confide in me as he had earlier that night.
Yup. Straight, royal, and indifferent—none of it mattered.
“You're gonna be mine,” I declared to the image of the Dragon King in my head. Then I lifted my glass to toast myself and drank deeply.
Chapter Nine
That night, I went to bed with a head full of the Dragon King. After so long without any response from him, his laughter had felt like the greatest victory I'd ever achieved. To say it had been hard won was an understatement. And because of that, I was now obsessed. I wanted a smile from him every day. A smile at the very least.
In the morning, I woke up with an erection. No big surprise there. But using the bathroom didn't rid me of it. I had to take care of things in the shower. One guess who I thought about while I did.
With my body seen to, I went to clothe it. I owned two types of garments for garden work—those I called normal and those made of hardier, thicker cotton to protect me from thorns and such. I'd been wearing the latter through the weeding process, although I usually removed my tunic by midday because the heat got unbearable. Longingly, I stared at my summer work clothes, then reached for the thicker stuff. The weeds were gone, but there were still thorny plants to deal with. The worst were the berry bushes. You'd think berries would be happy plants, but usually, they're covered in thorns to protect their bounty. If you wanted to reach their sweetness, you had to bleed.
That sound familiar? Yes, I just compared the Dragon King to a berry bush.
By the time I was dressed, the breakfast I'd requested had arrived. I ate at the low table in the front room as usual—a hearty meal of eggs poached in a fragrant tomato stew, with soft, flat bread to sop it all up. The spices were incredible, but I was too excited about the King to savor the food.
Thoughts of His Majesty continued to fill my head as I walked to the garden. I should apologize even though I wouldn't mean it. He was the King, and I had made him mad. It was on me to apologize. But how? What did I say? Then the garden came into sight, and I knew.
I hurried through the beds, searching for specific plants. Luckily, I found several of the blooms I wanted. I gathered a selection, bound them with a length of vine, then hurried back into the castle. It took only a few seconds to find a passing servant. Once the bouquet was on its way to the King, I went back to the garden. And stared at the star fountain.
