His care didn’t surprise me; he had cleaned me before. It was clinical then, though, the sole purpose to remove the unwanted touch from my skin.
This time, it was more—intimate and caring.
I stared at him as he washed me, and the usually harsh lines of his face had softened into an expression of contentment. His hair was pulled back and messily tied.
I could stare at him forever. Until every line and scar was burned into my brain.
Harsh. Striking. Intense. But also soft, even if only in the moments alone with me. A true king. A king from time’s past, a time forgotten.
“The tapestry,” I murmured.
Shade’s brow rose, his movements never faltering as he glided the cloth over my skin.
“When we first arrived, there was a tapestry in the entrance hall. Was it you?”
“Maybe, what did it look like?”
“A man on a massive horse. He was in a bloody battlefield, they said he was a forgotten king.” I didn’t say who, didn’t want to ruin this moment by uttering his name here.
“It was me. That battle killed my father.” His expression held a sour note, a coldness.
“What was he like?” I wanted to know more about his past. Now that his secret had been revealed, I hoped he would give it to me.
“A king.” He paused, and I waited, sensing he would tell me more, offer a true glimpse into his past. “His kingdom and its people came second to no one. Not my mother. Not me. Not Bas. His father—my grandfather—was a cruel man. My father did the best he could with what he knew, but he would often revert to his father’s way of teaching. Bastian took the brunt of it and my brother resented him for it.”
He paused again, eyes distant and lost in the past. “For every flaw my father had, my mother made up for, her kindness and strength felt by everyone, only she could keep my father level. Things worsened for Bas when she died.”
“I’m sorry you lost her.”
Hurt reflected in his eyes, one I intricately understood, so I didn’t press for more. I wouldn’t push him to delve into that pain unless he wanted to. “It was a long time ago.”
Shade focused on his task, and I leaned back, closing my eyes and basking in the sweeping movement of his hands over my body.
The touches slowly shifted. Lingering. Teasing my body with soft caresses and never giving me quite enough.
“You’re cruel.” My words were practically a pant when he skimmed my inner thigh, just shy of the pulsing happening between my legs again.
He chuckled deeply and helped me from the tub, then preceded to torture me with the towel, the rough texture in stark contrast to the soft cloth and no less desirable as I was bombarded with a myriad of sensations. He knelt to dry my legs, pausing when he reached my upper thighs, the moisture between them not from water alone. The sound that rumbled in his chest had my core clenching and my hips jerking forward.
“Did I not give you enough, Solis? Do you need more?”
Before I could beg him to touch me where I needed it most, he gripped my hips and pulled me toward his face, lifting one of my legs to rest on his shoulder, giving him unrestricted access. With his mouth on me again, it took nothing at all for my skin to burst into flames, my orgasm riding me with such intensity that I cried out.
“Fuck.I could taste you all day,” he murmured, licking my wetness from his lips when I resurfaced again. I had to scold myself for the arousal that spiked at the sight. He had just given me two of the best orgasms of my life and I still wanted more.
That’s what he did to me.
Later that night, after I sat through a grueling meal with the king, Shade joined me in bed. He hadn’t done so since the firstnight after the wedding. I lay against his bare chest, his hand tracing soothing patterns along my back. We had settled into a quiet calm, and I was basking in the intimacy of it.
I gazed at the skin beneath me, skimming my fingertips across the raised edges of each mark on Shade’s body. He sucked in a breath when I traced over the scars on his side, his skin pebbling under my touch.
“How did you get these?” I whispered, my curiosity getting the better of me. He didn’t reply straight away, his hands continuing their trail along my back.
“Magic takes a toll.”
Magic had caused the markings, scarred almost every inch of his skin? I couldn’t remember any mention of that in our history. Unless … “Was it the lamp?”
“Yes and no.” His voice portrayed how much he didn’t want to speak of it, and after all the revelations of the day, I wouldn’t push him on it.
