My hands grazed down my torso, over my thighs, my breasts, my sides.
Still, he didn’t look.
I sank to my knees, feeling the marble’s chill against my skin, then rose in one fluid motion, spine arching, breath trembling. My hand slid between my thighs, the other tugging the hem of my tunic higher, a whisper of skin flashing in the torchlight. The rhythm owned me now; it pulled and demanded, urging me to tempt harder, tocommandthe gaze I’d been denied.
Nothing.
He might as well have been cut from the same stone as the throne in front of him. His arms remained crossed, his gaze fixed straight ahead. Unmoving and unmoved as if I were no more interesting than dust on the floor.
Frustration curled in my chest. Ineededto break him.
Each movement I made was both shame and worship, sin and sacrament. My hair slipped from its binding, cascading down my shoulders in golden waves. I let it fall, let it brush my back the way I remembered his gaze following it in the garden, how they’d darkened, pupils blown wide, as if he were already imagining the silk of it wrapped around his fist while he pulled my head back and took my mouth.
The thought sent more fire licking low in my belly and I gathered the strands and tossed them over one shoulder with a sharp flick, baring my throat, and the long, vulnerable line of it. I knew he’d noticed that too. I knew his gaze had lingered on the frantic beat of my pulse like he was already tasting it against his tongue.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the king’s head lift. His attention, at last, turned toward me.
But my body wasn’t performing for him.
My thighs parted as I sank onto my heels, the silk of my tunic clinging to flushed skin. Every shift of fabric chafed across my nipples, already peaked and aching for rough hands—his hands. I moved with care, aware of the way Achilles’s eyes watched movement, how it was always cataloguing threat and weaknessand want with the same ruthless focus. My hands glided up my sides, tracing the dip of my waist, the flare of my ribs, stopping just beneath the swell of my breasts.
I didn’t touch them.
I let my fingers hover, trembling, close enough that the absence became its own kind of torture. Close enough that my own breath stuttered. I remembered the way his jaw had clenched in the garden when I’d crossed my arms, pushing my breasts higher … how his gaze had dropped, fixed and burning. How his throat had worked on a hard swallow before he’d pulled his eyes away like it cost him.He wanted them in his mouth. He wanted to suck and bite until I was sobbing, and begging him to fill me.
The thought made me throb, another gush of slick heat pulsing between my thighs.
I bent forward, pressing my palms flat to the stone floor and bowing low. My spine arched, rear lifting into the air, hips rolling slow. The position was pure offering, indecent, instinctive, and exactly what Ineeded. I rolled my hips just enough to change the line of my body, just enough to offer an angle I knew he liked, because his gaze had bit into it as I’d walked away last night.
Something ignited across my back, a burn that climbed my skin and stole my breath. I didn’t have to look to know whose eyes were devouring me.
Achilles was watching me now.
The air between us tightened. The weight of his focus cut through the noise, the music, the crowd. I risked a glance, the smallest flick of my eyes beneath the veil, and found him no longer still. His jaw was set, his arms lowered to his sides, and his gaze … his gaze seared through the space between us.
Menalaus’s head turned slightly toward his captain, one brow lifting, a knowing smirk crossing his lips.
I rose again, spinning, arms lifting above my head like a priestess offering herself to her god. My hips swayed in rhythm, the movement drawn from someplace deeper, shaped by the heat of their twin gazes, one burning, one amused.
Anysa moaned softly nearby as she ground against one of the concubines guiding her, her leg hooked over the other woman’s hip. The concubine kissed down her neck, her hand roaming with practiced ease. A soldier in the crowd groaned audibly and cupped his groin.
A woman to my right pushed aside her own tunic, exposing the soft swell of her breasts. She cupped them as she danced, eyes wild and mouth slack with pleasure, offering herself to the room with fearless hunger.
But the king didn’t spare her a glance. His attention was fixed on me, his gaze flicking between Achilles and the path my body traced. There was still amusement in his smile, and intrigue, the kind that turned watching into sport.
He wanted to see if I could do it. If I could makehiscaptain, his perfect, unbreakable soldier, fall prey to what no command or battlefield ever had.
As Menalaus watched, that amusement began to change. Curiosity softened into hunger, fascination into something deeper. The predator in him had gone still, waiting to see what I could do.
Once again, I was bending Menelaus to my will. And even in my drugged state, I could feel that heady sense of power.
I could feel that seductivecontrolI’d been so desperate for.
The ache between my legs spiked, pleasure spreading so fast it nearly stole my balance. My body moved on instinct, hips tilting, breath deepening, skin alive beneath the heat of their eyes. The king watched like a man studying his own power reflected back at him … but it was Achilles whose gaze held me fast.
It was like I could feel his touch.
His stare dragged across my skin like a hand. A mouth. A promise. I felt like I could come just from the way he looked at me.
