Page 49
He shifted under her now, nuzzling her disordered hair with an open affection that made her traitorous body melt even more into him. “Do you think it might be safe to release me now?” His voice was rueful, his breath warm against her skin.
“Ha!” Lorelei snorted. “I haven’t lost all of my common sense yet, so, no. You are never harmless.” Even so, she let the vines slip away from his magnificently splayed arms and legs, making sure to let the blossoms slide like kisses against his skin … and she couldn’t bring herself to move even when he closed his arms around her in a dangerously tender embrace.
“Liar,” he whispered against her hair. “I’m the only man you do trust. Remember? You already admitted that to me.”
She blinked … and then remembered: oh, yes, he had asked her, the night before, why she hadn’t partnered in the tournament with anyone before him. Somehow, she’d been fool enough to let it slip that, of all the men she’d ever met, she’d trusted only him to fight by her side.
Clearly, that had been yet another mistake on her part … but wait! Lorelei pushed herself up, bracing her hands on his strong shoulders, to look down at him triumphantly. “There is another man I trust not to knife me in the back nowadays—Saskia’s consort, Felix.”
Gerard’s eyebrows rose with interest, but his arms remained relaxed and warm around her. “The Estarian Archduke?”
“Oh, I’ve forgiven him for that part.” She waved away Felix’s title with easy dismissal. “He’ll be the official Kitvarian Prince Consort soon enough. At any rate, I don’t doubt his loyalty to Saskia and the Queens of Villainy anymore.”
“‘Anymore’ … ah, yes.” Gerard’s eyes narrowed. “You did mention, back at our armies’ meeting on the Kitvarian border, that you had something to make up to him. What did you do that was so dreadful even you regretted it?”
“I…” Lorelei winced, her gaze sliding away from his as she plucked uncomfortably at the glitter-covered blue wool of his jacket. “Well, I may just possibly have kidnapped him. Briefly. Almost by accident. Really, it was all just a terrible misunderstanding.”
“I see.” Gerard regarded her for a long, silent moment before shaking his head with grave disappointment. “So, I’m not your first, after all.”
“Wha—? It wasn’t like that, and you know it!” Letting out a huff of startled laughter, Lorelei crossed her arms on his broad chest and rested her chin on her clasped hands. She was not gazing adoringly at him, absolutely not. Still, it was a revelation to see the crinkle of amusement around his eyes and the tiny curve of his stern lips. “You really do have a sense of humor, don’t you?”
“I find it’s best to develop one after being brutally kidnapped,” he told her in a philosophical tone. “It helps to bear the trauma.”
“Ha.” Narrowing her eyes, she freed one hand and ran a fingertip experimentally down his side, slipping it beneath the untucked shirt at his waist to venture even farther. “Has it been too, too utterly traumatic, darling?”
His throat flexed convulsively above his stiff uniform collar and cravat as he swallowed. “Utterly. Entirely. Please do feel free to continue everything you’re doing, though. I have been trained to withstand torture.”
“You beast! Just for that, I will stop.” But she was laughing as she raised her hand once more, and her palm somehow ended up cupped around one big shoulder, rubbing affectionate circles with her thumb there instead.
She would get up in a moment. Obviously. Staying here for too long, undeniably cuddling, would give him entirely the wrong idea. But it was hard to summon up any motivation to leave when she felt so very relaxed and at ease … and, clearly, so did he.
Who could have imagined Gerard de Moireul having a secret well of playfulness hidden behind that famously stoic demeanor? Was this what he might have been like all along if he’d only had a different kind of upbringing? If he’d acted like this when they’d first met … oh, it would have been impossible to resist him for so long! She would have been forced to kidnap him years ago.
But the idea of any other woman discovering what this man was really like in bed …
“Is there a reason why you suddenly look ready to commit murder?” he inquired with unruffled interest.
“I’m just … considering the future.” From now on, she would have to order her ladies-in-waiting never, ever to pass on any newspaper articles or gossip about the Empire’s Golden Beacon. Lorelei had never approved of jealousy … but she had to confess, in the privacy of her own twisted heart, that she wouldn’t trust herself not to set a thornbush growing directly from the heart of the next woman lucky and clever enough to maneuver herself into Gerard’s arms.
Unlike him, she truly was a villain.
It took her a moment to realize that she’d stopped rubbing circles against Gerard’s shoulder and was digging her nails into it instead. She jerked her hand back—and found Gerard watching her with far too much comprehension.
“Panicking again, my darling?”
How dare he take her meaningless endearment and turn it into something entirely different? When he called her his darling in that deep, rumbling voice …
No. Suddenly reinvigorated, Lorelei pushed herself upwards, and he—of course—immediately let her go. She did not regret the loss of that warm hold one bit as she jumped to her feet and adjusted her gown back into a semblance of discretion. She didn’t want to be persuaded into staying, deceptively safe and dangerously happy, in the comfort of his arms. It was excellent that he wasn’t wasting his breath trying to change her mind about that.
So she gifted him with her most dazzling smile as she tossed back her hair over one shoulder. “Well! That was certainly a very pleasant diversion”—Sylvana knew, if it had been any more pleasant, she wouldn’t be able to walk now—“but we do have a final day of trials left tomorrow, so we had better both get some sleep.”
“Very sensible.” He didn’t move from his comfortably prone position, but there was a subtle tinge of amusement in his tone that made her instincts tingle in warning.
Lowering her eyelashes, she regarded him suspiciously. “Then I’ll see you again in the morning.”
“As you say.” Rising with the fluid ease of a man who did calisthenics every single morning by choice, he removed his uniform jacket.
Lorelei truly didn’t mean to lick her lips at the sight. It was just … remarkably pleasurable to watch those objectively impressive muscles flex through his white cotton shirt. When he pulled that shirt over his head to reveal his bare, hair-dusted shoulders and strong arms—and oh, the dangerous temptation of his broad, golden-furred chest, calling out for her hands to carefully shape every ridge and tangle her fingers in that short, curling hair!—she had to bite down hard on her lower lip to hold back a whimper of pure hunger.
