by Maisey Yates
He ground his teeth together, his heart thundering hard. He was...angry. At his body, for betraying him as it always did. At himself, for his weakness.
At her, for making him vulnerable.
Before he knew what he was doing, he growled, crossing the room toward her. Her eyes widened, and she shrank back from him, her back hitting the wall.
“You think the wall will save you? I think we’ve proven that it won’t,” he said, rage making him reckless. Making him cruel.
He wanted to use his words to drive a wedge between them. To push her away. He didn’t want her to look at him with desire.
“You are not touching me again until you explain yourself.”
“What’s to explain? I wanted you. I had you.” With no control, no finesse, no care for anything at all. He hadn’t even asked her if she wanted it. Yes, her body language had given every indication that she did, but he hadn’t even known how innocent Zara was. He still wasn’t entirely certain. She had acted boldly back there, but that meant nothing. He was afraid to ask. Now that it was too late, he was very afraid indeed.
“And then you left.”
“Again, Princess, what did you want from me?”
“I thought we might go back in for dessert,” she said, her voice wobbling.
That innocence, the insecurity, tore at him like claws and yet he could not stop himself from putting more distance between them.
He laughed, the sound carrying no humor. “So you thought I would go back in there with no buttons on my shirt? After all, a little creature pulled them off.”
She is not the creature. You are the monster.
Her expression turned all the more stormy. “I am not a creature. I am a woman. As I think I just proved.” She was as haughty as ever. As prideful. Her chin tilted upward, her eyes full of determination.
But she was also vulnerable. He could see it there, written on her face plainly. And there was nothing he could do about it. He was not the man to handle vulnerable women.
If his history was any indicator, he was the man who chased vulnerable women away.
“And I am a man,” he said, keeping his tone dry. “So there is nothing all that exceptional about attraction exploding between us.”
She frowned. “Even though we were fighting?”
“Especially because we were fighting,” he said, his voice rough.
“That makes no sense to me.”
“Then I question the sort of lovers you’ve had in the past.”
It was her turn to laugh. “I’ve had no other lovers.”
It was the answer he had been afraid of. The rage in his blood turned to ice, settling in the pit of his stomach. “Is that so?”
“Of course I haven’t. I had never even kissed a man before you.”
Mother of God. Had she even known what was exploding between them out there in the hall? Had she even realized where it might go? What had he done?
In that moment he despised himself. He hadn’t thought it was possible for him to reach a new depth of hating his own lack of self-control. The loss of his mother, what happened with Francesca, he had imagined that was the worst of it. Right now, looking at this angry, confused woman who had been a virgin only minutes earlier, he realized there were entirely new depths he hadn’t even known about.
“How is it you have survived this long?” he growled, aware that he was allowing his anger at himself to spill out and hit the wrong target. “You are so naive it is painful. By rights you should have been devoured by a wolf in the forest.”
Her eyes were filled with righteous indignation. “I feel as though I was just devoured by a wolf.”
“If I had devoured you, little one, you would hardly be standing here radiating rage.”
“Perhaps, had you not run away from me like a scared little boy, I would not be standing here radiating rage.”
For a moment, he saw himself as exactly that. A scared little boy failing at his duty yet again. Going off into isolation.
No.
He slammed his hand against the wall, right by her head. “Were I a little boy you would not behave so satisfied as you apparently were.”
“You can’t minimize and maximize the impact of what happened in the same argument,” she said, her eyes never wavering from his.
“I can do whatever I like.” He pushed away from her, his heart raging. “I am the prince here.”
She rolled her eyes, having the gall to look bored. “And I am a princess.”
“Princess of the caravans,” he said. “Very compelling. You would be nothing here in my country were it not for your engagement to me. An engagement that you seem intent on preventing when you know it’s the only way you’ll ever make anything of yourself. You want to know who you really are? Apart from me? Impoverished. Would you like to explore the meaning of that? Being cold, being hungry, being truly alone.”
The color drained from her face and he felt an answering ache expanding in his stomach. He didn’t think it was possible to be any more of a bastard than he already was. Yet again, he was proved wrong.
“Whatever freedom you imagine you might find in that,” he continued, “I guarantee it will not be there. Here? With me? I will give you money, power, access to education, a chance to make a difference. Not sleeping in the street, which I feel you may also think an advantage.”
She was now completely white-faced and still, like a small marble statue, turned to stone by his words.
“My mistake,” he said. “You were imagining that you might have a life if you left me, and I have just stolen your illusion. What were you thinking? That I might finance your life without the benefit of having you in my bed?”
“No.” Furious color rose in her cheeks. “Of course I didn’t think that. I thought that I could...perhaps find out what I wanted to do...”
“For work? You have no job experience. You have no life experience. Forgive me, Princess, but you need to understand that growing up in the wilderness, surrounded by a band of people lost somewhere in the last century, does not give you the necessary tools to exist inside an urban society.”
“I am not naive, nor am I stupid. The screaming in the palace... Andres, you would pray to God to have those memories removed from your head. However, it doesn’t work that way. If I had any innocence left, it all was lost then. So do not treat me as though I am some kind of wide-eyed child. I stopped being a child when I was six years old.” She took a deep breath. “I am the only survivor of a terrible attack on the royal family. I was whisked out of my bedroom in the dead of night by my mother’s maid, screams filling the air behind us, screams that echo in my head even now. Screams that most certainly belonged to my mother, my father. My brother. I am left with nothing but the sounds and my imagination to weave every dark image with them. I do not know exactly how they died, but I have thought of countless ways. Dreamed the most nightmarish things. Do not mistake me for an innocent.”
Her words felt like a crushing blow against his chest. He wondered, for some reason, if anyone had ever taken care of her. Yes, the people who had raised her had certainly seen to her needs. Her basic needs. But he wondered if anyone had truly cared for her.
His mother had left, and his father had been distinctly disinterested, but he’d had servants, nannies who at least approximated some kind of love. Who had read him stories, and tucked him in. Had anyone read her stories? She was a girl, a girl who had thick, luxurious hair. Surely someone would have needed to braid it for her? Had anyone ever done so? It seemed a crime if no one had.
As if you’ve treated her any better. You were rough. You took no care for her virginity. And you must’ve known. There’s no way you couldn’t have.
He had only contributed to her loneliness. He had left her. He hadn’t taken care of her. He had been so focused on her failing him that he hadn’t taken into account the fact that he had failed her.
Just as he had failed his mother. His father. His brother.
He had a chance to end
eavor to do better by her. At least now.
“Go into the bathroom,” he said, unable to modify his tone.
She stayed rooted to the spot, glaring at him intensely.
“Must you be stubborn about everything?” he asked. “Go into the bathroom.”
She practically snarled as she pushed away from the wall and stomped past him, heading into the bathroom.
He followed, undoing the last of the buttons on his shirt before casting it, and his jacket, down onto the ground. He tried to fight the heat that was pouring through his veins. This was not the time. He slowly undid his belt buckle, the button on his pants, and left both of them behind as he continued on. By the time he entered, he was naked.
Zara looked up at him, eyes wide. “What are you doing?”
He bent down, turning the handle on the bathtub. “I am giving you a bath. I’m certain that you feel in need of one.”
She crossed her arms over her chest as though she was trying to protect herself and looked away. “I do.”
“Then, take your dress off.”
She shrank in on herself, her expression suspicious. “I don’t know that I’m ready to be naked with you.”
“It’s a bit late for that.”
She locked her attention on to him, a blush coloring her cheeks. “It is not too late. We weren’t naked.”
“No, but I was just inside you.”
The color in her cheeks intensified. “Well, I don’t know if I’m ready for that to happen again.”
She was so raw. So hurt. He was the lowest creature. This was too little, too late, and he knew it.
“I left you so I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said. “And...and because it was the only way I knew to get control over myself.”
She looked up at him. “What?”
“I was rough with you. I was...beyond myself. It is something of a default. A...a punishment for me to remove myself from people when I...misbehave.”
She frowned. “You punish yourself?”
“When I need it.”
“Oh.”
He let out a sharp breath. “I swear to you, I will not touch you like that. Not now. Not until you say.” A skeptical light glistened in her dark brown eyes. “I only want to take care of you.” Were she another woman, one who did not deal in uncomfortable honesty, she would not have believed him. If she were another woman, and this were another time, he would not have believed himself.
“Turn around,” she said.
He obeyed, and he heard rustling behind him. He was hard again. And he despised himself for that too. He had good intentions. Sadly his body did not. His body did not understand how to keep its word.
But he would. He would overcome. He would prove himself now, though he had failed his earlier tests. He did have control over himself now. Yes, he had spent a great many years not exercising that control, but he knew it was there.
He would prove it now. This was the ultimate atonement. The ultimate test.
He heard the sound of her disturbing the water, and he closed his eyes, trying very hard not to imagine what it would look like as she sank down into the tub. Trying very hard not to imagine what her bare skin would look like.
He had shown restraint that first day, when he plucked her out of the bath and threw her onto his bed. He had not given himself permission to look at all of her bare, silken skin. He would not show such restraint today. Today, he would look. He would not touch her, not until she begged for him to, but he would look.
He waited a moment, then without waiting for her permission turned. She was submerged beneath the water, only the tops of her shoulders and her head visible above the surface.
Andres walked toward the tub, stepping into it, sinking down across from her. The water level rose, and her eyes widened. “A bit late to play the blushing virgin. You should have affected that bit earlier.”
“I’m still practically a virgin.”
He laughed, but the sound carried no humor. “Not even a little bit, agape.”
He reached out, wrapping his arm around her waist and turning her so that she was facing away from him, wedged between his legs. She squeaked as he adjusted their positions, but she didn’t fight him. “Well, it isn’t as though I have a vast array of experience.”
She was determined to fight him. Every step of the way. If he didn’t enjoy it so much, it might irritate him.
“You don’t want a vast array of experience,” he said, softening his tone. “You said yourself you are not prepared for any more.”
She shifted, the round curve of her butt brushing against his arousal. “I said not right then.”
“You are the most difficult creature.”
She turned to look over her shoulder. “So are you. You are so determined to have your way.”
He lifted his hand out of the water and caught her chin. “This is not about having my way. I am trying. For my brother, for my country. You have not been honest with me.”
“What do you mean?”
“You told me you had accepted this.”
“I never said that.”
“Scoot forward, and lay your head back.”
“Why?”
“Why do you insist on arguing with everything I say?”
She had no response to that. Instead, she complied. He held her tightly as she lowered her head backward, her dark hair slipping beneath the water, fanning out around her. His eyes were drawn to the pale, rounded curves of her breasts, visible just above the surface of the water. In fact, the new pose brought all of her body much closer to the surface, revealing each curve, dip and hollow. But he had promised he wouldn’t touch. Not in that way. So he didn’t. Instead, he helped her tip her head back farther, careful to keep the water out of her face.
Once her hair was wet, he guided her back up between his thighs, reaching for one of the cut-glass bottles that was resting on the edge of the tub. He tipped it to the side, putting a bit in his hand before replacing it, and turned his focus back to her. He buried his fingers in the dark, silky locks.
“What are you doing?”
“Washing your hair.”
He felt her shoulders go rigid. “Why?”
“You are far too full of questions.”
“And you are full of questionable behavior.”
“Has anyone ever taken care of you, Zara?”
He felt her frame shrink. “I never wanted for food. Or shelter. I was quite adequately taken care of.”
“No. That isn’t what I meant. Who cared for you? Did anyone do anything beyond simply ensuring that you would not die?”
“What else is there?”
He continued working the shampoo through her hair. “There is this.”
“Clean hair won’t keep me alive.” She sounded subdued now, even though she was still challenging him.
“Is being kept alive enough?” He did not let the question go deep enough that he might be tempted to answer it himself. For himself.
“It has served me well so far.”
“But you want more. Which is why you are pushing back so hard on the engagement.”
“Or perhaps I simply don’t like you. Maybe it isn’t the marriage. Maybe it’s you.”
He leaned in, scraping his teeth over the top of her shoulder. “You like me well enough. At least, in the most important way I can think of where marriage is concerned.”
He felt her shiver beneath his touch. “Sex isn’t everything.”
“Says the near virgin. Sex is quite a few things. Sex is a wonderful source of release. A way to make yourself feel close with someone when you aren’t truly close with anyone. And a wonderful way to destroy relationships and family ties.” This last part came out more bitter than he’d intended.
“You speak from experience.”
“Far too much experience.”
“I am curious, Andres.” She slithered out of his hold, turning and backing up against the opposite side of the tub. “Why did you do it? Why did you sleep with Kairos’s fian
cée when you could have had any woman you wanted?” She tilted her head to the side. “Did you love her?”
“No,” he said, “I did not love her. I did not even know her, or like her especially.”
“Then why would you do it?”
His throat grew tighter, and he couldn’t possibly say why. He didn’t think he could answer her question either, since it was one he had asked himself many times over the past five years. Except now, for some reason, when the question came from her instead of from himself, he felt an answer rising to the surface. “Alcohol, mainly. As I told you, I didn’t even remember what had happened the next morning.”
“That isn’t all.”
It wasn’t.
He swallowed and took a deep breath. “Kairos was the only relationship I had yet to damage. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kept waiting for him to disown me for some antic or another. And he never did. It was hell waiting. Like the blade to the guillotine was hovering above my neck and I knew it would drop, just not when. I decided to drop it myself.”
“But... It didn’t work. He didn’t disown you.”
His throat grew even tighter. “No.” He had tested Kairos, badly, and Kairos had proved to be the stronger man, the superior man as always. He had proved that Andres was weak. “No, he did not. Just another reason I am honor-bound to comply with him now. Why I must do this for him. I faltered. He did not.”
Suddenly, Zara sank beneath the surface of the water, submerging her head completely. When she rose again, she came up slowly out of the water, lifting her arms and sluicing the water droplets from her face, brushing her hair back. The action revealed her breasts. Plump, round, dark, rosy nipples that were more beautiful than he could ever have imagined. She settled again, hiding her body from his view. Then she began to move toward him.
Her dark eyes were locked with his, her expression questioning. She reached out, touching his cheek with her palm. She said nothing; she only leaned forward, pressing her lips firmly against his. When they parted, she was still looking at him. Looking far too deeply for his liking, as though she could see down deep inside him. Down to places not even he ever looked.
“Did it make you less lonely? Being with her?” she asked, her tone serious.
