Читать книгу Billionaires: The Royal - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 17

CHAPTER EIGHT

TABITHA’S HEART WAS pounding so hard, she thought she might pass out. She wasn’t entirely certain whether she was living in a nightmare, or a fantasy. Kairos did not ask her to take her clothes off. He just didn’t. He didn’t make demands of her like this at all. And yet, there was no denying that now, her normally cool and controlled husband was looking at her with molten fire in his dark eyes, his gaze intense, uncompromising.

“I’m certain that you did not command me to take my dress off here on the balcony.” Retreating into her icy facade was the most comfortable response she could find. After all, the cold didn’t bother her. It was this heat, this searing, uncompromising heat that arched between them.

“I am certain that I did.” The sun had lowered in the sky some since they had first come outside, and now the rays cut through the palm trees, illuminating his face, throwing his high cheekbones and strong jaw into sharp relief. He looked like a stranger. Not at all like the man she had married. A man who would never have made such a command of her. She was shaking. Shaking from the inside out. Because she had no choice. Had no choice but to accept his devil’s bargain. She would be a fool not to. He was offering her a chance to raise her child without struggle, without fighting for custody, without fighting for the bare necessities.

But deeper than that, more shamefully than that, she simply wanted to obey. Even though she could hardly imagine it. Slipping her dress off her body, out here, in the open air, the breeze blowing over her skin. To just let go of everything. Of her control. Of her fear.

“We’re the only ones here.” His words jolted her out of her fantasy.

He was right, of course, there was no one else here. There was no one to see. But that wasn’t what concerned her. The fact that there was no one around only frightened her more. There would be no consequences here. No one to stop them. No perfectly planned and well-ordered events on their calendar to interrupt. No rules, no society, no sense of propriety. There was nothing to stop her from stripping off her clothes, from closing the space between them and wrapping herself around his body, giving herself over to this desperate, gnawing ache that had taken her over completely.

She turned away from him, heading toward the entrance to the villa. She felt the firm hand on her shoulder, and found herself being turned around, pressed against the wall. Her eyes clashed with his, electricity skittering along her veins, collecting in her stomach. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Away from you. Away from here. Because you’re crazy.”

“Your king gave you an order,” he said, his tone shot through with steel. It should make her angry. It should not make her feel restless. Shouldn’t make her breasts ache. Shouldn’t make her feel slick and ready between her thighs. But he did. He did.

His anger, his arrogance—never directed at her before, not like this—was a fresh and heady drug she’d never tried before.

“I see.” She swallowed hard. “And will he punish me if I don’t comply?”

“I would have to set an example,” he said, his tone soft, steady and no less strong.

“For who? As you have already stated, there is no one here.”

“For you. For the future. I cannot have you thinking you can simply defy me. Not if this is to work.”

“I haven’t agreed to—”

He reached up, gripped her chin and held her tight. “You may not have agreed to stay with me forever, agape. But you have no choice other than to agree to this two weeks. I do not wish to spend any of that time arguing with you. Not when I could find other uses for your mouth.”

She gasped, pressing herself more firmly against the wall, away from him. Erotic images assaulted her mind’s eye. Of herself, kneeling before him. Tasting him, taking him into her mouth. She had never done that before. Not with him, not with anyone.

Strange, now she thought about it. Other people traded that particular sex act so casually, and she had never even shared it with her husband.

It didn’t disgust her. To the contrary, it intrigued her. Aroused her. And yet, she was shrinking away from him as though she were afraid. She would not be so easily cowed. Would not allow him to claim total control in this way. She was strong. She had not got to where she was in life by folding in on herself. He might be the king, but she was a queen, for God’s sake.

“Could you? That would be a first, then.” She lifted her hand, curved it around his neck, losing her fingers through his hair. “Shall I get on my knees and bow down before Your Majesty?”

It was his turn to draw back, dark colors slashing his high, well-defined cheekbones. “I did not mean...”

Of course he didn’t. He never meant such salacious things. Ever. He had likely only been thinking of a kiss. He probably hadn’t even intended for her to take her dress off.

On the heels of that thought, her hand moved to her shoulder and flicked the strap of her dress down. “Words are powerful,” she said, pushing at the other strap so they both hung down. “Once they’re spoken you can’t erase them. Even if you didn’t intend for them to be taken in a certain way. Once you speak them, they belong to whoever hears them.” She reached behind her back, grabbing a hold of the zipper tab and drawing it down to the middle of her back. The top of her dress fell, exposing her bare breasts to him.

“Tabitha,” he growled, his tone a warning.

“What is it? Is my obedience not to your liking? Is this yet another one of our miscommunications?” She pushed the dress down her hips, taking her panties with it, standing before him, naked, and, somehow, not embarrassed.

“You seemed so confident this was what you wanted only a moment ago.”

He said nothing as she lowered herself to the patio in front of him. She was shaking. And she wasn’t entirely certain if it was the desire or rage. Or if it was some twisted, unholy offspring of the two, taking her over completely. She wasn’t entirely certain it mattered. Just as she was sure inexperience wouldn’t matter here either. She didn’t know what sorts of things Kairos had done with women before her. They barely talked about their own sex life, so they’d had no reason at all to discuss experiences either of them had had prior to their marriage. Of course, for her, there hadn’t been so much as a kiss. As far as he went? He was a mystery to her.

But one thing she knew for certain, if he was as faithful to her as he claimed to be, no one had done this for him in at least five years. Time healed all wounds, and likely erased memories of oral pleasure. At least, she could hope.

She reached up and grabbed hold of his belt buckle, working the leather through the metal clasp. Her hands were shaking, as much from nerves and determination as from desire. It was impossible for her to tell if this was really her defining move in a power play, or if she was simply acting out of need. Out of lust. She supposed that didn’t matter either.

He reached down, grabbing a fistful of her hair, stopping her short. “Tabitha. I would not ask this of you.”

She looked up at him, at the desperation in his dark eyes, and something twisted, low and painful inside of her. “Why do you think it’s a sacrifice?”

“It offers nothing to you.”

“Isn’t that what this two weeks is about? My service to you?” She immediately regretted the words the moment they left her mouth. That it was too late to call them back. As she had only just said to him, once words were spoken they could not be erased.

“No,” he said, his voice rough, “I do not require you to lower yourself in this way.”

Her eyes stung, a deep, painful ache that started behind them and worked its way forward. She said nothing. Instead, she tugged his pants and underwear down slightly, exposing his rampant masculinity to her. She didn’t often examine his body. More often than not, they made love in the dark. If she ever saw him naked, it was most likely an accident.

Her breath hissed through her teeth as she ran her palm over his hardened length. He was beautiful. Five years, and she had never had the chance to truly appreciate that. Five years and she had never knelt before him in this way, had never even contemplated doing what she was about to do. She had been so determined to keep control, so absolutely hell-bent on maintaining the facade of the perfect ice queen that she’d even allowed her fantasies to become frozen.

She regretted it now, bitterly. Wasted time freezing in the cold when she could have been warm. Like sleeping out in a snowbank only to discover that the front door had been unlocked the whole time, the lit hearth in a warm bed available to her if she had only tried.

Why had she never tried?

She curled her fingers around him, leaning forward and flicking the tip of her tongue out across his heated flesh. His hips flexed forward, a harsh groan escaping his lips. His fist tightened on her hair, so tight it hurt. Yet, she didn’t want him to release her. Didn’t want him to pull away.

He didn’t. And so she kept on. Exploring the entire length of him slowly, relishing the flavor of him. She raised her eyes and met his as she shifted, taking him completely into her mouth.

“Tabitha,” he said, his tone warning even as he tugged her head back sharply.

She resisted him, not allowing his hold to interrupt her exploration, tears pricking her eyes as he pulled hard on her hair. It occurred to her then how debauched the whole scene must look. How very unlike her and Kairos it was. Her naked, at his feet, with him mostly dressed, standing out there on the terrace of his fine, well-ordered home, the gentle beauty of the ocean acting as a backdrop to their licentious activities.

That thought only aroused her further. She had no confusion about what she felt now. None at all.

She was starving. Starving for a banquet that had been laid out before her for five long years while she wasted away in an abstinent state. And she was going to have her fill.

She rested her hands on his thighs, could feel his muscle shaking beneath her palms. Could feel just how rigorously she tested his control. She was drunk on the power of it, drunk on him. On a desire that she had kept buried so deep, so well hidden, even she might have been convinced that it wasn’t there.

But now that she had brought it out, opened the lid, set it free, she was consumed by it.

She didn’t know this creature. This creature down on her knees, uncaring that the cement bit into her skin, unconcerned with the fact that she was naked, outside, with the sun shining on her bare skin. She was not, in this moment, the sophisticated woman she had fashioned herself into in order to walk freely in Kairos’s world. But she wasn’t the girl from the trailer park either. She was something new, something wholly and completely different. And in that was a freedom she had not anticipated.

She had not moved from one cage into another, as she had imagined she might. Rather, she had slipped through the bars completely.

Suddenly, she found herself being hauled to her feet. “Not like this,” he said, his tone dark and rough. “I need to have you properly.”

She expected him to release his hold on her, to allow her to go back into the house and walk up the stairs, so that they might find a bed or some other civilized surface to complete their exceedingly uncivilized activities.

But as much as she had surprised herself in the past few minutes, Kairos surprised her even further. He turned toward the table, sweeping his hand across the high-gloss surface and sweeping their plates onto the ground, the porcelain shattering, the silver clattering on the hard surface.

Then she found herself being laid down on the pristine white tablecloth, his large body covering hers as he tested her readiness with the blunt head of his erection. He bent his head, kissing her neck, blazing a trail down to her breasts, sucking one nipple deep into his mouth as he sank into her body.

He filled her so completely, so utterly. She shuddered with the pleasure of it. This act had become so painful in the past couple of years. So intimate, the act of two bodies becoming one, and yet a brick wall might as well have existed between them even while they lay as close as two people possibly could.

But that wasn’t happening now. Now, she felt him go so deep she was certain he touched her heart. There was no darkness to shield her body from his gaze, none to protect her from the look in his eyes. So she met them, boldly, even though she knew she was taking a chance on finding no connection there. On seeing nothing but emptiness.

They weren’t empty. They were full. Full of heat, fire and a ragged emotion she could think of no name for.

It didn’t matter, because soon she couldn’t think at all. She was carried away on a tide of pleasure, molten waves wrapping themselves around her body until she was certain she would be consumed completely, dragged to the bottom never to resurface.

Just when she thought she would burst, when she was certain she couldn’t endure another moment, pleasure exploded deep inside of her, rippling outward. She held on to him tightly, counting on him to anchor her to earth. Then he began to shake, his movements becoming erratic as he gave himself up to his own release.

She turned her head to the side, looking down at the ground, puzzled by the spray of glass she saw. And then it all slowly came back to her, piece by piece. They were on the table. He had broken the plates. The glasses. Had left the food strewn all over the ground for the birds.

He had been...he had been consumed by desire for her.

It was only then she realized that the table surface was uncomfortable. And even with that realization she didn’t want to move. Because he was still inside of her, his chest pressed against hers. And she could feel his heart beating. Could feel just how affected he had been by what had passed between them. Could see the evidence all over the ground.

“What happens if we get hungry later?” The question fell from her lips without her permission. But she hadn’t eaten very much of her dinner, and it seemed an important thing to know.

“There is plenty in the pantry. There are biscuits.”

“American or European?”

“European,” he said.

It seemed a little bit absurd to be discussing cookies in such a position.

She was about to say as much when she found herself being swept up into his arms again. She expected to be set on the ground, but he kept her scooped up, held tightly against his chest. “You don’t have shoes,” he said. She looked down, and saw that he was still wearing his. He stepped confidently over the remains of their plates, shards of glass cracking beneath each of his steps. He brought them both into the house, continuing through the living room and up the stairs. “There will be no question of you sleeping alone.”

“We never share a room,” she said.

Never. Not from the first moment. The first heartbreaking night of their marriage when he had left her sitting alone, having just lost her virginity with nothing more than a warm bath for comfort.

“We only have two weeks, agape,” he said, not heeding her request that he refrain from endearments, “and if two weeks is all there is, then I will take every moment.”

* * *

For the second time in the space of less than twenty-four hours, Kairos watched Tabitha sleep. He found it fascinating. Yet another facet to his wife he hadn’t seen over the course of the past few years. Surely she must’ve dozed off on flights, long car rides. She must have.

But he couldn’t picture it. The only image he had in his head was that of Tabitha sitting with rigid posture, her hands folded in her lap. Did he truly take so little notice of her? Or was she simply so uncomfortable in his presence that she couldn’t do anything but sit as though her life depended on her balancing a book on her head.

She was thoroughly exhausted now. From what had transpired downstairs during dinner.

Erotic images flashed before his mind’s eye. Of her kneeling before him. Of him begging her not to.

It was an act he simply wasn’t comfortable with. He didn’t want someone serving him in that way. Giving him pleasure while he reciprocated nothing. And yet, the moment her tongue had touched him he had been lost. He had not been holding her hair to move her away from him, but rather to anchor himself to the ground.

He was lying next to her now, still naked, but not touching her. She was sleeping on her side, her elbow beneath her cheek, her knees drawn up slightly. She looked young. Vulnerable. Everything she was. Though she wore the facade of a stone wall, he knew she was soft beneath it. He just chose to ignore it when it suited him.

She stirred, rolling onto her back, stretching her arms up over her head, her breasts rising with the motion.

Kairos had never been one to gaze at art. He found it a pointless exercise. The world had enough to offer in terms of beauty without adding needless glitter to it. But she was art, there was no other word for it. She looked as though she was perfectly formed from marble, warm life breathed into her making her human, but still almost impossible in her loveliness. And he was turning into a fool, thinking in poetry, which was something he held in even lower esteem than art.

Her blue eyes opened slowly, confusion drifting through her expression. “Kairos?”

“Yes. Two weeks. The table.”

She blinked. “Oh. Yes. That happened.”

“Yes.”

“I’m hungry,” she said, pushing herself into a sitting position, causing her breasts to move in yet more interesting ways.

“I think I can help with that.”