Billionaires: The Royal: The Queen's New Year Secret / Awakened by Her Desert Captor / Twin Heirs to His Throne

“It doesn’t matter why. I am your king, and I have commanded it. Now,” he took a deep breath, trying to cool the flame that was roaring through his veins. One of triumph. One of arousal. “Either take off your dress, or tell me another secret.”

CHAPTER EIGHT (#u1ed2e8ed-f369-5026-8e63-5e349ac46400)

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.