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No more avoiding this elephant in the room.

Or tiger, it would seem.

“What do you want from me?” She stayed at the edge of the clearing, far enough away that even if she wanted to touch him, she’d have to move to do it.

“Is that a trick question?” He fell into one of the chairs, legs stretching out. His pose was a teasing mockery of indolence.

“You know who I am.”

“I do.”

“And I know what you are.” Well, I do now and lickable abs or not, you’re so far off limits I’m surprised that I haven’t been struck by a bolt of lightning.

“You do.” His tone was deceptively mild.

And maddening.

He hitched an elbow on the back of the chair, the motion stretching the sinuous muscle across his golden chest. Her gaze dipped to his navel and back up.

Damn. Why does he have to be sex on a stick?

And when could she beat herself with it?

As if aware of the direction of her thoughts, Anthony just smiled and crooked his finger toward her. “Do you really want to know what I want?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to come over here. Sit and eat.”

Immediate compulsion rippled through her and she started walking before she could fully process it. She had enough presence of mind to take a different chair, even as she wondered what it would be like to sit on his lap.

The stone was like ice against her super-heated bare ass, but she embraced the cold. It brought clarity. Clarity that punched through the lazy atmosphere of sex and pleasure her cat exuded.

He’s not my cat. But she ignored that churlish inner voice.

Anthony frowned, his gaze skating her over from head to toe.

“What?” She demanded when he said nothing. She’d done what he wanted.

He motioned to the first covered platter and Roseâtre opened it, obediently revealing a heavy selection of roast beef, ham, chicken and pork. Her stomach growled vociferously at the first sweet scent of meat.

She was starving. She spared a glance at Anthony, his firm gaze stabbing at her. His fingers tapped lightly against the stone table.

“Feed me.” It was a command. Bastard.

She plucked a slice of warm roast beef from the platter and knelt into the gap dividing them. It was that or stretch over his lap. Her fingers stroked across his lips, but his gaze never left hers as he opened his mouth, accepting the bite and then sucking deliciously on her finger until he’d suckled the last bit of juice from it.

She waited until he was done before she reached for another bite. He’d told her to feed him and so she would. She had no choice in the matter, but it didn’t change how sensuous his lips felt on her skin or how the slightest tug of his teeth clenched her belly.

It had to not matter.

But her traitorous body didn’t give a damn what the slave bands told her she had to do. It wanted to do these things and clung to the excuse.

He brushed his lips against her knuckles as she waited, poised, an offering of chicken this time on her fingertips for his pleasure. His blue eyes widened in slow shock.

Roseâtre sighed.

He’d figured it out.

“Why did you surrender your free will, princess?”

Chapter Eight

Anthony would be lying if he said he didn’t love the image of Roseâtre on her knees, wearing only his blue shirt, coated in his scent and the musk of her own desire. Surprisingly, no matter how tempting a vision she made, face flushed from their exertions on the stage crowned by the swirl of midnight highlighted by that single lock of pure white, he wanted her kneeling because she wanted to be there, because she had no desire to be elsewhere.

Slave bands.

What drove an Amazon to put them on? She had to have volunteered. He had no doubts about that.

“Why?” He repeated the question when she didn’t answer him.

Her hazel eyes shuttered, darkening to autumn brown. The muscles in the slender column of her neck convulsed. But it was sadness and regret, not temper that stole across her expression.

“It’s not important.” Her mouth twisted on the lie. He didn’t need his nose to scent it for what it was. Plucking the piece of chicken from her fingers, he popped it into his mouth and chewed. The succulent meat tasted more of cardboard than the Indian spices he’d requested.

He snapped a hand out to catch her arm as she reached for the meat platter. “No.”

A quizzical look knitted her dark brows. But she offered no resistance, even if her nipples prodded through the T-shirt, reminding him that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. Anthony ignored the demands of his body, however, the tiger inside him leaned forward with a cautious sniff.

They both wanted the whole story.

“It’s very important to me. I can order you to tell me and I suspect those wicked little bands will have your tongue dancing, but I don’t want to do that.”

“Then we are at an impasse.”

The tiger snarled. Anthony agreed and his lips curled back in an unconscious imitation of the sound rumbling in his chest. Roseâtre arched both her eyebrows, haughtiness creeping in to take a defensive stance shielding the vulnerability he’d barely been able to glimpse.

“Eat.” Anthony dropped her arm. Frustration was not new to him. Nor was it a sensation he particularly enjoyed. But he wasn’t done. She needed to eat. Then they would talk.

Obediently, her hand snaked out to the food and she took meat from the platter. He watched broodingly as the slice disappeared between her lips. Heat flashed in the cool depths of her autumn eyes, but he refused to take back the command.

The key in his pocket burned through the denim, a flaming reminder that he could bend her to his will. But what pleasure was there in conquering that which was already conquered?

“Blades or fists?”

“What?” The question caught her off guard, a single drizzle of roast beef slipping from the corner of her mouth and curving around her chin. His tongue ached to trace the path, but he bit down on it.

Surrender could be forced.

Or it could be won.

“Blades or fists? Is that not how your people take their mates? They choose from the strongest males? The most fit? The most capable of defeating them in battle, in hopes that those strengths will pass on to their daughters?”

The first time his father explained the Amazon mating rituals to him, he’d laughed. His own mother was a powerful tigress, quick and capable in battle, but the idea that a race of women would only couple with the most powerful of men and then expect that man to walk away was ridiculous.

“I could kill you with a blade.”

“Blades it is, then.”

He bounced to his feet. Roseâtre remained completely still. His chest swelled with pride. Despite the sadness and regret, his princess was strong, confident and didn’t shy easily. His tiger purred in agreement. No wonder the great beast had already settled on her. He left her at the table, eating. She wouldn’t leave it until he released her from the command.

Anthony may not like slave bands, having seen them used on his own kind, but he understood them. He traveled swiftly, jogging through the mystical rain forest constructed by the in-house mages of the Arcana Royale. He didn’t tell her that he’d contracted such an abode, a place he could imagine he was home in and where his tigers could relax in their own habitat.

It was the closest he would come to his home unless he earned the right to challenge his uncle, take back his Pride and lead them. The thought speared through him, the tiger’s fierceness quelled by the fierce longing they shared. The path wound to the great bed nestled amongst a cluster of trees and to the bags he’d dropped, half-forgotten upon his arrival.