“You know about my sisters, so I guess it’s no big secret now. My father was never faithful to my mother. Three hundred years is a long time to be bound to one person, and when that person can’t give you the one thing you want more than any other…” She shrugged, hating that she sounded so bitter but unable to keep it from her voice. “I guess he decided to move on.”
Demetrius moved around to stand in front of her, and though she knew she was naked from the waist up and should be embarrassed, she wasn’t. “A son. That’s what he wanted.”
She didn’t meet his eyes, focusing instead on an inch-long scar under his left pec. “That’s what he’s always wanted. She was pregnant numerous times, but they all ended in either a miscarriage or stillbirth. Except me.”
“What happened to her?”
Isadora sighed. “I think she finally had enough. She must have found out about his affair with Callia’s mother. At the time, I didn’t know who he was seeing, just that it was someone else. It was always someone else. Usually it was a female outside the castle, someone of lower status. But his own personal healer? That would have rocked my mother to her core. Especially since she and Anna were friends.”
She couldn’t help remembering how sad her mother had been the day she left. The way she’d hugged Isadora and said good-bye as if it was forever. “She didn’t go into the human realm on a shopping trip. She didn’t take any chaperones with her. She just disappeared. As if she’d never existed in the first place. And my father never searched for her. He made up that story about her being killed as an excuse to go on with his life, and he never looked back.”
She glanced at her hands. Hands that were petite, just like her mother’s had been. “I thought about looking for her. More than once. But my father…he forbade me from doing so.” Her voice trailed off. Because, yeah, what was she ever going to be able to do? “I look like her. More than I do him. Aside from the fact I’m female and the only one of their children who survived, my nose is too small, my eyes the wrong color, and I’m timid, just like she was. That’s never helped the situation with my father. In fact, I’m sure that’s simply made it worse.”
He didn’t say anything, and she figured that meant her little sponge bath was over. She shifted and reached for the edge of the blanket beneath her legs to cover herself, disappointed she’d gone on in the first place instead of sidestepping his question. Even more disappointed she’d let the hurt get to her all over again.
Why did she let her father do that to her? Especially here?
He pushed the blanket from her hands. Surprised, she looked up into soft, warm eyes as the cloth fell against the table again. “I think your nose is perfect. And your eyes match your determined personality.”
“Determined? No one’s ever called me that.”
A half smile curled his mouth. One that supercharged her blood and brought that ache back tenfold. “How many times have I tried to put distance between us? And how many times have you closed the gap? I’d call that determined.”
Her heart stuttered. And in the silence she knew if she didn’t ask the question, she’d spend the rest of her life wondering. “Is that what you want? Distance? Between us?”
“No.”
She drew in a breath and held it as he twined one arm around her back and tugged her closer to the heat of his body. Her legs opened, sliding around his hips until his sweet male scent surrounded her and he was all she felt.
“And for the record,” he said as he dipped the rag in the bucket at his side and trailed the warm, wet cloth across her collarbone so water dripped down her naked breasts, puckering the nipples to stiff peaks, “I don’t think you’re timid. Not anymore, at least.”
His face was an inch from hers. His breath hot and minty and so intoxicating it left her light-headed. As he brought the rag around her right breast, she tensed, wanting his hand on her skin, his lips on her mouth, his length deep inside her as it had been last night. Except this time she wanted him controlling the pace, the mood, bending her body any way he wanted. “If I’m not, that’s because of you.”
“No, it’s not. It’s because of you.”
She held her breath as his lips met hers. Once. Twice. As gently as if he were touching glass. She moaned as he kissed her again, as his soft and supple lips swept over hers. Bringing her hands up to his chest, she felt the corded muscles beneath his skin, the power, and tilted her head to give him more. He took the invitation and opened, sliding his tongue into her mouth to tangle with hers until she went a little mad at the taste of him again.
“Ah, kardia,” he mouthed against her lips.
“I love it when you call me that.”
He dropped the rag, wrapped both arms around her waist, and lifted her from the table. She responded by kissing him more deeply, sliding her legs around his hips and her fingers into his hair as she’d wanted to do from the first moment he stepped into the room. He carried her from the table, across the floor, and laid her out on the pile of blankets in the corner of the room, then peered down at her with eyes that weren’t nearly as soft as she’d thought before.
No, these eyes were shimmering shards of onyx, filled with desire and yearning. And they were staring at her as if she were the only thing in the world he wanted.
She wasn’t sure what had changed between this morning and now, but she wasn’t about to ask.
“I want you to tell me what you like,” he whispered. “What you want.”
She ran her hands up his muscular arms and eased up to kiss him again. “I like you. I just want you.”
He kissed her deeply and eased down into the vee of her body, and her heart filled when the hard length of his shaft pressed through the cloth separating them, right where she wanted it most.
He touched her, first with his fingers, then with his mouth, licking and kissing her most sensitive spots—the skin behind her ear, the base of her throat, the tips of her nipples—until she moaned in pleasure. And then he did it all again until she was panting for more.
His mouth made a slow trek down her stomach, paused at her belly button so he could trace the indentation with his tongue. Her muscles quivered; her body arched in anticipation. She watched with heavy-lidded eyes as he kissed her lower belly and expertly popped the snap on her shorts with his teeth.
The victorious grin he shot her curled her mouth, but it quickly faded into a moan of pleasure when he slid his hand into her shorts and moved lower to graze his fingers along her slit.
“Mm, Princess. You’re wet for me.”
She wasn’t just wet, she was soaked, and she didn’t want to wait. “Demetrius…”
He pulled his hand free, then tugged the shorts from her hips. Cool air brushed her skin but was quickly replaced with his tantalizing mouth, blowing hot over her naked mound. She arched, groaned. He traced his fingers where he blew, careful only to graze the supercharged flesh. “I love the taste of you. Right here.”
She pushed up on her hands, the erotic sight of him between her legs turning her blood to liquid fire in her veins. He lowered his head and she watched in awe as his talented tongue snaked out and made one long, lingering sweep of her cleft. Oh, gods. Her head fell back in pleasure. Her whole body clenched. She arched her hips to offer more and gave in to the ecstasy.
He flicked her clit, stroked and swirled, brought her close to the edge, then backed off. Sweat beaded her brow, slid down her back to pool at the base of her spine as she twisted and tried to show him just where she wanted more. But he knew how to tempt her. Knew just how to tease her into a maddening frenzy. And no matter what she did, the climax she needed hovered just beyond her grasp.