“Mate, my cock is still buried in your pussy. My seed is slipping from you. You pleaded with me for more moments ago. I am not fucking you under duress. You begged me to get inside you.”
“That was before you were acting like a jackass.”
“And it was after you were caught snooping around my parents’ home.”
She stilled then, let her hands fall to the bed beside her. “So why am I here? You should have let Lord Wyse take me to his Level C death chamber.”
I stilled, blood running cold, the potential threat from Lord Wyse very real. “Is that what he said to you? Did he threaten your life?”
She rolled her eyes and shoved at my chest again. I did not move. “No. Not exactly. Get off me. You’re a Neanderthal.”
“You are my mate,” I said. “If Lord Wyse threatened to kill you, or even harm you, he will be dealt with.”
“Seriously? You’re a banker, not G.I. Joe.” She shoved, hard, and I reluctantly pulled my cock from her body and rolled to one side. She sat up, pulling the sheet to cover her perfect breasts. I noticed, with some satisfaction, the dark red marks on her neck where I’d suckled her skin, marked her as mine.
“I am the heir to one of the wealthiest families on Alera. I do not know what a G.I. Joe is, but I assure you, I do not run a banking facility.”
She burst out laughing, the first real laugh I’d heard from her, and the sound was musical. Enchanting. “You are a strange duck, Thordis Jax.”
“I am not a duck. I am Thor. Call me Thor. I am yours.” I lifted her hand and placed it over my chest, locking it to me, skin to skin, both to reassure her and because I could not tolerate the lack of contact this new position on the bed provided. She was inches away from me. Naked. But it was still too far. “I am yours and you are mine. This is one truth that can’t be denied. That we can both agree on. Everything else doesn’t matter.”
I saw something in her eyes. Doubt, perhaps? “Nothing else matters? You think me a traitor, at least your parents do, and it has been proven your family housed a traitor.”
“Zel, definitely.” I couldn’t deny the soldier’s guilt, nor the fact that he worked for my family. “Sadly, he was my friend when we were children. I hadn’t spoken to him in years, until the royal reception. I can’t believe I left the princess alone with him there. I would kill him all over again for what he did to Princess Trinity. But what about you? Why were you in my mother’s room?”
He let that hang.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Exactly. I will learn, if you would cooperate and actually answer my questions.”
“And I don’t know anything about you.”
I sighed. We were getting nowhere fast. “Ask and I will reveal all. There are no secrets between mates.”
Those words were a complete lie, for it seemed we each thought the other was made up of only secrets.
Her gaze clouded further and she bit her lip, studied me with a quiet intensity I had never experienced before. Her attention was absolute and set about a strange sensation in my stomach. A fluttering I’d never felt before. The sensation was making me nauseous and I took a deep, calming breath to rid myself of the uncomfortable feeling. But her next words were no help.
“What do you know of the traitor, Zel?”
My blood turned to ice. Was she the mole? Had she been working with that male? Was she guilty of plotting to kidnap the newly returned princess, Trinity? “I just told you he was a friend of mine when we were younger. What do you know of him?”
She sighed, and I wished I could take back the words, but I could not. Nor would I. “That’s what I was afraid of.” She turned to the side, swung her legs over the bed, as if preparing to leave me behind. “This is soooo not going to work.”
I reached out, wrapped my hand around her arm to stop her from leaving me. I couldn’t bear to see the sadness in her eyes, hear the defeated sound of her voice. Her shoulders slumped with weariness, and I was the cause. I had hurt her somehow. I had to make it right. “I do not know much, mate, but I know you are not evil. We will, as you say, work out. You will trust me with the truth and I will protect you.”
She laughed then. “You make it so simple. So I should just let you make love to me over and over, let you soothe my Ardor, pretend we’re going to last forever. You want me to give you everything. You want me to trust you, even though your family wants me imprisoned?”
“Don’t you see? You’ve already given me everything,” I countered, wrapping my arm around her waist and slipping my hand down so that my fingers could slide through her slick folds. “All of those things. But I need more.”
She gasped and her skin flushed pink with heat. The Ardor rose in her once more, I could feel it through her skin, her energy pulling at mine, enticing me to come closer, to feed her body with passion and fucking and heat. “I can’t give you more.”
“Yes, you can. And you will. I can’t protect you if you don’t trust me with the truth.” I found her still swollen clit, rubbed the nub gently with my finger. Played until she swayed toward me. Lost to sensation. To lust. To need.
“Zel was from your house,” she murmured, the words thick with desire. Clearly I wasn’t doing a good enough job if she thought of Zel as I teased her pussy. “One of your guards. I’m not the enemy, Thor. You are.”
Her words bypassed my thinking mind and went straight to the animal she’d created. She believed I was a threat to her? An enemy?