“Coy,” he rasps, his chest rising with pride. “I like that.” His jaw flexes. “You’ve enslaved me, woman. Done to me what no man can do.” He strokes my face and I pant. “I have the power over thirteen men but you...you now have the power over fourteen.”
He’s making me sound like I’m the ruler and not he. This is what I came here for. To prove to myself I could be something more and I’ve found it. In him. I shiver from anticipation when he strokes my face one last time and then he passes me.
Xerxes tells me to hurry up, says he has something for me and I scrub so hard until my skin turns pink and then I hurry and follow him.
5.
Xerxes
She’s at the time of the month where she’s at peak fertility. There’s a glow to her skin and her body is sensitive, ready to receive me... I’m impatient to see her. Waiting for her to get dressed and when I hear her footsteps I turn around.
She’s dressed in the robes I laid out for her. The fabric is the color of sunset and it wraps around every little curve of hers. She’s dried her hair and pulled it to the side with a ribbon, her sandals tantalizingly crisscrossing up her legs and my mouth waters. I now know why women have always been forbidden to the thieves. If we had them around all the time we’d never leave our beds.
I can’t think straight around her, preoccupied with the need of dragging her away even somewhere farther, maybe to a cave and fill her body up with me until she’s round with my produce. I want to come home from a late night and have her waiting for me, wait all night if needed just because she’s worried. I’ve never had a woman worry about me before but I bet it makes a man feel like he’s worth his weight.
My men must think she’s something I have around to pass the time, something to entertain me but they’re going to have to get used to her because I won’t let go of this one. I’d even leave the thieves for her, have us dissolve if needed as long as she stays with me.
“You shine brighter than the moon in the desert night,” I tell her and her eyes glitter. “You shine brighter than a thousand burning jewels.” I open up a box full of gold, ornaments and charms and Kenna lets out a squeal and pops a hand over her mouth.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she gasps, coming over to me and my eyes follow her every motion, noticing how agile her limbs are, how upmarket she is with her swift, elegant moves and I’ve never seen anything like her either. She stops in front of the box and the flicker from the gems makes her face sparkle, before she looks at me in hesitation. “Did you steal this?”
“Acquired it,” I say and she scowls. “These jewels belonged to a very wicked man, I can assure you.”
“Who was he?” she asks and I reply,
“My father.” When her eyes flare, I clear my throat, asking her to turn around and when she does, I clasp a heavy necklace around her neck. It makes her whole body stretch in the leisurely way a cat does as if she enjoys it and I rasp in her ear, “What do you think?”
“Hold a gun to my head and I still wouldn’t take it off,” she whispers and I laugh, letting her know there’s more. I put cuffs around her upper arms, bracelets on her wrists and then I lift up the chain that’s going around her waist.
“Let me put it on,” I murmur and she nods, pulling her robe aside, showcasing her midriff and I bite down on my jaw. She fulfills my every need and when she’s around, I don’t lack anything. Even if this whole oasis dried up and all I had left was her, it would still be everything I need. I wrap the chain around her waist and she inhales, causing her stomach to go concave and I clasp the ends together.
It nearly melts into her skin, fits her perfectly and I’m going to hold onto that chain later when I claim her. I’ll use that chain to keep her in place when I push into her. That chain will stay on her belly when she expands, the clasp moving farther the bigger she gets and I’ll be the one adjusting it, tracking her transformation and I hold down a deep groan. I stroke a hand over her hair and it’s softer than the cotton we slept on.
“You’re far too generous,” Kenna says, throwing a glance at herself in one of my mirrors. She lets out a small laugh. “Someone would probably say you’re trying to bribe me.”
I tense. “Bribe you?” I want to breed her, not bribe her.
She lightly shrugs. “You know...the kinds of things men do to get something they want from a woman.” Her head moves in shake and she starts pacing around in my tent, looking at my belongings. The tip of her finger slides down an hourglass. “It’s the kind of thing my mother always warned me about.”
Kenna puts on a snarky voice. “Always watch your back around men. If you give them an inch they’ll take the whole yard...” She sighs. “I never listened to her, especially not since she once tried to match me up with this older guy who later on turned out to be a huge scammer...”
Her words trail off when she notices I’m watching her and I’m not blinking. I don’t like what I’m hearing. And I especially don’t like hearing about her family trying to marry her off. She’s never going back to them. Not unless I’m with her and keeping an eye on them. And...now I feel a need to mark her to make sure, she’ll always remember who she belongs to.
“I’ve always been a bit of a jinx like that,” Kenna adds with a heavy breath and I stop myself from grinding my jaw, tempted to change career and just look after her the whole time.
Clasping my hands behind my back, I rasp, “How well do you take pain?”
Flinching, she glares up at me. “What? What kind of question is that?”
Turning around, I rummage through some things on my desk. “I assume it means you take it well then. Good, because I don’t want to hurt you.” I whirl around to Kenna again, noticing that she’s paled and she’s backing, looking at the thin, acacia stick in my hand. “Hold your arm out for me.”
Widening her eyes, she shakes her head. “You’ve lost your mind if you think I’ll let you beat me with that stick.”
My mouth twitches. “I’m not gonna beat you.” My eyes flash. “I’m gonna mark you.”
That doesn’t seem to make her any calmer because she yelps, running away from me and I drag a patient breath. It would’ve been so much easier had she been a man. Then I could’ve just yanked her back but since she’s a woman I’m going to have to sweet-talk her. I follow her as she races around and I block her, causing her to shriek and she backs, smacking a plant down and I duck when she throws a candleholder at me.
She’s feisty. I like that. A man like me needs a female with a little bit of fire.