Because it was never about the finger bowls. It was about taking care of other people.
It was about whether or not she felt safe with him when Pia didn’t know if she’d ever been safe in her life. Or how she could possibly know the difference when she didn’t know what such a thing felt like.
“Marry me,” Ares replied, his green gaze tight on hers. Because he was relentless and he clearly didn’t mind her knowing it. “And you will see exactly what kind of host I am.”
Pia did not drink from her finger bowl. And she was shaken all over again, if in a markedly different fashion, by the fact Ares hadn’t let it go. If he was chastened or upset by her refusal, he didn’t seem to show it.
After dinner, he escorted her out into the hallway, but when she turned to make her way back toward her wing of the palace, he held fast to her arm.
“I think not,” he said quietly. “We have only just begun to take the edge off, have we not?”
“The edge?” Pia repeated because she didn’t dare imagine that he meant what she thought he did. What her body certainly hoped he did, as it shivered everywhere, inside and out, when she was sure she shouldn’t have been able to feel a thing. Not when she’d felt too much already.
“Cara mia, it has been much too long since New York. My hunger for you has yet to be quenched.”
Maybe she should have argued. Held fast to some or other standard...but Pia wanted him more than she wanted to fight him.
All she did was nod. Once.
Ares did not do a good job of hiding his sharp, hot grin then. He led her to his vast suite of rooms, instead. And he laid her out on his massive bed, clearly made for kings, and crawled up over her to learn every inch of her body all over again.
And when she was writhing, and out of her head once more, he turned her over. He settled her on her hands and knees, so he could slide into her from behind.
That time, she screamed his name when she burst apart.
Every time she burst apart.
And that was only the beginning of his campaign.
He had all her things moved into his rooms and when she objected, merely lifted an arrogant brow.
“I do not wish to traipse down a mile of palace corridors when I could more easily turn over and find you in my bed, Pia,” he told her. Loftily.
And maybe Pia was weak. But she liked sleeping in his bed. And she liked it even more when he turned over and woke her up.
He still maintained his schedule of events. Royal necessities that meant he was always trotting off to this or that.
But he came home more than he had before.
And Pia laughed at herself when she realized that was the word she used now. Home. To describe this mad, fairy-tale palace where she was locked away from the world.
Or maybe, something inside her suggested, this is where you get to retreat from the world.
When had her prison begun to feel like a retreat?
She found she stopped looking at the tabloids, particularly as they now starred both of her brothers and their various romantic entanglements. It wasn’t only that she didn’t want the nasty, gossipy version of her family in her head. It was more that she liked focusing on her own life.
Because she had a life, for once. She was growing brand-new humans inside her. She was carrying on with her writing. And she had Ares, after a fashion.
He taught her things it was impossible to learn in a single night.
And if her giant, pregnant body was any kind of hindrance, he never showed it. He seemed perfectly capable of coming up with new, improved ways to make sure they were both comfortable while they explored each other.
Sometimes he talked. He made dark, delicious promises, then followed through on each and every one of them.
Other times, he was dark, silent, and impossibly beautiful as he moved over her, in her.
One afternoon, after he had made her sob, scream, and then beg a bit for good measure, Ares sprawled beside her. The bed was big, wide, and rumpled beneath them. Up above, the ceiling fan turned lazily, keeping the air moving. Pia could hear the ever-present sound of the ocean outside, crashing over the rocks and surging against the shore.
And Ares was hot and beautiful, all leashed power and male grace as he lay there beside her, his fingers laced with hers.
No matter what happened, Pia knew she would always remember this moment. When she’d almost forgot her body entirely, or could only seem to remember what he could do to it.
Beautiful, something in her whispered. He makes you feel beautiful.
“Marry me,” he said, the way he always did. He had asked her to marry him so many times now that she thought it had lost its power. Almost. Now it was just a thing he said.
Pass the salt, please. Marry me.
Pia laughed. “You know I can’t.”
“I know no such thing.”