Isadora’s eyes are not cast downward. She’s not timid, despite the definite uncertainty that she must face in this move. An advantageous agreement like this would have come with more guile and coordination if she had any.
“Your Highnesses,” Isadora says, her voice breathy for an instant before she gains her resolve.
“Please, I’m Nathan, that’s Vincent,” Nathan says with a wave of his hand.
I capture Isabella’s. “May I?” I ask, hoping to kiss her hand. I like old-fashioned charm. Nathan is hard-on seduction with no subtlety. I try to avoid feeling sickened by him.
“Yes, you may. I imagine you’ll both do so much more in time. There is to be a bedding,” Isadora says. I’m surprised at her language, whispered so that only the three of us can hear it. A bold move. She doesn’t say it lasciviously, and I can’t describe how it turns me on. What a filthy fucker that I am. Sweet Isadora brings out the naughtiest thoughts within me, because I want her. So much more than just a fuck. I like her. I like her personality. I like her courage.
I want to taste her courage and her come beautifully undone around me. I want her perfect peach lips to tremble from pleasure, her courage putting her in an ultimately pleasurable moment. I want to see her ‘o’ face be one of ‘oh god do that again.’
If my horny thoughts are all over my face, then my diplomacy is worse than I could have imagined.
Isadora’s face flushes a little, and I know she’s wondering how she was so bold.
Nathan’s hand goes to the small of her back, and I see her warm to the idea though she’s still so demure.
Fuck, what was I thinking? I’m enraptured by the thought of her, and I want to decimate this sharing notion as soon as possible.
I won’t, because I won’t choose the battlefield for my country over something to do with my cock and my pride, but it does make this even more difficult. Worse than I could have imagined.
“Thank you both,” Isadora says, reaching her hands out to claim one of ours into hers. “I know that this is an odd, antiquated plan, but I appreciate you both for doing what’s good for our people, for the world.”
Isadora is going to be an excellent queen. I just want her to be only mine.
Chapter Three
Nathan
Marriage alliances are the best political move. Diplomacy will always be more valuable than war. Even if it means I’m arranged to share a wife with this brute attempting to have tea with me.
Even if Vincent Lyvester is that brute.
I watch Vincent, every bit the prince I am, sipping his tea, his hand clenching on the glass.
When this marriage is final, Vincent and I will be shared kings of three allied nations.
He seems to actually be attempting to be civil. I know better than to assume Vincent is being anything other than genuine, because he doesn’t have a properly manipulative bone in his alpha male shell.
At least I have the abs and the political prowess. We can’t punch our way into peace…
“I hear you are a just and clever general,” I offer to Vincent. I know how to be genuine, too.
Hey, I do.
For the record, my general path to peace—we all want peace—is to give that damn cocky smirk I swear was plastered on when I was born.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. Marius, no doubt, my second-in-command, keeping me up to date on my kingdom’s goings on, and those of every other nation. I don’t pull my phone out now because that will just undo my own goodwill gesture toward Vincent, now won’t it?
Yes, yes it would. I don’t make stupid moves, so I’m not about to start now.
“You want to get that?” Vincent says in a hushed but ultimately loud whisper. I’m clearly going to be the husband with all the grace, but that won’t come as a surprise to anyone.
Except, perhaps, the bride herself.
Isadora Brevintos. She’s nothing like the trash I take into and out of my bed on a regular basis. My chambers have seen more maids than would be needed to clean a whole castle, be the women actual servants or just girls I pick up in bars that are groupies not deemed too dangerous by my staff doing risk assessments. No, Isadora brought no secondary missions to the table, performed no diligences outside of standard channels.
Isadora is two things I’ve never seen before.
When the marriage was arranged and agreed upon, she was a pure politician with no desires to work through backchannels or to be underhanded.
And now, walking through those doors, she’s more gorgeous than any woman I’ve ever seen. I feel it like the strongest instinct I’ve ever had. I want her to be mine. I need to have her.