The Queen's New Year Secret(21)

This thing between them was uncomfortable. That much she knew. It always had been. That was why they had both turned away from it so resolutely.

She was done with that. Sadly for him, she wasn’t going to allow him to run.

They had less than a week. Less than a week to fix this thing between them. She wanted to stay with him. She had made that decision. But she wanted their marriage to be something more. She was not going to determine to remain his wife only to have things revert back to their icy state.

No, she was going to effect change. Permanent change.

Conversation didn’t seem to work with him. The only way through to Kairos seemed to be using her body. When he decided to transform her from personal assistant to wife, it had been because of her mind. Because they connected on a logical level.

She was done appealing to logic. She was going to make the appeal with her body. She was going to come at all of this from a different direction. She wondered now if she had tried to seduce him sooner if things would have changed before she walked out.

There was no denying the heat that shimmered between them.

But intimacy had been missing from their sexual encounters in the past. Honesty had been missing.

She intended to reach for both tonight. To strip him bare completely, not just of his clothes, but everything else.

She had dug into the back of that wardrobe, every piece of clothing provided her by a stranger, and found a bright red dress that she would normally never have chosen. She felt as though it was painted over her curves, clinging so tightly to everything, she was certain that each and every flaw her body claimed as its own was on very loud display.

She had never worried terribly much about her figure. Why, when her husband spent so little time looking at it? But now, she intended to use it as a weapon. To be sufficient ammunition to blast that mountain of a man down to his knees.

She took a breath and looked at herself in the mirror. She hardly recognized the woman she saw there. Her blond hair was spilling over her shoulders, unrestrained. She had not styled it within an inch of its life, had not tamed it into submission. Rather, it looked a little bit wild. She was wearing lipstick that matched the dress, also much bolder and brighter than she tended to be.

But a seduction of this importance required bold and bright.

She walked down the sweeping staircase, her fingertips skimming the rail. She had repainted her nails to match the dress and to get rid of the chipped polish she had been wearing for the past few days. She wasn’t going to nervously pick at this manicure. In part, because she wasn’t going to be nervous.

She gritted her teeth, repeating that mantra over and over again. As though, if she thought it enough times it would make it true.

Then she saw Kairos, standing at the foot of the stairs, wearing a white shirt that was unbuttoned at his throat, revealing a tempting wedge of bronzed skin, just a hint of his dark chest hair. She loved his chest. Could spend hours exploring it with her hands, her lips and her tongue. She found that she had very few inhibitions where he was concerned. That, at least, had made the past week fun.

She smiled as her foot hit the floor and she stood, waiting to see if she could discern his reaction to her appearance.

He was stoic, as ever, his expression schooled into hard granite. But it was that grim set of his mouth, that determination in his eyes that let her know that he was in fact affected. His jaw was so tight, the veins in his neck were standing out, his hands clenched into fists, the enticing muscles of his forearms flexed with the strength that it took for him to restrain himself.

Yes, she was certainly having an effect.

“Are you dressed for dinner?” he asked.

“Actually, I’m dressed for dessert.”

* * *

Kairos was not entirely certain when he lost control of the situation. Whether it was the moment he caught sight of Tabitha descending the stairs in that dress that clung to her body like a lover, outlining her full breasts, slim waist and perfectly rounded hips. Whether it was when his eyes zeroed in on her lips, painted a bold red, and he immediately imagined her leaving that color all over his skin.

Or whether it was sometime much earlier. Whether it had been slowly sifting through his fingers like sand through an hourglass from the moment they first arrived on this island. He had brought her here to force her to come around to his way of thinking. But standing here, his world seemingly turned on end, he was beginning to wonder who was in charge.

She closed the distance between them, pressing her breasts against his chest, curling her fingers around the back of his neck and drawing his head down for a kiss. It was slow, achingly so. He wanted to wrap her in his embrace, crush her up against him and claim her completely. To show her that she was not the one in control here. But he didn’t want this to end. He was so desperate to see what she had planned.

Even while everything in him denied it.

Distancing himself from Tabitha over the past few days had not been a simple task. He had tasted paradise, unrestrained, unmitigated bliss at her hands, and then he had put up a wall. Had drawn a veil between them, blunting their every interaction since. Not allowing himself to get lost in it, not completely, not again. He knew his reasoning was sound, but it was a torture that he had not counted on.

She flicked her tongue out, tracing the edge of his upper lip slowly. Heat fired along his veins, molten fire pooling in his stomach. And he almost lost his control completely in that moment. She pressed her palm against his chest, against where his heart raged, almost out of control, then slid her fingertips down over his stomach, to his belt buckle. She looked up, her eyes meeting his, and his breath caught in his throat.

She meant to do this slow, that he could see clearly. It also might kill him, that he could see clearly too.

She worked his belt through the loop slowly, an echo to that first time she had gone down on him out on the terrace. She finished undoing the clasp on his pants, slipped her hands beneath the fabric and curled her delicate fingers around his aching flesh. His breath hissed through his teeth, his entire body going rigid beneath her touch.

She deepened her kiss as she stroked him, mirroring the rhythm of her hand with her tongue. An involuntary shudder wracked his entire body and she squeezed him tightly as she bit his lower lip.

“Tabitha,” he growled. Begging. Cursing. Warning.

“What?” she asked, her tone a model of innocence.

“Do not test me,” he said, not even knowing entirely what he meant. Only that he was desperate to push her away, but he wasn’t strong enough. Physically, of course he was strong enough. She was a soft, petite woman, and physically he could overpower her if he chose. It was his spirit that wasn’t strong enough. He was powerless beneath her touch. And if one of them was going to make the choice to walk away from this moment, it would have to be her. Because he could not. He had tried over the past few days to practice restraint and he was all out of it.

Not just the past few days, the past five years. Five long years of being married to a woman such as her and holding his desire for her in check. He could not. He could not endure the restraint any longer.

“Oh, agape, I have come here to test you. And I hope very much you fail,” she said, angling her head and kissing his neck, her teeth scraping the sensitive skin there. “I came here to give myself to you. As a gift. One without strings. One you can use as selfishly as you wish. You can enjoy this, enjoy me, to your heart’s content.”

A feral sound escaped his lips, and he tightened his hold on her, sliding his hands down her thighs and lifting her up, her dress riding up past her hips, her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her from the base of the stairs into the living area.

He moved over to the couch, lowering himself down onto it, keeping a hold of her hips. He sat, with her straddling his lap, her arms wrapped around his neck, his grip on her tight. She arched against him, pressing the heat of her against his heart and arousal, a short, luxurious sound of pleasure resonating through her as she did.

“I like this view,” he said, sliding his hand up her waist and moving it to cup her breast, teasing her nipple with his thumb. “It is a beautiful dress. But I think I would prefer it on the floor.”

He reached around, taking hold of the zipper tab and drawing it downward, letting the dress fall around her waist, revealing pale, perfect breasts. He leaned in, lowering his head and drawing one tightened bud into his mouth before circling it slowly with the tip of his tongue. She shivered beneath his touch and a surge of satisfaction claimed him. Stole every thought from his mind. He could think of nothing else but having her, consuming her, giving her mindless pleasure as she had done for him.

He tightened his hold on her, reversing their positions so that she was sitting down on the couch and he was overhead. He lowered himself onto the floor, grabbing hold of her dress and pulling it from her body, finding her completely bare beneath it. He swore, lowering himself further so that he was down on his knees, a supplicant worshipping at the temple of her beauty.

She was so beautiful, so perfectly aroused and uninhibited for him. He was so hard it was a physical pain. He wanted nothing more than to free himself completely from his clothes and bury himself deep inside of her.

But then it would be over. Far too quickly. And she was not half so mindless as he needed her to be.

He realized then that this was the definition of being thoroughly seduced. To the degree that Tabitha was no longer even the aggressor. His body was convinced that this was absolutely his idea and that there was no other course of action. He was not going to fight against it.