Gambit (19 page)

Chae forced a cold calm into her voice. “Your face says something different.”

He stepped back from her, offering her the agenda. The clear afternoon light slanted in through the high windows and carved his face in gold. But his beauty didn’t catch her breath, not with the emptiness making him little more than a pretty shell. “You will enter the throne room in fifty minutes. Your princes are waiting.”

Chae ignored the thin piece of gleaming tech he held out to her. “What are you hiding?”

His mouth thinned and he ran his fingertips over the agenda, securing the screen. He straightened and his dark gaze held her. “Fine. I wanted the throne. I’ve witnessed the excesses of the princes, and Kynon Drew almost threw us back into the ultimate corruption of our genes.” A wry smile quirked his lips. “I wanted to be emperor. Happy? Can we now move on?”

The shutter still enclosed his mind, but she had instincts sharpened by living by herself for more than twenty years in Ulan Bator. And they screamed liar. Hope ran hot through her veins but she had to contain it. “Try something else. Go on, try another lie.” Her soft words made him flinch. “I’m not stupid, Daned. Something about this—” she poked at the thick material of her tunic, “my being empress is eating at you. What is it?”

Daned lifted his chin and stared straight ahead. “I told you—”

“You lied to your empress.” She gave him a nasty smirk. “The sunder-seld pushed a load of crap into my head, and I’m sure there’s a law about lying to me being a treasonable offence.”

His lips twitched and she caught the brief hint of something like a sneer. She reacted, pushing him hard against the wall. The agenda clattered to the marble floor. Daned stared at her and she caught the emotion she ached for. Want. Hot, dark want. But his need closed down just as suddenly.

“Strip. Now.”

“I’m not flesh to be ordered, Majesty.”

“The sunder-seld gave you, and only you, independence.” She walked her fingers up his chest, the smooth material of his jacket cool and frustrating. She wanted him naked. “It didn’t say you could disobey me.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw, but he gave her a quiet nod and his fingers moved to his jacket. Shrugging out of it, he dropped it to the floor before he turned his attention to his shirt. Slow, an automaton in his movements. Fuck, his placid compliance just hurt.

Chae closed her eyes at the first hint of his bare flesh and she turned away. “Stop.” Sourness burned in her chest and she breathed against it. She pressed her hands to her face and found herself staring down at the Prince of Ara’s lean, harsh face. She picked up the agenda and stared at him. He had the same dark coloring as Daned, but there the similarity ended. Something pushed at her thoughts and she tried to grab at the nebulous idea.

She pressed the pad, flicking through the images of the leaders of the Houses, sneering as she stared at the gaunt face of Kynon’s replacement. Princes who would all drop to their knees and swear allegiance to her and her dynasty. Dynasty. The word stabbed hot through her thoughts and she whipped her attention back to Daned.

He still stood silent, patient, the few buttons of his shirt open to reveal the lickable cider-brown skin beneath. “I’m the empress and I must secure a steady line of descendants.” She waved the agenda at him. “I’m taking away the right of the sunder-seld to choose.” She paused. “And I’m giving it to you. Which one of these men should I fuck first?”

There was that muscle jumping in his jaw again. Hell, she’d work it hard. “Should I follow Arial’s example?” She stared back at the images, idly scrolling through them. “Take my prince in full view of everyone? Or follow her later career and take more than one.” She tapped the screen and held it up close to Daned. “What do you think? Him, him and him.” A smile curved her mouth and she watched Daned pull in a hard breath. His lips thinned. “All at once, I think. Oh, if I’m going that way…” She tapped out more of them. “I’ll have him, him…and him, as well.”

“Majesty, that is inappropriate.”

His voice was little more than a growl and she grinned at him. “Who says? You researched my past, Daned. You know me better than anyone.” Color stained his cheeks. “Tell me I wasn’t feeling flush after one particularly successful run and bought a handful of flesh.” She ran her finger over his hot skin and he sucked in a quick breath. Her grin deepened. “I lost days.
Days.
Shall I tell you what we did?”

“No.” Daned bit out the quiet word and his gaze fixed on her shoulder. “I should go, Majesty.”

“Wait.” She pressed the device into his lax hand, closing his fingers over. “You have to organize this. And as my only confidant, I want to share every little detail.”

Daned stood silent, his shoulders tense, his fingers white around the metal agenda. “If that is what you want, Majesty.”

Chae stared at him. She’d just picked out the rankest men and said she wanted to fuck the lot of them in front of him. And Daned had agreed to organize it. The anger flared again, hot and sharp. “Why haven’t I got a fucking gun so I can shoot you?” She caught her fingers in her hair and curled them into tight fists. “Now your sexual snobbery is going the other way. Fine.” She jabbed a finger at the machine he held. “I want six men from the Traern family delivered here. Right now. You choose.”

His head snapped up. “What?”

“Well, you said they all looked like you…and since you won’t—”

“No.” He threw the agenda to the floor and it cracked against the hard marble. He grabbed her and shoved her hard against the wooden door. His mouth hovered over hers, his breath hot and ragged. “You’re the empress.”

“So?” She focused on his mouth, her heart pounding, too eager to taste him again…but the first move had to be his. “I think that gives me every right to fuck the Traern clan, don’t you?” She wet her lips. “First, I’ll start with your half brother—”

Cursing, his mouth found hers, and she met the wild clash of tongues and teeth. Daned pushed her up the wall, yanking at her long tunic, tugging at the band of her trousers. The hot burn of his fingers against her hips, her thighs, ran a riot of need through her flesh. Her own hands pulled at the front of his trousers. She wanted him, she needed him. Finally freeing him, she pressed her thigh to his hip, fighting the tangle of clothes, too eager for him to find her, to fuck her.

“Chae, we shouldn’t. An empress has never taken her advisor.”

He groaned as her fingers stroked over his cock and she pushed him hard against her panties. The feel of him mixed with frustration. Damn, she wanted him now. She found his mouth again as he thrust into her hand and his taste, the promise of how they would be together, the joy they would find, ran liquid fire through her veins. “This is right, Daned.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

She smirked against his mouth, her thumb teasing the sensitive head of his cock, her knuckle rubbing against her own aching flesh. It made her breath short and her heart pound. “That’s not a denial.” Chae bit at his lip. “And if you’d rather have Bran replace you…”

With a growl, Daned shoved aside her underwear and buried himself deep, deep inside her.

Chae’s head fell back against the cool crystal wall. She needed air, to breathe, because he felt…“Incredible.”

Daned rested his forehead against shoulder. “We shouldn’t be doing this.” Something lined his voice, but it was hard to pin down the emotion. Pain? Regret? Relief? Chae squeezed her muscles around him and he let out a low groan. His hips shifted and the reward of a slow release of pleasure flared. “Or that either.”

Chae ran her fingers along his smooth jaw, making him look at her. “I want you.” She pressed a light kiss to his mouth and then another, sweet little kisses that she wanted to deepen…but it was all still his choice. “Titles like runner, caste, empress are just words.”

“No.” His eyes closed and pain flickered across his face. “No, they’re not.”

“Then stop. Don’t do this.” She ground her hips against him and the hot flicker of desire warmed her flesh. “Walk away.”

Daned’s hand cupped her face, his thumb stroking her bottom lip. “It changes you. Your brain chemistry. To be with anyone else after you’ve found permanence…it would be like rape.” His gaze held hers. “I couldn’t let you suffer that. I tried to do the dutiful thing and protect you, deny I wanted you.”

“Then after—”

“The bond is interrupted, polluted. It won’t form.”

Chae bit at the inside of her lip, denying the pain of breaking her connection to Daned. She pulled in a breath and the warm scent of him slid deep into her lungs. It pushed her against him and he rolled his hips, the slow thrust heating her skin. Her heart hammered. “Then my choice is made.”

Chapter Ten

Daned’s fingers curled away from her cheek and he gave a slow nod. His mind encased itself in metal. “Majesty.”

Chae gripped his arm and he blinked as she smirked at him. “What?” She hooked her boot behind his thigh, urging him to move hard against her. “It’s time for an imperial advisor to get very,
very
naked.”

“Chae…”

Her name was almost a strangled gasp and so not Daned, that she couldn’t help her burst of laughter. She touched his cheek and her emotions sobered. He had to understand. Breaking what she had with him was not an option. “Gold will take away the horror of the princes.”

Daned closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Chae.”

She traced a finger along the sculpted beauty of his cheek, his jaw, before she pressed her finger to his lips. “Make it up to me.”

He eased free of her body. “We don’t have long.”

Chae tilted her head. “Then make it up to me quickly.”

A dark smile touched his mouth and her heart did a stupid flip-flop of excitement. The urge to say that she loved him burned on her tongue, but hell, she didn’t want to scare the man off. Permanence didn’t mean they’d even like each other, after all.

“I’ve always been thorough.”

A shiver tingled over her skin. Chae yanked up her trousers and grabbed his hand. He and his laughter followed her to the wide bed.

“So eager, Majesty.”

It was the first time her new title didn’t stab at her and she grinned at him. “How could I not be?”

Daned pulled her to him, his free hand sliding up her tunic to trace his fingers over her skin. She twitched as he followed the long path of her scar to the band of her loose trousers. “I wasn’t looking at this,” he murmured. His fingers pushed under her trousers, finding more of the scar until he teased over its jagged end. “But your scars make you…you. You’ve never had to hide who you are. I’ve always admired that in you.”

Chae let her forehead fall against his shoulder and she fought to keep her thoughts contained. Fucking him was one thing. Melting at simple words was something else. She wet her lips and skimmed her fingertips over the smooth material of his shirt. Its coolness, the spiced scent of Daned’s clean skin, wrapped around her and she ached to taste every part of him. “I think it’s time for you to obey my order to strip.”

He stepped back from her, his warm hand trailing over her waist, and caught the first of his buttons. “I will still argue with you…Majesty. It’s my job.”

“We leave our jobs, our titles, at the door.” She looked up to hold his gaze. “Agreed?”

Daned undid another button. “Agreed.” Another button slipped free. “Chae.” He pulled his shirt from his trousers and let it drop to the floor. His trousers followed and he kicked his boots free. His lips twitched and she knew he was fighting back a smile. “What do you wish of me, lady?”

“So funny.” She pushed him and he flopped back onto the bed, sinking into the deep covers. Soft light touched his skin and the fact that he would be hers, permanently hers, forced her heart into a fast rhythm. She shucked off her own clothes and slapped the hard muscle of his thigh. “Move up the bed.”

Daned’s gaze narrowed on her, but still he worked his way farther onto the wide mattress. Chae crawled over his legs and hips, her attention fixed on him, her breath quick. His erection brushed her belly and she bit her lip, her fingers digging into the sleek silk of the bed sheets either side of Daned’s chest. Her mouth found his collarbone, and he let out a low groan as she kissed and licked his warm skin. He tasted…Her sigh brushed over his damp skin. Daned laced his fingers through her hair, causing her to look up and she smirked at him. “I haven’t done this in a while.”

He blinked. “Should I be worried?”

Chae’s smirk deepened. “Maybe?” She curled her tongue around his flat nipple, enjoying the satin-smooth texture of his skin, the tickle of hairs, the spice of soap and the addictive taste that was simply him. She sighed as she teased a wet line down his sternum. “Were you designed to taste good too?”

Daned stroked her arm, a slow, delicious slide of his skin against hers that pooled heat low in her belly. “Yes.”

She smiled against his stomach. “Life must be hell for you, being so perfect.”

“You…can’t imagine.”

Chae grinned, enjoying his hesitation, and licked his navel. Daned pulled in a sharp breath, his body jerking under her. She ran her fingers along his erection before gripping him and letting her tongue tip taste the sensitive head of his cock. Tension held his body taut and air escaped him in fast pants.

“Chae, you don’t—”

Her mouth took him and broke his words. She teased and sucked, playing with him, deliberately tormenting. Chae couldn’t remember the last time she’d done this, couldn’t remember ever wanting to do it…but she wanted Daned driven insane by her mouth. It edged them ever closer to permanence, to a time when they would only find joy in each other. She didn’t fear that time.

“Chae…”

She couldn’t hold back the soft groan as his mind opened to hers, the touch of his thoughts warming her, stealing over her skin. “I want this.” The tumble of his emotions, the disorder she caused, quickened the dip of her mouth. The strange sensation of feeling the rise of his arousal, the brush of her hair against his thigh, of the wet heat of her tongue, drove desire through her own flesh. His salt-sweet taste pulled a moan from her. “I want you.”

Daned fisted his fingers in her hair. She felt the tremor in his taut arm. “And I want to fuck you.”