“Have you ever wanted to play queen, Elsie? Now is your chance.”
I shake my head. “I have never aspired to power.”
His head tips to one side in confusion. “What do you aspire to, then?”
“Love. Family. Enough food in my belly.” I lift one shoulder and let it fall, feigning indifference. “Warm fires in winter.”
“Surely you cannot lack these things.”
The haunted feeling fades. I make a show of examining the room to avoid responding. Heavy red velvet curtains trimmed in gold hang over tall windows. Matching cushions adorn the thrones. One seat is considerably smaller than the other. Alex throws himself into the larger one and insolently drapes one leg over the arm.
“And you? What do you aspire to?” A red rug with a gold botanical pattern decorates the floor. In the center is a huge dragon coiled and ready to fight a knight. “Do you wish to be king?”
“Doesn’t every man wish to be king?” That lopsided, cheeky smile tucks up one corner of his mouth. I can’t stop the answering grin that comes to mine.
“Stand up, Alex.” I stride over to him and tug his hand. “You’ll get into trouble if you’re caught.”
“We won’t be caught.” He yanks hard enough on my arm to make me stumble forward. Taken off guard, I fall into his lap. His grip doesn’t relax until he shifts his hold to my waist. My heart thrums like a hummingbird’s wings.
Silk rustles as he eases my bottom onto his muscular thighs.
I should protest.
I don’t.
Alex glides the pad of his thumb down the curve of my cheek.
“Pretend with me, Elsie. What would you do as queen?”
“Queen?” I laugh. “Me?”
“Why not you?”
“I’m no one.” Less than no one. The last daughter of an extinct line of nobility. With no male heir, the Scinder name is all but lost to history.
“You’re someone to me.”
Tears burn my eyes. He settles one hand high on my waist, his fingers splayed across my belly. His thumb is barely an inch beneath the curve of my breast. I sip air.
It feels so good to be held. His arms around me. His hard thighs beneath me. His chin resting on my shoulder with his nose near my ear. Breathing. He is calm. I am not. Being this near to him is a torment.
“Alex, we are strangers. I don’t know any more about you than you do me.”
“I know your name. That you kiss like a goddess.”
He brushes his lips against my temple. I close my eyes. He doesn’t know my name. Not really. The tight, sharp feeling in my chest squeezes tears to my eyes.
“I know you’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”
“That’s the magic,” I protest. “I’m nothing special.”
“I first encountered you without it,” he reminds me, and nuzzles my throat. “You don’t need silk and jewels to shine, princess.”
“I’m not a princess.”
“You will be.”
I gasp raggedly as he strokes his thumb along the underside of my breast. Even with several layers of silk and fine cotton between our skin, his hand is blazing hot.
