by Angel Payne
He hitched up on one elbow. “What the hell gave you that impression?”
I popped my stare wider. “Ummm…the full fuse you blew when we first got here? Something about not being Samsyn’s ‘lap dog’? I paged Dr. Freud from there, and figured Evrest was wrapped up in that baggage too.”
A pulse ticked in his jaw. “They are my big brothers, Lucina. Family, baggage…they go together, you see?”
“No.” I ducked my head when his stare turned probing. Note to self. Don’t go getting curious about hot princey’s cushy upbringing again. “I mean—sorry—no, I don’t see.” I picked at imaginary lint on the sheet. “I was an only child. It was basically just my mom and me.”
“Why?” He huffed and dragged a hand through his hair. “I apologize. Please do not answer if you do not want—”
“My dad was killed when I was twelve.”
I had no damn idea why I blurted it—except that it felt important for him to know. Why the hell that was, I had no idea. Even with Ezra, it had taken me a good three or four months to come clean about Dad. “He was a cop.” I went ahead and let that little jewel pop out too. “He was…a hero.”
Shiraz reached up. Brushed strands of hair off my face. “Of course he was.”
I looked up as his fingers sifted back across my scalp. For a second, my breath caught at what I saw in the depths of his gaze. He’d meant it. Every syllable. I knew it inside an instant—and gave him the most honest answer of my heart in response. “Thank you.”
He closed his eyes briefly, a regal version of a nod. His fingers kept twirling in my hair, slowly caressing down to the ends. His gaze, open again, serenely followed each new descent.
“My brothers are my heroes.”
“Aha.”
As I teased it, he fell to his back once more, hands raised. “Guilty as charged.”
I wiggled my shoulders in a saucy preen. “Okay, hot shot. What am I thinking now?”
His half-grin became a quiet smirk. “Oh, it is easy this time.”
“That so?”
“Hmmm. Yes.”
The thick heat in his gaze recaptured my attention—in my mind and my pussy. “Oh, great mind reader Shiraz, please impart me with your wisdom, then.”
He rolled to his side, then pulled me down to mine. When we fully faced each other. his stare turned to azure smoke. “That you…liked having to obey my orders tonight.”
A smile grew across my lips. “Well. You may be a mind reader after all.”
“That is not all of it.”
I pressed closer to him. “Interested. Go on.”
His stare turned even darker. “You are definitely hoping more reward is coming for it.”
He emphasized “reward” with a buck of his hips that, tried by any other guy, might have been dorky. But with the way this man could roll those hips with that erection, my scoffing laugh became an aroused sigh. Damn. His cock was like a baton against my thigh. I’d taken baton once. I was damn good at it.
I rubbed light fingers at the base of his…stick. “Mr. Cimarron?”
He grunted. Let out a shaky breath. But growled with force, “Yes, Miss Fava?”
“You’re one cocky sonofabitch.”
“So I have been…informed.” He husked out the last of it, as I fondled the two globes in his sac.
“I bet you’ll be insufferable now, having given your goods for a girl and all.”
He unleashed a growl—a whole snarl, actually—while rearing up and over, flattening me to my back. My responding squeal was stolen by his hard punch of a kiss. “My goods, hmmm? I suppose that will do.” He did that lush hip roll again, giving my other thigh a workout with his impressive length. There was a slick of moisture this time, making my stare go wide. He really was ready to go again.
Maybe I’d been mistaken, and this wasn’t lightning strike hell.
It was heaven, with a lover missing nothing except angel’s wings.
Point proven the very next moment, with the new light in his gaze and the measured concentration in his strokes to my hair. To be honest, the intensity almost scared me. This wasn’t I’m-going-to-fuck-you-raw focus. This was I-want-to-see-into-you attention.
“What?” I valiantly went for levity, anyway. “You don’t like ‘the goods’? But they are good, gorgeous.” Bitten lip. Cutie-flirty smile. “Very, very good.”
No change in his face. But no change to his cock, either, which kept stirring fond baton lesson memories. A good sign that maybe he could be distracted…
“There is not a single man back in LA who wants to do this with you regularly?”
Okay. Scratch the “good sign”. But was it a bad sign? That he was clearly, genuinely puzzled by why I didn’t have a steady someone back home? That he wanted to know more about the intricacies of my life?
Except that was what they were. Intricacies. Cracks. The telltale signs of why I wasn’t “Miss Right” for anyone. Why I should just stay in his lane of “Miss Right Now”, period.
“Unnnhhh.” I flopped both arms to the pillow, crisscrossing wrists over my head. “That’s a really complicated question.”
Translation: back off now and save us both the trouble.
But if I’d learned anything about the man in the last two days, it was how he and “back off” weren’t on speaking terms. Like, ever.
His hand scooted down from my hair. Settled against the side of my face just like he rearranged his body at my side, with firm determination. Caressed my temple, just beyond the corner of my eye, with knowing swirls of his thumb.
“I manage operations and finances for an entire kingdom, tupulai. I think I can handle ‘complicated’.”
I opened my eyes. Grabbed his hand, that magical thumb included, and pushed it away. “And what if I just don’t want to be ‘handled’?”
He stilled. I mean, to the point of it getting weird. My heart pounded the crap out of my ribs. A roaring panther was a reason for anxiety but a silent panther was a reason for terror.
“What was his name?”
Pounce. Fuck.
“His name, Lucina.” His tone was quiet but sharp. Not pissed-off, but definitely not okay with my be-still-and-hope-the-panther-walks-by thing.
“His name who?”
“The one who made you afraid of what you are.” Pounce number two, this time the real kind. Inside two seconds, he had both my wrists locked beneath his hand. “Of what you need.”
I huffed. Shook my head. Like I said about him and backing off…
“I’m not afraid of anything, okay? Wait. Maybe bad sitcom reboots and certain kinds of sushi, but—”
My breath caught—and my pussy trembled—as his hold screwed tighter and his face loomed closer. “You are afraid,” he uttered. “It scares you, how much you like this. Of how your senses want to take off again, even as I do just this to you. But you hold back. You stop yourself, Lucy. Why?”
How the hell was he getting all that just by looking at me? Then again, I wasn’t the one looking at me, with the thrumming pulse in my throat, the shallow cadence of my breath, and pupils likely dilated to super marble status with arousal…
Holy shit, such arousal.
I slammed my eyes shut. At least that cut off one of his supply lines—and my own. Thinking straight with the man in the same room was damn near impossible, let alone when he hovered just inches away. And now he pulled the dark and dangerous panther thing…
Think.
Think!
“Dammit, Shiraz.” It was a start. “It’s not that easy to explain.” It was also the truth.
“Of course it is,” he retorted. “I just want to know his name, so I do not have to keep replacing it in my head with things like soldask and kimfuk.”
The Arcadian profanities—I’d be shocked if they weren’t—made me laugh. “God forbid you have to do that.” I dared another glance into his piercing blues. “Besides, you’d need a lot more than two substitutes.” I didn’t give him too long to dig into that one. “B
ut before you skewer half the state of California, let’s get one thing clear. I’m pretty good friends with most of my exes, and there’s a reason for that.”
“This is supposed to assure me?”
“Would you let me finish?”
“If it gets us past the subject of your exes.”
“A subject you introduced?”
He glowered. I huffed. “Continue,” he finally growled, scarily calm about it. Added in an annoyed mutter, “Please.”
Deep breath. He had said please. “All right, so…you aren’t going to believe this, but you have to.” I ignored his jerk of a brow. “In the past, I’ve actually been the scary one in the relationship. I said you had to believe me!”
“Lucina.”
“Shiraz,” I countered—though damn him, yanked at more threads in my soul by lowering a soft kiss to the end of my nose. “Just…listen.” Don’t make this shit harder than it already is.
“Lucina,” he repeated. Gazed at me through the dark cinnamon hair toppled over his forehead. “You are many things.” Trailed his lips up, landing another kiss between my eyebrows. “Passionate and obstinate. Creative and addictive…”
“Dammit—”
“Not finished.” He brushed his mouth back down. “Beautiful,” he whispered. “Especially that.” Pressed in a little more, tasting the seam of my lips with the tip of his tongue. “As I said, so many things. But none of them scary.”
He rose back up. His gaze was mixed with reflections of mine. The chestnut flecks were a stunning contrast to his ocean blue. I went liquid again, just gazing into those gorgeous depths. For the first time, I wished my hands were free, so I could reach up and touch him. I needed to know he was real.
Damn. Would he ever not do this to me? Would I ever be certain I wasn’t having a super long, incredible, dream? Maybe on the flight home—in which case, I’d just beg to fall back asleep.
“Shiraz,”—he needed to hear this as the guy still with stars in his eyes, not the master with his cock on my thigh—“you’ve known me for barely two days—”
“And attempting to know you better.”
“A for that effort,” I countered. “So turn down the violins and hear me on this.”
I dealt with the mixture of ache and acceptance as he quietly nodded, then released my wrists. For the moment, Master Cimarron was slipped to the back shelf. I already missed him.
Another long breath—then I just gave it to him without sugar coating. “I can be…intense.” Nervous laugh. “Yeah, I know that’s a real mind-bender, but—”
“Intense.”
His perplexed scowl stopped me as much as his borderline question. “Yes,” I said slowly, sensing he needed to hear the emphasis. “Look, I know you get it in the professional sense, but on the personal front, it’s not such a great character trait.”
His frown deepened. “Why is it a matter of character at all?”
“Huh?” Good thing I’d decided to leave my hands where they were. I was able to tug my hair as a calculated distraction. Yeah, calculated. Yeah, because I needed it. It was no small feat to keep thinking logically with this man near, especially skin-to-skin—but also because we’d dropped the shields of sarcasm. The thrum he’d first brought to my blood was now a full-blown throb, not entirely due to our physical chemistry. That part could be easily appeased. But emotional dissection? Gah.
Shiraz shrugged. Shrugged, as if we merely discussed the merits of pizza toppings. “Character is a matter of choice,” he stated. “It is the sum of the ways you have chosen to live, whether in respect and love and honor for yourself and others, or not. It is the path we all pick for ourselves, having hopefully been brought up to respect the importance of those choices by parents and other mentors, so we select the right path even when it is not the easiest way.”
Tug. Tug. A little harder now. “All right,” I answered, drawing the words out. “Following you so far. I think.”
“Your character, Lucina, is already clear to me. I saw a great deal of it before we even met, in the details of your proposal for the wedding. Nobody directed you to weave in so many of our country’s traditions to the theme of the ceremony and reception, but your ideas conveyed your careful thought and respect for our family’s deep ties to Arcadia. ’Twas not just the kingdom you honored, but the land it rests on. This jewel the sea has given us…you had never even been here when you conveyed your ideas, but you comprehended that importance already. You just…got it.”
“Shit.” Tug. Really hard. I gulped, struggling to stuff the sting behind my eyes back past the lump in my throat. “You actually read it.”
He stroked a thumb across my cheek. “Of course. Every word.”
“No. I mean, you read it. You didn’t throw it at some fancy-poo assistant, then just ask for the highlights to review.”
“Some ‘fancy-poo assistant’—like Crista?”
“Errrr…” I laughed. “Yeah.”
“The same woman you risked your own hide for, just about twelve hours ago?”
Colliding brows. “What’s your point?”
He leaned in again. “That your character is fucking beautiful to me.” A pause, as he pulled in a long breath. “And that what you need in bed—or on the couch, or on the floor, or anywhere else you would have it—has nothing to do with any ‘character flaw’.”
Major huff. “Fine. So it’s not a damn character flaw.”
He shoved up. Pushed all the way back until he knelt, muscled quads jutted at me, rippled torso rising over me. “It is not a flaw at all!” His nostrils flared. “By the Creator, Lucy. It is simply you. Perfectly you. And it enrages me that some small-minded imbezak—actually, it seems, a number of them—have led you to believe otherwise!”
For another long second, I simply stared. “I don’t understand.” Not a lie.
His fingers visibly dug into his thighs, not helping my effort to avoid staring at what was between them. “Let us talk about Ezra.”
“Now I really don’t understand.”
“Your superior?” he countered. “Ezra Lowe?”
“I know who he is, dammit. But why do you want to talk about—”
“He is also your friend, yes?”
Snort. “Most of the time.” A sobering look, when seeing he didn’t—or chose not to—get it. “Yes. He’s also my friend.”
“And he also is gay?”
“Yes. But what the hell does that have to—”
“And you accept him that way?”
Now I straightened, pushing up until my back rammed the headboard. “What the hell kind of a question is that?”
“An honest one.” His posture stayed so straight, I almost imagined him in one of those fancy conference rooms in the other wing, serenely pacing the room—while eviscerating a business associate. “You accept Ezra Lowe as a leader and as a friend, as well as the fact that he is gay, right?”
Glower. It felt more than justified. “I don’t just ‘accept’ Ezra. I love him. He’s a little nuts around the edges,”—subject matter for a different time and place—“but he wouldn’t be him without all of that. He’s talented, funny, creative, challenging, honest—”
“And gay.”
I pushed into the same position as him. The move made the sheet slip down. My breasts spilled out like a pair of plumped muffins, making him glance down. Good. I hope he’d gotten a huge eyeful—because right now, the lord and master wasn’t getting these goods.
“What the hell is your point?” I bit out. “Ezra’s actually bi, if you really need to know, but you don’t. Not really. It’s nobody’s business except his lovers.”
Well. Nothing wrong with my verbal diarrhea tonight. As soon as the spew was finished, a blush invaded my face—exacerbated by the man’s cocky head tilt and boardroom arrogance. Yeah, even now. Yeah, even buck naked and beautiful in front of me.
“Hmmm. Bisexual,” he murmured. “That is even more interesting.”
“And your point is what?” I shot ba
ck.
“Just that it is interesting.”
He was baiting me. I could feel it—but the burn in my psyche made it impossible not to jump at the lure. “But why does it have to be ‘interesting’? Why does it have to be anything?”
“Why indeed?”
“He’s bisexual, Shiraz. It’s just another facet to him, like he has green eyes, a shellfish allergy, and the ability to score the best tan during the first week of summer.” Which always turned me three shades of envious, but we all had crosses to bear. “Why you’re fixating on it is beyond me.”
He cocked his head the other direction. “So qualifying someone on their preference for certain…passions…is not right?”
“No!” I volleyed. “Passions are passions. People are just wired the way they’re wired, and—” I literally choked myself to a stop. Fell back against the headboard with a cushioned whump. “Shit.” Blinked once. Twice.
Before the tears burst up, then overflowed.
“Shit,” I repeated.
“Tupulai,” he sighed.
“Shit!” I gasped, as he surged over, tucking me against his chest. Even with that amazing anchor of muscle and warmth, my psyche tilted then slid as if Tilda Swinton in swami clothes had just punched me into a glowing astral plane and altered my gravity, my reality, my sanity.
Shiraz just kept holding me. His silent strength kept me grounded, threading me back to reality a little at a time, until I sniffed back snot with embarrassing volume. There was nothing to be done with the remaining wetness on my cheeks, though—especially when he tugged gently on the back of my head, all but ordering my face to lift.
His gaze was waiting, brilliant and perfect as the morning sea, before his thick lashes lowered, and he dipped toward me…
But not to kiss my lips.
To wick the rest of the salty drops from my skin. One by one, he tenderly took them away, at last licking them from his lips with a swipe of his tongue so slow and intent, it became carnal. Or maybe it was just me. The new, mind-blown me. The me slowly beginning to realize that maybe I wasn’t the “too intense”, “too passionate”, “too crazy”, “too needy” one. That maybe there was nothing “too anything” about me at all.