wrapped itself around her, cushioning her from everything. The past, the future, the hardness of the floor. There was nothing but Andres. Nothing but the two of them together. Nothing but the blinding, white-hot pleasure she experienced at his hands.
She screamed, losing control, utterly and completely as the intensity of her climax shook her. She screamed as she hadn’t done since those lonely days when she was in the mountains by herself. Consumed by grief. Withering in her isolation. But this was different.
Before, she had only been able to make noise like that because she was alone. Because there was no one there to see.
But he was here. And she was free.
And when she came back to herself, she wasn’t alone.
“WHERE HAVE YOU been the past couple of days? You disappeared during my speech. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
Andres stopped in the middle of the hall, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth at the sound of his older brother’s voice coming from behind him. “I’ve been in Vegas. Gambling with the crown jewels. I traded our mother’s engagement ring for a prostitute. Don’t worry, she was very skilled.”
“You can’t have done that, because my wife wears that ring. Otherwise it sounds like you.”
“I’ve been in my city apartment. With Zara. Did you think she was off in her room shredding newspaper and making a little mouse nest all this time?” He was being unnecessarily cruel to his brother, who probably had genuine concerns that Andres truly had been off whoring around. But for some reason, Andres was incapable of simply backing down in calming Kairos’s fears.
“I have scarcely seen her since I put her in your custody.”
“Convenient for you. You pass the woman off to me, and wash your hands of her completely. And trust me with attempting to tame her.”
“And how has that been going?”
Andres allowed himself to think back on the past few days with Zara. They had barely left his apartment. They had barely dressed; they had eaten the entire cake he’d brought from the restaurant. Licked much of the frosting from her skin and shown her just what having your cake and eating it too could mean.
He had put on the bare minimum to receive food when it was delivered to the penthouse, but that was it. Otherwise he had preferred that they stayed naked. So that he had easy access to Zara at all times. In bed, on the kitchen counter, in the shower...
He had never felt so insatiable for a woman. This was unlike anything he’d ever known. It wasn’t about filling a void with sex; it was about being with her. It wasn’t a hunger for companionship in a general sense, but for Zara.
That realization left him feeling raw. She seemed happy with him.
Part of him wanted to hold on to that. To keep her with him. To use her as a cover for that empty well in his soul.
Zara didn’t know the man he had built himself up to be. Didn’t know the playboy who had done his best to destroy his brother’s trust in him. The restless, uncontrollable boy who had driven off his mother. The man who only ever spent the night with his lovers to avoid being alone because he feared isolation more than any monster lurking in the shadows.
“It’s been going well.” He held up his hands, palms facing Kairos. “I’m still in possession of all ten fingers, so there’s that.”
“She’s supposed to be your fiancée. Could you not talk about her like she’s some sort of rabid mongrel?”
“I could,” he said, thinking back to all the ways she was nothing of the kind, but a whole, pure woman. “But this is more fun.”
“Are you going to be able to handle yourself when we announced your holiday wedding at the Christmas Eve party tonight?”
“I promise you, Zara and I have figured out how to deal with each other.” He couldn’t suppress the smile that turned up his lips.
Kairos raised his eyebrows. “Have you?”
“We have.” And the deeper they settled into it, the more she wound herself around his life, the more unsettled he became.
Strange. He should take comfort in not being alone. But there was something about all this that made him feel as if he were being held underwater. As if he were holding her down with him.
And the deeper they went, the more panicked he felt. The more he wanted to release his hold on her and make his escape.
To retreat to the punishment of solitude because it would be better than the alternative.
Needing her. Losing her.
Failing her.
“Please tell me you didn’t take her to Vegas to purchase hookers, as well.”
“Oh, nothing as salacious as that. We’re sleeping with each other. Only each other. Shocking. I suppose I should be grateful that you’re married, and faithful to Tabitha. Otherwise this would be a wonderful chance for you to exact revenge.”
In that moment he knew he would kill his brother if he so much as looked at Zara. Any man, really. What was wrong with him? He felt torn in two. Desperate to hold her to him. Desperate to let her go.
Unable to do either.
“It would be. But I wouldn’t do that. Not to you. I’m not angry at you, whatever you might think. Well, I am. But not bitter. I’m not happy about what happened five years ago. How could I be? If I was deliriously satisfied in my marriage, perhaps it would be a different story.”
“All the Christmas trees in the ballroom are decorated.”
Both Andres and Kairos turned at the sound of Tabitha’s stilted voice coming from the opposite direction. It was impossible to tell whether or not she had heard what Kairos had just said, but judging by the way her pale blue eyes glistened, and the lack of color in her cheeks, she most certainly had.
Andres had to wonder why Kairos found being married to a woman as beautiful as Tabitha such a hardship. She was completely biddable, nothing like Zara, who was obstinate and imperious on the best days.
Of course, that was what he found so fascinating about her. Perhaps that explained it. Perhaps Kairos had wanted a woman more like Francesca. Beautiful, impetuous. Very likely to leave her husband, or get pregnant with the royal stable master’s baby rather than her husband’s, but certainly possessing charms. Poor Tabitha would never be able to compete if that was what Kairos really wanted.
Tabitha was like a china doll who stored herself on the top shelf, ensuring that she remained thoroughly unplayed with, undamaged.
Though Andres suspected this had damaged her a bit.
“Thank you,” Kairos said, his tone stiff. “I will be in to see everything in a moment. Andres and I were just talking.”
“Then I’ll leave you to it.” She pushed her lips upward into a poor approximation of a smile before nodding once and turning away, walking back into the ballroom.
“You were saying?” Andres asked.
“Nothing. Only that I’m not actively rooting against you. I never have. You can make this work with her. Especially if you have a physical connection. So do it. Don’t mess it up.”
“I’m not a child, Kairos.”
“Nor were you a child when you took my fiancée to bed.”
“That is true.”
“For once in your life, listen to someone.”
He listened. He listened well. It had just never made a difference.
“She’s a good woman,” Kairos said. “Strong. She’ll