“I would be willing to do anything, to change anything, if that was what it took to make you happy.”
Nadine stared up at him. He was so close now that she could feel the heat of his flesh. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something. When nothing came, he went on. “Take a look around you, kandiri. See what I have to offer. I’ll find you something new every day. And when I run out of things to show you, I’ll ask one final time for you to bind yourself to me.”
Nadine’s gaze fell to his lips, which hung mere inches away from her own. She conjured the will to speak, but her voice came out thin. “I’ve told you, savage. My answer will be the same then as it is now. I will never have you.”
Magnus’s face didn’t change. Instead, he brought the backs of his knuckles to the inside of her arm, to the place she’d scarred herself as a child. He didn’t linger there; instead, he traced the path up her skin and along to the exposed flesh of her collarbone, where she’d opened her shirt to vent her body’s heat. Nadine’s eyes went heavy lidded, and she resisted the urge to shiver.
His voice was a sultry rumble. “No?”
He knows you’re lying.
The thought was so startling, Nadine’s mouth snapped shut and her eyes widened. All at once, she heard herself snarl at him. “I’d sooner fall on my own lancet.”
She turned to leave. Before she could take two steps, his hand clamped around her arm. Nadine swung back on him. He caught the wrist that would have smacked his mouth. Before he could further react, Nadine was throwing herself at him. It wasn’t until she was caught up in his arms, her long legs wrapped around his waist and his chest pinning her to the stone wall, that she realized the truth. Her reaction hadn’t been an attack.
Their bodies were pinned together so tightly she could feel his heart pounding beneath his ribs as fiercely as her own. His hot breath spread out just beneath her chin, over the flesh of her throat, and sent chills wracking her body that Nadine made no attempt to hide. A long, strained moan escaped her and she tightened her legs around his waist.
“I’m warning you, woman.” The vibration of his words made her womb clench as they tickled the flesh just beneath her ear. “You’d best stop taunting me, or one of these days I’m going to stop playing nice.”
Nadine thrust her head against the wall and shut her eyes as another shudder wracked her. Yudvir, what was happening? She couldn’t get enough air. Her body ached and glowed all over with a force of lust that shocked her. This wasn’t like anything she’d ever experienced before. No drunken bed sport could compare. This was something else altogether. The man between her legs didn’t want a tumble followed by a lifetime of mutual anonymity. This man wanted all of her. Forever. And the force of that longing was as vast as his name.
“Magnus,” she breathed.
He pulled back and stared into her eyes. Whatever he saw there lit something within him like a spark in a well of oil. His mouth descended upon her, and he feasted like she was a banquet fit for a Mushar. He didn’t stop at her mouth. Groans escaped him as he tasted her jaw, her ears, her throat, the dip between her collarbones. His hands scraped against the stone by her face as he released her wrists to brace himself against the wall. He kept her raised high above the ground with nothing but the weight of his hips pinned to hers, and the sweet pleasure of that force made her moan. Ecstasy. She’d be there in mere moments.
Nadine had always been the aggressor in bed play. She would have it no other way. Now she was holding on for dear life. She clung to his neck, her fingers threaded into his wild mane like it was all that would keep her from tumbling off the edge of the world.
Magnus answered her passion with a growl that shook his body. One of his great arms braced against the wall, and the other wrapped around her like a serpent stealing away its kill. She knew what was coming next. In the space of a breath, he’d have her on that bed. In his bed. Yudvir knew she’d be lost.
“Magnus!” a male voice called in the distance, followed by a string of Dokiri words. “Magnus!”
Nadine stilled, and a burst of awareness washed over her like a spray of ice. What if one of the Dokiri saw them together? What if one of her men saw them together? She unlocked her fingers and made to push Magnus away, but found her knuckles knotted in his hair. She hissed in sudden panic. “Magnus!”
“It’s fine,” he muttered in her ear before breaking away with a growl and shouting down the tunnel in his language.
Nadine gasped. “What did you tell them?”
Magnus looked at her, still out of breath. He ducked his head down to kiss her again and managed a quick peck before she could dodge. “Don’t worry. They won’t come up here.”
Nadine unhooked her legs and her body slid sluggishly to the ground, Magnus’s weight slowing her descent. “Get off me.”
For a moment, Nadine wasn’t sure he’d comply, and the uncertainty angered her. But he did. He took a single step away. It did nothing to help Nadine catch her breath. She felt like she’d been battling a day and a night on the field. She ran her hands over her hair and shook out the front of her shirt. She was still trying to compose herself when smugness crept over Magnus’s face.
She glared up at him with a sniff. “What?”
“Oh, I was just thinking.”
Her lips thinned, and she tried to shoot him a look that made it clear she wasn’t about to ask.
“I wonder whose benefit that kiss must’ve been for?”
Nadine wanted to retort that it had been far more than a mere kiss. But that would only please him. A faint sense of failure washed over her. It wasn’t shame, exactly. Or at least, not over what she’d just done. It was for having been found out. For having been exposed as a liar or worse, someone who couldn’t be honest with herself.
Why couldn’t she simply admit it? That when she’d kissed Magnus in front of Samar, the first, and likely only reason had been because she’d wanted to. Because she’d been wanting to since the day she’d met him.
Magnus was still smiling, and he shrugged, a slow, exaggerated gesture. “I guess it was just for me, then.”
If Nadine’s body were not already so completely flushed, she was sure she would’ve felt heat rising in her face. She turned to go while promising herself she would take him up on no further offers to show her things. Not even if he promised her a singing blue camel that shit lemons.
Magnus touched her hand—didn’t grab her, merely touched her. Nadine didn’t turn, but she stopped, waited for what he would do next.
“Stay the night with me.”
There it is.
“No,” she said firmly.
“We don’t have to”—he hesitated—“do anything. Just stay.” When Nadine didn’t answer, he spoke again. “I would never force you. You know that, right?”
Nadine turned toward him, met his searching eyes. “I know, savage.”
But it didn’t matter, because one thing was absolutely certain. If she didn’t leave right now, Magnus the Vast wouldn’t need to make or even ask her to do anything. Nadine Pajel would surely make a fool of herself. All by herself.
And she’d do it with his name on her gasping lips.