He blinked. “It is…dark, Your Majesty.”
“The moon is beginning to rise,” she protested. “And I’m sure there is a lantern we can carry. Please, Dash, I will not have another chance this trip, with us leaving so early in the morning.”
He should refuse her. But how could he? She was his sovereign, for one. And more than that, he did not ever wish to disappoint her. He smiled and shook his head. “Or course. Let me make the arrangements.”
She inclined her head and he entered the house, finally able to draw a full breath when he wasn’t directly next to her. He could do this. Be alone with her. He’d been doing it for so many years, he could remember how.
He had to.
CHAPTER 4
Giabella’s hands were shaking as she and Dash walked down the path toward the beach together, the lantern in his hand swinging between them. They were as alone as they ever got. Two guards would follow at a distance where they could be called if needed, but they would never interfere.
And that meant she had every opportunity to speak frankly to the man at her side. Not that she had done so at supper. She’d meant to. But she’d looked into his eyes and feared…feared what he would do if she said the truth. If she asked for what she wanted from a man who had always anticipated any need she had.
But this one was far more complicated.
Remi had said something to her before she left, and with every step it echoed in her ears. That she deserved to be happy. That she deserved what her children had found. Passion. Love. A future.
Would she regret it if she didn’t at least attempt for one of those things with the man at her side? She already knew the answer.
They reached the sand and she stopped. “May I?” she asked, holding out a hand.
He moved toward her and she gently rested her fingers against his shoulder. She heard the catch of his breath as she balanced on his sturdy frame and removed first one slipper, then the other. She had already removed the stockings while he got the lantern, and her bare toes sank into the sand as she laughed.
“I love the way it feels,” she said, and released him reluctantly to walk off toward the sea. The tide was higher at night, and as the wave swept in she lifted her skirt a fraction and let the cold water swirl around her feet.
He set the lantern down at the place where the sand met the sea grass behind her so when he moved to her side, all that lit them was the moonlight.
She didn’t dare look at him as she said, “Earlier tonight you said something to me and I have been pondering it ever since.”
“And what is that?” he asked, not dodging the waves that lapped around his boots.
She drew a long breath and continued to stare up at the moon and out toward the horizon in the dark. “You said that I wouldn’t be alone as I navigate this new path I’ll walk.”
“You won’t be. You have so many people who are at your side.”
Now she did dare to turn toward him. His face was in half-shadow, half-light, and his gaze glittered. She shook her head. “That isn’t why. Dash, I have never been alone since the moment you came into my life all those years ago. You’ve always been there. As my secretary, but also as my friend. And as a man I…I…”
She trailed off and couldn’t continue. She didn’t know how to exactly. What she felt for Dash was so complicated. It had been stifled for so long that labeling it felt dangerous and wrong.
So instead she moved toward him. For once, he didn’t step back, and her chest nearly brushed his. They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, though it was really only the span of a few shallow breaths. She lifted her hand, her fingers trembling as she touched him.
She had never touched his face. His beard was soft against her fingertips, his cheek tightening as he clenched his jaw. She glided her hand up, cupped it around the back of his neck as she leaned in. She wanted to take his mouth but didn’t dare, so instead she pressed her lips against the same cheek she had stroked a second before.
He stayed frozen for a beat, but then he slowly, deliberately, turned his face into hers. Their lips brushed gently and then…well, then the world exploded.
He wrapped his arms around her with a deep, guttural groan and tugged her flat against his chest. She fisted one hand into the thick hair at the base of his skull and wrapped the other around his shoulder, lifting into him as their lips parted and the kiss deepened into something wild and passionate.
All the longing of fifteen years, all the desire she had never been able to express, all the emptiness and loneliness, all the erotic dreams she had to deny…it all poured out of her. Into him. And he poured the same back.
She had never felt anything like it, this burning desire that seemed to grow and grow rather than diminish as their tongues tangled helplessly. The heat of it spread through her entire body, settling in her trembling fingertips, her tightening nipples, her throbbing sex. And she wanted him even more, which she had never believed was possible.
His hands gripped at her, like he could somehow bring her even closer, and he kept making the softest sounds of pleasure deep in his chest. This was escalating. Soon it would be out of control and she wanted nothing more than for him to break at last and lower her back on the sand to have his wicked, wild way with her.
It was like she sent that thought to him because he stopped kissing her. He drew back, staring down at her in the moonlight and then a look of utter horror crossed his handsome face. Slowly, he released her, steadying her before he backed away a long step.
She felt cold, empty, in the wake of losing his touch. She stared at him, willing herself to say something that would fix the expression on his face, but she couldn’t. She, a woman raised to always know exactly what to say, and this time there was nothing. Nothing but desire that she had no words for. Regret that she dared not speak. Hope that she couldn’t feel because hope was always shattered in the end.
So she only said his name. “Dash.”
He shook his head and backed away another long step. “I-I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Then he pivoted away, leaving her with only a lantern on the sand and a throbbing body she feared would never be fulfilled or satisfied again.
Dash couldn’t see as he raced up the bluff away from Gia. It wasn’t because of the darkness of the night, it was because his vision was blurred with desire and remorse. He staggered onto the grass at the top of the bluff and found the two guards, who had trailed them to a space near the beach, waiting there. They straightened as he reached them.
“H-her Majesty will need assistance when she is ready to return to the residence,” he managed to mumble.
One of the guards nodded and headed toward the shore where Dash had left Gia. He continued to race his way to the house like the fires of hell itself were on his back. But no, not hell. Passion. The fires of a passion he never should have unleashed.
Because now he knew what the Queen of Athawick tasted like. And nothing could ever be the same.
He somehow managed to make it back to the house, up the back stair to his chamber there. A servant’s chamber, and it was a stark reminder of their entirely disparate positions. She was queen of a nation. He was the man who kept her schedule. There was a wall there, one that existed for a thousand very good reasons. And he had crossed it. Allowed her to cross it, he supposed, because she had been the one who touched him first.