“Don’t go.”
I would have had a difficult time explaining why his entreaty softened me. It wasn’t spoken as a command or order. I’d certainly had plenty of those over the last year.
Instead he said it like he didn’t want to be parted from me.
I knew what he was doing. He was wielding his charm and handsomeness like a sword against me, and despite my earlier declaration, I felt helpless against the onslaught.
Maybe I did need someone else to save me.
“Why shouldn’t I go?” I asked.
“Because you want me to kiss you and I would be happy to oblige.”
“What?” My limbs were shaking, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure he could hear it.
I couldn’t just kiss some stranger in the courtyard of my parents’ palace. And it was humiliating that he’d correctly read my desire for him. I never would have acted upon it. I couldn’t. My mother would be shocked, my father furious. This was not how people like me were supposed to behave.
The smart thing to do would be to leave. To walk away and pretend that this had never happened.
I didn’t do that.
He sauntered over to me slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. My heart somehow managed to beat even faster, drowning out everything else. He came to a stop in front of me and his warmth washed over me. He reached for my tray and took it, intending to set it down.
My dagger clattered to the ground and his eyes followed the sound. He gave me a half smile while he placed the tray next to my knife. “A dagger? Do you have need of a weapon?”
“I suppose that would depend on what you plan to do.”
Another smile. “I only plan to do things that you will enjoy. But if you were thinking about stabbing me, just know that you would not be the first woman to do so.”
Was that meant to be a warning? I should have taken heed, but I was watching him instead, completely enthralled, unable to flee.
“You have been looking at my lips since you first saw me.” He murmured the words so softly that I had to lean in slightly to hear them.
“I have not,” I protested just as quietly, but it was because I didn’t think I was capable of raising my voice at the moment. I felt as if I had no control at all over my body.
“You want me to kiss you.” He said this as a statement of fact and I wanted to protest that I did not because something at the back of my mind that sounded suspiciously like Demaratus’s voice was telling me, Stupid girl, this is not how a betrothed princess should behave!
I knew that. But in a week’s time I might be dead.
Time to push propriety aside.
“If you want me to leave, I will,” he said.
“I don’t even know your name.” My voice was breathless, unsteady.
“Jason.”
“I’m Lia.”
“Your heart is beating very quickly, Lia. I can see your pulse in your throat.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage to reply.
He touched the spot with his warm fingertip and I felt that same pulse jump in response.
Jason moved his mouth closer to mine but kept it tantalizingly out of reach and my core tightened in anticipation. “You’re trembling. Have you ever been kissed before?”
My heart reverberated inside my chest like a massive drum. “No.”
“Are you betrothed?”
I supposed it was good that one of us was worried about it. “I am but won’t be for much longer.” I probably should have lied, but I found that I didn’t want to.
Not to him.
“Does your betrothed know that?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
His lips somehow came closer without touching me. “I would hate to kiss you and ruin you for any other man’s kisses.”
The absolute arrogance in his statement should have cooled my ardor.
It did not.
If anything, I wanted to find out if he was as adept as he claimed to be.
And I would have happily let Jason ruin me for kissing with any future partners if it meant he would finally press his mouth against mine.
“I don’t normally kiss women like you. Untouched. Innocent. You never know what their fathers might insist on.”
A desperate need for him to continue, to satisfy my curiosity and kiss me, took residence in my stomach, urging me to destroy all his excuses. “I won’t tell him.”
“Neither will I.” There was a gleam in his eyes, and I wished I knew what color they were in daylight because currently they were inky pools of blackness, drawing me in. “You have to say the words, though. That you want me to kiss you.”
The Lia from ten minutes ago would have punched him. But the person I was now? What he had reduced me to without even touching me? I briefly wondered where my pride had gone before I said, “I want you to kiss me. But I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“It’s easy. Do what I do. Follow my lead.”
The entire world ceased to exist and everything was focused in on this moment—where his mouth finally descended. My eyes fluttered shut and I made a sound when he gently kissed me, his lips seeming to melt into mine. It was strange but not unwelcome. Our mouths were the only place where we touched. I briefly wondered what it would feel like to have those large arms of his wrapped around me.
At first I was overly aware of what I was doing. I paid close attention, trying to be a good student. To do what he was doing, mimicking his movements as his lips shifted and pressed against mine.
But then something changed. Instead of focusing on what he was doing and trying to figure out how I was supposed to respond to it, it began to feel natural. The kiss was something I was a part of and was enjoying, instead of being tense and anxious about it.
It felt a little like slipping into my bath earlier. I was warm and comfortable and my limbs felt pliant and loose, like I was drifting along in a cozy haze. His kisses were gentle and soft, as if he intended to keep things sweet between us.
While this was nice, it wasn’t at all what I’d been anticipating. It was not what Quynh had described to me.
Like a piece was missing.
He pulled back, as if he sensed my inner turmoil.
I was the one who spoke first. “Do that again. But this time, do it right. I know that there’s more than that.”
His jaw clenched, his brow furrowed, his eyes darkened. “You want me to show you more?” His voice was raspy and tight, which was inexplicably thrilling.
“Yes.”
He raised his hands to my face, cupping it. His eyes stared into mine for several heartbeats and the intensity there was hypnotic. I wasn’t sure that I could have resisted, even if I wanted to.
And I did not want to resist.
Copyright © Sariah Wilson with permission from Montlake
The Eye of the Goddess
The fate of a cursed nation depends on a princess who must outwit a mortal enemy and outlast the trials of a death-defying ritual in a thrilling adventure by USA Today bestselling author Sariah Wilson.
Lia is the princess of Locris, a dying desert nation cursed centuries ago by an earth goddess—one still worshipped by the thriving and adversarial nation of Ilion. Every year, Ilion offers the goddess a sacrifice: two Locrian maidens forced to compete in a life-and-death race to reach her temple. In a millennium, no maiden has made it out of Ilion alive. This year, Lia is one of the hunted.
An education in battle gives her a fighting chance, but the challenges are greater than she feared: Lia’s beloved but untrained sister Quynh has been put in the path of danger. The winding streets of Ilion itself have been transformed into a labyrinthine maze of countless choices and dead ends. And if the risks weren’t significant enough, Lia is reluctantly drawn to the commandingly attractive Jason, an Ilionian sailor she loathes to trust and desires like no man before.
The tribute game is on. It’s up to Lia to lift the goddess’s curse, restore Locris to its former glory, and change the fate of every young woman destined to follow in her path.
Romance Fantasy [Montlake, On Sale: October 29, 2024, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781662525148 / ]
Funny, Flirty, Feel-Good Romance
USA Today Bestselling author Sariah Wilson has never jumped out of an airplane, never climbed Mt. Everest, and is not a former CIA operative. She has, however, been madly, passionately in love with her soulmate and is a fervent believer in happily ever afters—which is why she writes romance. She grew up in southern California, graduated from Brigham Young University (go Cougars!) with a semi-useless degree in history, and is the oldest of nine (yes, nine) children. She currently lives with the aforementioned soulmate and their children in Utah, along with cats named Pixel, Callie, and Belle who do not get along. (The cats, not the children. Although the children sometimes have their issues, too.)
Sariah's book ROYAL DATE was selected as one of the first winners in Amazon's Kindle Scout program. Her novella ROYAL DESIGN helped launch Amazon Publishing's Kindle in Motion technology, and she had her own Kindle World for THE ROYALS OF MONTERRA. Her books THE FRIEND ZONE and ROOMMAID were selected by Amazon as one of the Best Romances of 2019 and 2020, respectively. She has repeatedly hit Amazon's overall Top 100 (both in and outside the USA) and been a #1 bestseller on Amazon category lists multiple times. Her book ROOMMAID was the most read book from Amazon's website in September 2020.
No comments posted.