Page 14 of Untouched Queen by Royal Command

Seven years old and taken and trained and made to feel beholden to her rescuers. ‘So basically you’ve had no choice but to do what they ask of you.’

‘Have you ever had a choice but to serve the monarchy?’ she asked, and he glared at her. ‘I think not. We are not so different, you and I. You were born into service. In a way, so was I.’

Except that for her it wasn’t a lifetime commitment. ‘I’m releasing you from your duty. Soon as I can.’

She nodded. ‘I’d like that. But at least make use of me first.’

His gaze slid to that cursed wheel of desire on the floor.

‘You don’t have to take advantage of all that’s on offer.’ She barely knew him and already she was reading him like a book. That didn’t happen to Augustus. Ever. ‘But you could take advantage of some of it without surrendering your mortal soul.’

‘There’s an opening on my staff for a social secretary. I need someone to organise a ball and other smaller events.’ He handed the teacup back to her, still full. Not a drop had passed his lips. ‘Can we start with that?’

Sera nodded as she set the tea aside. ‘Of course.’

‘I think fixed boundaries between us would be best. Meanwhile, is there something I can do to make your stay here more comfortable? Anything you need that you haven’t already seen to?’ She wasn’t a sorceress. He wasn’t a lovesick fool, but he could still offer common courtesy.

‘If you and I are to be observing fixed boundaries, there is something I’d like to discuss.’

He waited.

It was the first time he’d ever seen her looking nervous.

‘Am I free to seek sexual satisfaction elsewhere?’

Continued silence was often a tactic he used to force the other person to speak. This time, pure shock stilled his lips.

Sera of the High Reaches squared her delicate shoulders and fixed him with pleading kitten eyes. ‘I’ve never truly been intimate with another person. That was reserved for you. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it. And seeing you’re not of a mind to…’

He wasn’t a complete stranger to women becoming impatient for sexual experience. His sister, dear Lord, had been quite adamant about partying up a storm at one point. But not under his roof, and she’d never actually gone through with it. Theo had seen to that, with Augustus’s full blessing. Now this.

‘You’re a virgin courtesan?’

‘Yes. Do you seriously think they would send someone used?’

‘Oh, pardon my ignorance. Forgive me that I assumed some small measure of experience from a trained courtesan!’ Never mind the beast in his belly that flicked a scaly tail and roared because she’d been kept pure so that he could be her teacher. It wasn’t right for him to want that, and it certainly wasn’t right that she’d had no say in her own sexual enlightenment.

He had a courtesan. A virgin courtesan. Standing there beneath the dome, her midriff bare, hair pulled back and no make-up on her face. ‘Do you have someone in mind to be intimate with?’

He had the sudden reckless desire to strangle them.

‘I had you in mind,’ she said as her gaze briefly dropped to his lips. ‘I do know what to do in theory.’

‘Theory isn’t doing. What if I wanted to use you roughly? Tie you down, take away all your control and self-respect and make you beg for release? Take away your ability to reason? Take every slight ever dealt me and transfer them to your flesh? Did your illustrious tutors ever teach you how to deal with sadistic madmen?’

She had no answer for him.

‘You know nothing,’ he challenged.

Her first kiss was his if he wanted it, not to mention the second. All of it. He headed for the door before he lost his mind and took what she offered so freely. He had his hand on the door before something made him look back. She’d fallen to a curtsey facing him and the door, her body placed right in the centre of that cursed carpet depicting every sin and pleasure known to man.

‘Get up.’ He didn’t want this. He didn’t dare take it. ‘Come here.’

He waited until she stood before him, her eyes betraying uncertainty as he leaned down until their lips almost touched. ‘Lord knows I didn’t ask for you, but you’ve come here labelled as my courtesan and I will cut the hand off anyone who touches you. No kissing. No sex. No flirting with any of my employees. Are we clear?’

‘Clear. Very clear,’ she whispered with a tell-tale tremor in her voice. He was scaring her.

And then he got caught in the whirling vortex of her expressive grey eyes, and maybe he wasn’t scaring her at all. Because that look right there looked a whole lot like surrender.

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