Page 66 of The King has Fallen

I grit my teeth against the rush, but could not stop it.

My dreams had been invaded by her ever since that night—the night she’d fought for Gall. The night I’d had her naked and vulnerable. The night I’d touched her warm, soft skin, and stood over her in the dark…

Every night since then she had invaded my dreams. Against my will, my sleeping mind conjured visions of her joining me in my bed. Uninjured. Not coerced. And definitely not an enemy…

On the nights I didn’t wake tight and throbbing, instead I gasped awake in a cold sweat from nightmares of her being taken by those fuckers, or being unable to reach the two of them in time and Gall dying in the fight for her.

I was exhausted from fightingmyself.

But as I bathed here in my own tent, under her eyes, I stopped fighting what I knew to be true: Something in me had shifted—weakened! And no matter how I tried, I could not move it back.

For a week I had stayed away from her. Refused to acknowledge her. Refusing to indulge myself in the slightest.

But tonight, I had finally lost the struggle with Gault about our battle choices, and I found myself even weaker.

Weak to temptation.

Weak to indulgence.

Weak toher.

Even in bringing the bath I’d known I was testing her. Teasing. Gauging whether she was as tormented by me as I was by her.

I thought the answer was…not quite.

But not,not at all.

When I heard her breathing grow quicker—shallower, I got so hard it ached. I had to swallow against the urge to simplystand up, stride over to that fucking cage and pull her out of it, strip her naked and plunge into her.

God, she’d hate me forever.

And so… I bathed. And prayed for mercy. And self control. And—

The cage, the tent, everythingpracticaldisappeared. I turned to find her standing several strides away in nothing but my sleep shirt, her bare legs hinting that she worenothingbut that long cotton.

Her head was tilted and her lips pulled up on one side as she reached for the buttons.

The shirt was so large on her that the first button nestled right at the center of her chest, between her breasts. Her smile got wider as her small fingers slid it free and the two sides of the shirt fell apart revealing a scant inch of that pale, unblemished skin and the barest crescent of the soft rounds of her breasts.

Then her hands drifted down to the next one.

And the next.

And then the last. The shift fell open—baringallof her, except her breasts—but she only reached up to the collar and pulled it wide, sliding it back, off her shoulders until all that cotton dropped, fluttering as it rippled over her ass then fell to the dirt behind her.

My nostrils flared as she started towards me slowly but steadily, her eyes never dropping mine until she reached the side of the bath, then scanned my body.

I felt that look like fingernails clawed along my jaw, down my neck, over my pecs, and then lower… and lower.

And her breath got faster again.

“Not a lot of room left for me,” she whispered as she leaned down to take hold of the edge of the tub.

It was large for her. She was forced to lift one leg carefully, then the other to step in, placing her tiny feet to the sides ofmy thighs. And just as her second foot reached the bottom, she wobbled and clapped a hand to my shoulder to help herself balance.

Except I caught her arm and we both froze. Not breathing.

There was a single, silent moment that we stared. Then I threw my scruples aside like unwanted rubbish and pulled her down into my lap to straddle my thighs.

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