Page 26 of The Traitor's Curse
Resigning myself to my drawers chafing all the way back to my rooms, I rose with as much dignity as I could manage and descended the dais toward the antechamber.
Gerfred popped out of a chair and bowed as I opened the door, Benedict’s surly guards standing behind him as promised. Surely he wouldn’t notice anything amiss, not with Benedict’s magic and my ducal poise.
“Let me take your crown for you, Your Grace,” he said. “Somehow it’s gotten all crooked!”
Behind me, Benedict chuckled.
Damn it to hell. I gritted my teeth, silently vowingrevenge.
Chapter Nine
While I soaked in my bath, closing my eyes and trying to push any thoughts of Fabian’s death out of my mind, the tower bells of the temple on the other side of the palace wall chimed the sixth hour past noon. Less than a full day since Fabian had been murdered and I’d climbed out of this same tub to find his body.
Only ten hours since Benedict had bent me over his bed and taken what he wanted.
And barely more than an hour since he’d spent in my mouth while I occupied my ducal throne.
That particular act did nothing to relieve a twilight mage’s curse. It had been entirely for his own enjoyment. Or perhaps to prove a point. Hadn’t he threatened to have me on my throne all those years ago?
The rough grip of his hands around my wrists, around the back of my neck.Come on and give it a lick, Lucian. The pressure in my throat, the tight, desperate need between my legs, the overwhelming pleasure as I’d spilled with his cock in my mouth, his laugh as Gerfred commented on my disarray…
My face burned hotter than the steam rising from my bath, and I squirmed, desperate to escape my own thoughts, wishing I could sink down into the water and disappear.
At least the bath hid my half-hard cock. And I’d have the chance to restore myself to calm before I had to face him.
Gerfred had been dispatched to send supper, both mineand Benedict’s, to the private family parlor. Surely I could ignore him while I ate, and the feral growls of my stomach would drown out whatever irritating remarks he might inflict on me. I could endure anything for a joint of beef and a goblet of non-lethal wine.
At last the bath water cooled enough that I couldn’t stall any longer, and I climbed out, shrugged on my dressing gown, and stepped out into my bedchamber, resolved to keep my equanimity. My cock had almost gone soft again. It’d stay that way, dammit. I’d grow inured to his coarse, vulgar appeal soon enough, and then I’d be able to stoically take his cock without giving him the satisfaction of my body’s response.
And anyway, this wouldn’t last forever. Once I’d ferreted out the assassin I could end the arrangement with Benedict, and possibly also send him on a long, dangerous mission a thousand miles away. Something that would cover him (posthumously, if the gods smiled on me) in glory.
Lost in a fantasy where I forced out one, or possibly two, tears while delivering Benedict’s eulogy, I wandered to the fireplace and turned around to warm my backside.
And nearly leapt out of my skin as my eyes focused on my bed.
Stripped of his sword belt, cloak, boots, and tunic, his linen shirt hanging unlaced and open, lounging on a heap of my pillows, Benedict had clearly made himself entirely at home.
Onmy bed.
“Gods,” I gasped, heart settling slightly from the frantic race it’d begun when he startled me. He wouldn’t be able to see the outline of my cock through my dressing gown, luckily, but that had jumped too. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I have a sitting room right through that door!”
“Making myself comfortable while we wait for supper,” he said, and I gaped at him in speechless indignation. “The sofa inthere doesn’t have enough pillows.”
“You claim to be a soldier,” I snapped. “Don’t you sleep on the ground when you’re campaigning? Or do you make your men carry a hundred pillows for you as they march through the mountains?”
“Sleeping on the ground when I’m campaigning is all the more reason to sleep on a heap of feather pillows when I’m not.” He slid down, his white grin and ruby earring and wicked gray eyes glinting at me in the candlelight, his long hair getting rumpled as he rubbed all six-feet-muscled-plus of himself all over…mypillows.Mine. They’d smell like him now. “Or doing other things on a heap of feather pillows. You should join me. You’re already mostly naked. And this bed is—”
“Mine!” I cried, goaded past any pretense at patience. So much for my equanimity. I took a moment to watch as it skittered off into the distance, giggling at me maliciously. “The bed’smine, which means I know exactly what it is. And I know exactly whatthisisn’t, Benedict, which is more than you seem to! I’m not your whore. I’m not your—lover,” and I choked, coughed, and cleared my throat, that word sticking strangely as I spat it out. “Using me to satisfy your curse while you act as my bodyguard for now does not include—”
I waved my hand vaguely at his disgustingly handsome face with its mock-innocent expression that wouldn’t have fooled a brain-damaged drunkard, the loose sprawl of his long legs all over my previously pristine bed, and the way he’d mussed and befouled my lovely pillows.
“Doesn’t include what?” he asked, and folded his arms behind his head.
How did anyone have arms like that? Even in those loose linen sleeves his muscles showed, all firm and thick.
Firm. Thick. Like other parts of him.
What the hell had he done to me? I needed to eat. Thatwould cure this lightheaded inability to act like a rational man.
