“I can’t tell you how. Only that it does. Because it mirrors much of what I feel.”
“I think that’s enough honesty for one evening, don’t you?” he asked, his tone growing hard suddenly, his dark eyes shuttered.
“I’m not done with the cookies,” she said, taking another one out, this one dipped in chocolate.
“Then, I will wait. Because I find I’m not done with you.”
“Oh,” she said, putting the cookie back in the tin. Suddenly, she didn’t care much about the cookie.
“Come on, agape. Let’s go to bed.”
* * *
Kairos had never spent the night with a woman. Not even his own wife. He questioned why he hadn’t now. Because it was a thing of brilliant luxury. Luxury and satisfaction he had never known, to wake up with a soft, beautiful woman twined around his body. During their nap the evening before, they had not touched while they’d slept, but sometime during the night she had moved nearer to him, or he nearer to her. Her soft legs were laced through his.
Last night he’d had her more times than he could count. Every time he thought he was satisfied, desire would reach up again and grab him by the throat, compel him to have her. Another side effect of not sleeping with your wife was that intimacy was confined to a single moment. Something planned, something carefully orchestrated. There was always a definite start time. Then an end when he returned to his own bed.
The lines blurred when you didn’t leave the room.
He found he quite liked the lines blurred.
He drew the covers back slightly, the pale morning light washing over her curves, revealing bruises on her skin. One on her back, four at her hips. His fingerprints.
He gritted his teeth, regret warring with arousal inside of him. There was something primal and masculine in him that celebrated the fact his mark remained. The fact that he had declared her his with these outward signs. She no longer wore his wedding ring, but she wore his touch like a brand.
What kind of monster was he?
“Tabitha,” he asked, “are you awake?”
“No,” she mumbled, rolling over onto her stomach, her blond hair falling over her face like a golden curtain. “If I were awake my eyes would be open.”
His chest tightened, his stomach twisting. There was something charming about her like this. Not bound by her typical control, not conscious of the fact that she thought of him as little more than a stranger.
“You answered my question,” he said.
“It would be rude not to,” she muttered.
“I suppose that’s true.”
She turned over again, baring her breasts to his gaze, and he felt himself growing hard again.
She must be sore. He needed to practice restraint. He found he did not want to. For the first time in his life he was starting to think restraint was overrated. At least, where sex with one’s wife was concerned.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, opening her eyes to a squint.
“Like what?”
“Like you want to...eat me. Or perhaps ask me deep questions.”
“It is a bit early for either, I’m afraid. I require caffeine.”
“I don’t suppose I’m allowed to have very much caffeine,” she said, her tone regretful.
“One cup of coffee will hurt nothing. Let’s go downstairs.”
“I have to get dressed.”
“Why?”
She blinked. “I don’t know. Because it seems like the thing to do?”
“Certainly don’t dress on my account.”
She shot him a deadly glare and got out of bed, crossing the room completely naked and making her way to the wardrobe. There was a white, silk robe in there, and she retrieved it, wrapping it over her curves much to his dismay. “This will do,” she said.
“I suppose.” He got out of bed, retrieving his pants from the night before and dragging them on, not bothering with underwear or his belt.
He had the strangest urge to pick her up and carry her downstairs, just as he had done when they’d gone upstairs last night. That made no sense. And if Kairos was anything, it was sensible. At least, he had been before the past few weeks. Impending fatherhood and divorce did that to a man, he supposed.
They made their way down the stairs in silence, setting about to prepare cereal and coffee, keeping it simple as both of them preferred to do. He was not accustomed to lingering over large breakfasts. Typically, he was eager to dive into his day. He realized now that he had abandoned the palace with only Andres in his stead, and very little explanation for why.
He dismissed the thought, for the first time in his life dismissing the weight of his responsibility.
That’s what a spare was for, after all. To be used in cases of death, dismemberment or divorce. Divorce that needed to be stopped.
It was time Andres took his position a little bit more seriously anyway.
“And what plans have you made for us on this fine day,” Tabitha asked, seated across from him at the table inside the dining area. He would have preferred to eat outside, but he had not yet cleaned up the mess of glass and food they had created last night. A drawback to not having staff in residence. The consequences of his actions were very much his own. Fine when he was engaging in normal activities. Less so when he was throwing his wife atop the most convenient surface and consigning anything in his way to the category of collateral damage.
“What makes you think I have some kind of grand plan?”
“Well, I would have thought my captor might be running the show.”
“Your captor,” he said. “I thought that we had moved beyond that.”
“You are still holding me here, are you not?”
“You have agreed.”
She sniffed. “Under sufferance.”
“Oh, yes, your suffering is great. I believe I made you suffer a minimum of five times last night.”
He was gratified to see her cheeks turn a deep shade of rose. A strange sense of satisfaction overtook him. He enjoyed her like this.
He did not think she was goading him because she was angry, not seriously. Rather, he had the feeling that she liked the sparks that crackled between them when they sparred. It was new. Like the unleashed sexual energy between them, this unveiled annoyance was new. Typically, they both buried their barbs much deeper.
“I didn’t think a gentleman spoke to a lady in such a way,” she said, her tone arch.
“I have found that being a gentleman is boring. Surely you must find being a lady similarly dull.”
“In certain environments, yes.”
“The bedroom being one of them.”
“You may have a point.” She lifted her coffee mug to her lips and took a sip. She turned her head, gazing out toward the ocean, the sun bathing her face in a warm glow. The corners of her lips turned up slightly, the breeze rippling through her blond hair.
It was a foreign moment, unlike any he’d had in recent memory.