“He did more traveling than just that,” Memnon says. “But yes.”
I’d like to linger on this, but the truth is I’m not particularly interested in Memnon’s dad. I’m interested in Memnon himself.
I search his face. “What else?”
The corners of his eyes crinkle, like I’m amusing him—or maybe he’s simply pleased to have captured my attention.
“I learned to ride a horse at the same time I learned to walk, and I killed my first opponent at thirteen,” he says. “But perhaps most importantly, my power first awoke when you called to it.”
Normally, supernaturals drink a concoction called bittersweet to Awaken their powers. To hear that this didn’t happen to Memnon, that instead, a person—Roxilana, I assume—awoke it…
“How?”
Memnon gives me a heavy look. “Trauma. When you were a child, a Roman legion attacked your village and killed your family. In your fear, you called out to me through our bond.”
I’m barely breathing. I don’t bother correcting him on the fact this is not me he’s speaking of.
“I was confused for many moons about the fearful voice in my head. I didn’t know who you were or where you lived—or even that you lived. I thought you were a spirit, one who spoke a language I didn’t initially know. And you couldn’t hear me, not for a long while.
“But once you did”—Memnon smiles—“things got very fun.
“We spoke to each other all the time—sometimes when we didn’t even mean to. I remember being in the middle of battle when I heard you curse at yourself for breaking a bowl.”
I stare at Memnon, hanging on every word.
“I started searching for you when I was thirteen, but it was only once I was crowned king that I was able to lead my horde west, into the Roman Empire, and find you.”
The sorcerer falls silent.
There’s an ache in me, a very real ache, at his story. I don’t know why. Maybe because it sounds romantic—kings, and hordes, and a search for a woman he was connected to but could not find.
“What else?” I ask.
Memnon’s eyes linger on me. For a moment, they are so incredibly desolate. Then his mouth curves into a sly smile, and that calculating gleam reenters his expression. “Curious, Empress?”
My own eyes fall to his lips. “Why do you call me that? ‘Empress’?”
He settles back into his seat, and now his mouth curves into a sinful smirk. “Because the Romans subjugated you, and I quite like paying homage to your power in their language. It gives me a petty little thrill. You liked it even more.”
“Roxilana,” I whisper. “This all happened to Roxilana.”
Memnon’s eyes are like embers; I can’t look away from him. I sense so many pent-up feelings behind that face.
“Yes,” he agrees, “it happened to my Roxilana.”
This moment feels as though it’s balanced on a tightrope. At any second, one of us could fall.
“What do you want?” I say softly.
“Everything,” he says. “My empire, my riches, my palace, my adoring subjects. But most of all—I want you.”
I don’t know who moves first, him or me, only that we come together, and it feels inescapable. There is my rational, orderly mind, and then there is this. Instinct.
Memnon’s mouth finds mine, and he ravages it, kissing me with all the intensity one would expect from a warrior-king. I gasp in a breath when suddenly his tongue is there, sweeping through.
My body awakens at the contact, feverish for more of this, whatever this is. I delve my fingers into his hair.
Memnon groans into my mouth, then hoists me into his arms, wrapping my legs around him and cradling my ass.
“My queen, my queen,” he murmurs. “I need you to remember.”
“Shut up about that,” I murmur back. Memnon’s cute little delusions could ruin a perfectly good make-out session.
If I thought the sorcerer would be offended at my rudeness, I thought wrong. He smiles against my lips, then nips my lower one.
I moan.
“That is no way to talk to your king.”
On second thought, I could totally get behind role-playing this. “I’ll talk to you the way I want.”
At my words, Memnon growls, squeezing my ass, his smile searing against my lips. He maneuvers us onto my bed. My back bounces a little as it hits the mattress.
My fingers run over his scar, and he lets out a jagged exhale.
He pulls away, his breathing heavy. “Time to tell me to leave.”
Time to leave? I feel as though we’ve only gotten started.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I find out just how sweet that pussy of yours really is, and I don’t stop until I feel you come on my tongue.”
Memnon has teased me plenty about intimacy with him, but he’s offering the real thing to me now.
I find that I want it more than I’ve wanted anything in a long while.
I stare at him for several seconds, and I stroke his cheek again. “Stay.”
His jaw clenches beneath my touch, and the heat in his eyes grows.
He leans back in and kisses me again, only this one is full of carnal promise. “As you command, est amage,” he whispers.
Memnon grinds his hips against my pelvis, and I gasp into his mouth, the sound eliciting a grin from him.
His hands move to my body then, stroking up and down my sides. Eventually, they find the hem of my shirt. He fingers it, the action reminding me of when we first laid eyes on each other in his tomb. He played with my clothes then too. Only, we never had a chance to take it any further.
Memnon tugs the shirt up, unpeeling it from my body inch by inch.
“So beautiful,” he says as he takes in my exposed flesh, the look in his eyes searing. He saw my skin not even twenty-four hours ago, but concern shadowed his gaze then. Right now, he has no such restraint.
I’m still wearing a bra, and his fingers glide over one of the straps. A lock of dark hair slips over his eye as he studies the undergarment, grazing his thumb over the lace cup. I realize then that the sorcerer may have never seen a bra before. I don’t know what they wore during Memnon’s time, but it probably wasn’t this.
I sit up, forcing the sorcerer back to his knees. Then I take his hand. “You undo it from the back.” I guide his arm behind me to where my bra hooks together.
Memnon watches my face the entire time, more fascinated with my features than he is with the workings of my lingerie. Still, his hand closes on the clasp.
“This feels like something I would greatly enjoy breaking, Selene,” he admits.
Despite his words, his other hand comes up, and after a few probing touches, he deftly unhooks the bra. He slides the thing off and casts it aside.
“These breasts…” He bends and takes one into his mouth.
I gasp at the intense and unexpected contact, my fingers delving into his hair. Memnon sucks on my nipple, the sensation going right to my core. I gasp again, my grip on his hair tightening as the rest of me goes boneless.
Memnon cradles my back, holding me in place. “Sweet woman, you feel better than memory serves.” His lips move away from my nipple, trailing kisses along my skin until he gets to the other breast, which he then promptly takes into his mouth.