The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens #7)(31)

“Eat your stew.” She pointed to the bowl still clutched tight in my hands. “You’ll need your strength for what lies ahead of us tomorrow.”

I frowned, not giving a fig about the stew, because I had questions, lots of them. But I felt out of my element with Ty. In truth, I always had. She was so much more than what I was accustomed to.

Wanting to ask her what was happening between us and still feeling the phantom press of her mouth on mine, I shivered as I snatched the leaf wrapping off the bowl.

Half the broth was gone, but the vegetables remained. Reaching into her pouch, she handed me a wooden spoon, which I took with a nod of thanks.

I ate, but tasted none of it. I might as well have been eating sawdust for all I cared. Her eyes were on me, hard, pressing, and focused. She was studying me in the way she did. It’d never bothered me before, but I couldn’t seem to keep from fidgeting.

We were several yards away from my fire, sitting in the dark. We should move. But a part of me felt that if I said anything at all, I’d shatter whatever this fragile thing was between us. So I glared, and I ate, and I grew more and more anxious with each second that ticked past.

Ten minutes went by, at least, before I finally looked up at her. She didn’t flinch, just continued to study me with her burning, intelligent gaze.

“What?” I barked, cringing at the roughness of the word, but I felt off and discombobulated. I tried again. “What is—?”

“The kiss. Why did you do it?” she asked.

Her voice was so bloody steady and calm that my heart immediately sank. I did not understand her at all.

Nymphs were easy. They wore their emotions on their sleeves. If a nymph had kissed me as Tymanon just had, I would have said she clearly wanted sex. But Ty wasn’t giving me a secretive smile. She wasn’t simpering or biting her lip, all clear indications for me to proceed.

She simply looked at me in the way she looked at all of life, and I hated not knowing what it meant. I nodded as I stabbed my spoon into a thick chunk of potato, splitting it down its center.

I shrugged, too terrified to tell her that kissing her had become a near constant obsession since leaving the games. It was crazy, but kissing Ty felt like coming home, like I’d done it before, like it was natural and normal and part of what it meant to be us. So I’d done it, because I’d had no choice, because I was her slave in all ways. But there was no way I could form those words, so I asked her my own question instead.

“Why did you kiss me?”

She opened her mouth, frowned, then snapped it shut. She took a deep breath and said, “I suppose because I needed to see for myself.”

Not liking that answer, I frowned. “See what, Ty? What it felt like to kiss a man? Or to kiss a satyr?”

To her credit she did not evade my question.

“Yes. Maybe.”

“Yes to which part?”

“Both.” She shrugged. “I have never kissed a satyr before.”

I wondered if she’d ever kissed another centaur the way she’d kissed me, all soft and gentle, sprinkling kisses all over my body. My cock grew thick and heavy as my mind remembered the soft, supple feel of those innocent touches, light caresses that should have done nothing for me. And yet they’d been everything, making me feel heavy and weightless all at the same time, like the only thing tethering me to the earth was her.

“Did it feel good, Petra?” she asked softly as she played with the tip of her thumbnail.

I sat my bowl aside, unable to eat any more of it.

“What I mean to say is—” she blinked several times “—was it... was it like what your nymphs do?”

My mouth parted, realizing not only was she nervous, but s hoped that she’d measured up to some mythical feminine ideal. She had no idea, none at all, about the kind of hold she had over me.

Chest feeling as if it would burst, I shook my head. “No, álogo, it was nothing like a nymph.”

“Oh,” she whispered before swallowing.

“It was infinitely more.”

The words were barely spoken when the heavy lashes shadowing her cheeks suddenly flew up.

“Oh,” she said again. “I... I have never kissed another the way we kissed today. I... I did not think I would do it well.”

A feeling of supreme satisfaction rolled through my veins like a wave. I was not the kind of male that minded if a female explored her sexuality. In fact, it was encouraged among my kind not to bed someone who hadn’t already bedded others.

There was nothing fun about bedding a virgin. They were oftentimes too nervous and anxious to do anything other than lie there and wait for the act to be over. Tymanon and I had never spoken of our past exploits, but it wasn’t hard for me to see that Ty had little to no experience.

This fact would have had me searching for a different bed partner before, but now... my hands curled into fists on my lap as I tried to hide the evidence of my arousal from her clever gaze. I did not wish to frighten Tymanon, but I wanted her with a need that rivaled anything I’d ever felt before.

Clearing my throat at least twice, I finally said, “You did it very well.”

Her lips twitched as she glanced down at her crossed legs, her very naked legs. I was trying hard to be a gentleman and not stare, but I loved Tymanon’s body—the strength of it, her muscular leanness, the tight tone of her stomach, the soft curves of her arms and thighs.