Gild (The Plated Prisoner #1)(35)

“Don’t worry about that,” he tells me. “I have a plan.”

I can’t help the bitter snort that escapes me. “I suppose you’re not going to tell me it, just like you didn’t tell me that you were tricking Fulke about giving me to him.”

Midas sighs. “I didn’t dare say more. No one knows any of this, Auren. No one aside from you knew what I set up. And I have to play this next part just as carefully. Just as meticulously. But I need you to forgive me, Precious. I need you to understand.”

Do I? Do I understand?

I’m relieved, I know that much. The coiled tension that’s been inside me these past days has eased. He wasn’t going to let Fulke have me. He had a plan.

It was callous and thoughtless, but it makes sense. This is how Midas is, how he’s always been. That strategic, brilliant mind of his sometimes falls short on emotions. He can scheme and plan like an expert, but he often forgets the human side of it.

“I was so mad at you.”

Midas chuckles, the sound breaking some of the tension between us, bringing us a step back to what we were, what we should be.

“I know. I thought you were acting. Figured you trusted me enough and you were just putting on a good show. But then in the ballroom earlier, you were furious.”

A heat crawls up my cheeks. “Yeah, sorry about defying you in front of everyone.”

He gives me a soft smile. “It’s alright.”

Midas gets up and grabs a drying cloth off a hook, holding it up for me. I stand up at the silent direction and step out of the tub, letting him wrap me up in it.

Once I’m dried and dressed in a nightgown, Midas takes me back to my bedroom. My damp ribbons splay behind me with my hair, my head resting on his chest as his hand rubs down my back.

This. This is what we’ve been missing. How many nights has it been since he’s held me like this?

Months. I’m not sure how many.

“You used to hold me every night,” I say softly against his tanned skin, his chest peeking out from the undone tie at the top of his tunic. His legs are crossed at the ankles, both of us lying atop the blankets, not needing any other warmth besides each other.

Midas smiles against my head. “I did. Probably not the best thing for a newly wedded man to do.”

Probably not, but I was greedy for it anyway.

“If the queen was jealous, she had a strange way of showing it,” I say, remembering that first year. “She gifted you three royal saddles for your birthday.”

I remember being shocked. Shocked and jealous. His own wife expected him to have sex with other women. Encouraged it, even. Just not with me.

The first time he slept with one of them, it had gutted me. I’ve grown used to it by now. Not that it doesn’t still hurt, but I understand. He’s a king. What did I really expect?

As if he can sense the directions of my thoughts, Midas’s arm pulls me up until I’m lying on top of him, our faces in front of each other.

“It’s just me and you when I’m here,” he reminds me. “Nothing else exists outside of this cage.”

I nod slowly. “I know.”

His brown eyes fall to the mark on my neck before his hands come up to grip my waist. “You’re mine.”

I know that too.

His gaze flicks down my body, his grip tightening as lust simmers between us, and my breath catches. So long. It’s been so long.

I’ve waited to see this look from him again. For him to have time to give me more than just a passing caress, a distracted smile. For him not to be a king that has to behave like one, but to just be Midas. My Midas.

“You’re mine,” he says again, and his hands move, one to hold the back of my head, the other to skim down to my ass and squeeze.

“I’ve missed you,” he says, his lips poised at the hollow of my throat, right below the blade’s mark. “You looked beautiful tonight. So damned sexy.”

His fingers pull up the side of my nightgown, until his hand can dip beneath, bare palm against thigh. My breathing quickens, and I sigh into his mouth as he kisses me in quick, angled bursts.

“I missed you too,” I reply.

He sits us up, keeping me on his lap, my hands coming up to his shoulders to steady myself. With hunger in his eyes, he pulls off my dress, lets me undo the laces at his pants. “So pretty, Precious. So damned pretty.”

My heart beats fast, my stomach knotting and unknotting as his lips once again caress my throat, travel up my jaw. And then his hard length is pushing into me, his groan a taste in my mouth that I swallow down and try to keep.

He possesses me like this, hips pushing up, driving himself deeper, even as his arms tighten around me, squeezing, telling me he won’t ever let me go. And when I moan, my eyes fluttering closed, his tongue comes in to claim me, to rule me. He takes and takes, and I give. I give it all.

My heart swells when he sucks at my tongue and plunges deeper into my core, and I move with him, my spine like a wave as I work to bring him pleasure, to give him what he needs. To make him happy.

And when he pulls from my body and spills his seed against my stomach with a groan, I lie back down against his sweat-slicked chest with a sigh and a soft smile.

But the traitorous tear that falls from my eye tells a different story as it lands on my lip. It brines my happiness and rinses the smile away, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.