The Royal Collection. Rebecca Winters

      She grabbed hold of his hands, brought them to her cheeks and held them close to her skin. “With these hands? These hands that have brought me so much pleasure. And have been so tender with me.” She smoothed her palms over his knuckles. “I know you have dealt out pain. I know you have been responsible for unimaginable destruction. In the pursuit of protecting your people. But when you touch me... I have never felt the way that I do when I’m with you. You are more. I’ve witnessed it. I’ve felt it.”

      He reached around, grabbing hold of her hair, holding her still, tethering them together. “I can’t. I can’t give more. I must keep focused. I must keep my eyes on my goal.”

      “Do you have to deny yourself forever?”

      “Yes,” he said.

      “No.” She leaned forward, battling against his grip, kissing him on the lips.

      And he couldn’t fight against this. Against the need that rose up inside him. The desire to be with her. He knew he was all wrong for her, knew that he could never give her what she wanted. Knew that he didn’t possess the answers to the questions that were in her luminous blue eyes. But he wasn’t strong enough to tell her no. Wasn’t strong enough to turn away from this. Here, out in the desert where he had been the most isolated, he could not say no to this. To this chance to water the dry spaces inside him.

      She had already compromised his control. And right now, facing down the desperation in her eyes, he didn’t have it in him to try to reclaim it. He couldn’t give her anything deeper than this. But if she wanted his body, he would gladly share it. And if she would share hers with him... He was not worthy. But he wasn’t strong enough to say no. He had survived torture. Had been beaten, broken, had withstood terrible pain. But he could not withstand this desire. This desire that roared through him like a feral beast, tearing at everything in its path.

      After this. After this he would rebuild himself. Would find himself again out in the desert as he had done once before. But not now. Now he would lose himself. In her. In this one way he had given himself permission to find release.

      “There is a bed. Upstairs. It is not fine. It is likely full of sand.”

      She shook her head. “I don’t care.”

      He lifted her up into his arms, held her close to his chest. Felt her heartbeat. She was so beautiful, so breakable. How was he entrusted to hold her in his arms? He was nothing. Nothing but a blunt instrument. Nothing but a weapon. What business did he have putting his hands on her body?

      None. None at all. But he didn’t possess enough honor to turn away from her, to turn away from this. He felt things breaking between them, splintering. Mirroring the broken pieces of humanity that were left inside him, buried deep. Shattered beyond repair. When she looked at him, it was easy to believe they might be fixed. Easy to believe that he could be whole. Because when she looked at him, she saw a man. But even if the pieces could be repaired, he knew for a fact there weren’t enough left to ever create a whole man. Not in the way she deserved.

      She saw more than he was. And he wasn’t strong enough to end that illusion. Not now. After this it would have to end.

      With each step he took, the sand depressed beneath his feet, another reminder of where they were. Of the fact that he was ready to strip this beautiful woman naked in the middle of the desert, in a house that was barely fit for a scorpion, much less a queen.

      But even with guilt lashing at him, he couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop.

      When they made it to the room he’d called his own for all those years, he set her down gently, her feet almost buried in sand. He went over to the crude metal bed frame and grabbed hold of the blankets, shaking them out fiercely. Now that he’d thought of scorpions, he had to be sure.

      Her skin should never touch fabric this rough. Her body was worthy of only silk. And worthy of a man who knew better how to treat her. Better how to touch her.

      Still, he walked toward her. Still, he wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her against his body, kissing her deeply. Still, he brought her over to the bed and laid her down on the mattress. He was shaking as he let his hands drift over her curves, as he kissed her as if she was the oasis he’d been searching for.

      Later. He would hate himself for this later.

      He stripped her clothes from her, as quickly as possible, ruthlessly. No thought given to delicacy, to the expensive nature of her clothing. He heard fabric tear, and he didn’t care. If he was more beast than man, he would prove it now. He had no idea if wanting a woman made every man behave this way, made even the most controlled, careful of men act without thought to consequence.

      But he didn’t care. It didn’t matter what other men did. It didn’t matter how sex usually felt. Because for him, this was unique. For him, this was the only experience. For him, there would be only her.

      When she was bare before him, he bent his head and kissed the soft curve of her breast, drew her nipple deep into his mouth. Then he moved down lower, his tongue tracing a line down the center of her stomach. Her breath pitched, the sharp, sudden action an indicator of her pleasure. He knew. He was learning. She had been right. It didn’t matter how much you knew about sex. You had to know about your partner. Had to care about them.

      His hands followed the same journey his tongue had, sliding down her waist, gripping hold of her hips and around behind her, cupping her buttocks, lifting her gently from the bed as he buried his face between her thighs and tasted her in a way he’d become obsessed with in fantasy over the past week.

      She cried out as he dragged his tongue over her slick flesh, focusing his attention on the bundle of nerves that was the source of her pleasure. He would happily die like this. With her flavor on his tongue, her soft sounds of pleasure filling the air.

      She placed her fingers through his hair, tugging hard, and he took it as a sign to go harder, to go deeper. He had no refined skill; he had only desire. Intensity. A need for her that burned in his gut, that was physical pain.

      He would never get enough of her. He could lose himself in her, in this. Could return back to this desert place as long as he had her with him. And it was no longer the kingdom he saw swimming before his vision when he thought of his purpose. It was glittering blue eyes, soft pink lips, blond hair his hands could get lost in. It was Olivia.

      The realization hit him with the force of a thunderclap. Everything in him screamed its denial, but he pushed it aside. Because he didn’t care for the future, not now, not with her slickness on his tongue, her desire coating his lips. He held more tightly to her, taking her against his mouth, lavishing attentions on her until she screamed, her voice echoing off the walls where there had before only been silence. This dry, barren place would never be the same again. Because it was filled with her.

      And neither would he. Because he was filled with her, too.

      He wanted her to be filled with him.

      He shifted their positions, rising up to kiss her mouth, testing the entrance to her body with the head of his arousal. There were no preliminaries. He was not tentative as he’d been the first time. Rather, he thrust in deep on a growl, blinding white light flashing behind his eyelids.

      He buried his face in her neck, relishing her scent, relishing her. Here he was, at the site of his desolation, in the place where he had been most isolated, most alone, as close to another person as one could possibly be.

      He had no restraint now, no ability to hold himself back, and he gave thanks when she arched beneath him, crying out her release because it left him free to chase his own.

      And when he did, he was consumed by it. Overcome as a lone traveler in a sandstorm, utterly devastated. Destroyed.

      When it was finished, he had no strength left inside him. He could do nothing but pull her body against his and hold her as sleep took hold of him. There was no thought to anything else, no thought at all. Just the desire to rest.

      That realization sent a jolt through him. Where had his focus gone?