Free The Shadow Queen by Anne Bishop Page B

made since he’d walked back into the room. “Bad timing. If I’d seen you in those clothes in your bedroom or here on any other night . . . Well, I can’t say the outcome would have been different, but the reasons I reacted to the clothes would have been.”
    Which made him wonder about something that hadn’t occurred to him last night. “Why were you wearing that?”
    She blushed. Shrugged. Fiddled with the coffee cup.
    He waited, a patient predator.
    “I was reading a story and when the woman wore something like this, the man . . .” Another shrug. More fiddling.
    He tried to remember what she’d been reading lately, but couldn’t recall a title. “Maybe I should read that book to get a few ideas.”
    “ You don’t need any ideas.”
    He was pretty sure that was a compliment.
    Since he was feeling easier and the food was there in front of him, he ate some more.
    “Will you wear it again?”
    “To spend the night in this room or the other bedroom?” Jaenelle asked softly.
    “Both,” he answered, just as softly.
    A slow, mischievous smile. “Instead of negotiating about which bed to use, maybe we should just flip a coin to see who gets to be on top.”
    Last night he’d dominated, possessed, kept her under his body and under his control. Now he had a sudden image of her riding him, her body a teasing shadow covered by the shift, her legs sheathed in those sheer white stockings, his fingers moving up her legs to the damp skin above the stockings, moving up to the wet heat that sheathed him.
    That image stayed in his mind, but the tone changed, becoming a dark, spicy thrill when she realized she wasn’t the one in control, that he was still . . .
    He jerked back, snarling, as fingers snapped in front of his face.
    Jaenelle stared at him. “I don’t know where your brain went just now, but, Mother Night, Daemon, judging by the way your eyes glazed, we don’t have time for whatever you were thinking.”
    They had all the time they wanted. Who would dare interrupt them?
    “I’m going to Dharo today, remember?”
    Leave? She was going to leave ?
    “Daemon. You have a guest, remember?”
    Theran. Stranger. Male. Rival.
    “Daemon.”
    Her hand clamped over his wrist. Physically, he could break the hold without effort. But her touch, her will, was the only chain strong enough to keep him leashed.
    He shifted on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position, trying not to snarl at her for denying him the right to eliminate a rival.
    She blew out a breath and kept her hand clamped on his wrist.
    “You won’t be able to settle if I stay here today, and if you don’t settle, Prince Theran is going to end up dead.”
    She was right, and they both knew it.
    “And you need to get out of this room until it’s been cleaned and aired.”
    She was right about that too. But . . .
    He wasn’t Daemon anymore. Not completely. That other side of him was swimming close to the surface, wanting to dance, wanting to play, wanting to give her a little taste of fear while he aroused her body and produced a banquet of climaxes ranging from wild screams to soft, helpless moans.
    He caught the back of her neck and pulled her forward gently, carefully, implacably. His mouth opened and hovered a breath away from hers.
    “Kiss me.” Not a request. A purring command.
    She trembled a little as her mouth touched his. As her tongue touched his.
    A soft kiss. A lingering kiss that soothed with the promise of fire at the end of the day.
    He eased back and shoved his brain and libido—and the Sadist—away from all the thoughts of what his body wanted to do with hers.
    “Am I forgiven?” he asked.
    “For last night? Yes. For eating the last bite of the seafood omelet? I’ll have to think about that.”
    He looked at the tray and realized they’d done a fair job of cleaning the plates. “I didn’t drink any of the coffee,” he muttered.
    Jaenelle bared her teeth in a feral smile and lightly pinched his cheek. “That’s why