Page 232 of Between Two Kings
“Because I…” His eyes flicked to the butlers, who were standing at attention as they always were. Tem understood. Leo wanted to be alone with her.
She sighed. It was a terrible idea for them to be alone together. Tem was surprised that Evelyn had created a situation that would allow it. But another idea nagged at her, one she couldn’t shake. Her father’s words were running in a circle through her mind: If you kiss him—if you do anything other than sex—it will buy him some time.
Before she could stop herself, Tem followed Leo into the library.
He poured each of them a whiskey, as usual. They stood by the desk, as usual. But this time there was an energy in the air that Tem couldn’t define—a sense of possibility that made her heart race.
She had already given herself permission for what she wanted to do. Would Leo?
Tem watched him in the dim firelight. The hand not holding his whiskey was on the desk, spinning a letter opener by its thick, marble handle. It reminded Tem of her request to him.
“Have you been writing me letters?”
His eyes flicked to hers. “Yes.”
Tem dearly wished to know what was in them. She pictured Leo bent over parchment, scrawling with that spiky handwriting of his. “How many?”
The letter opener continued to spin.
“A lot.”
“Where do you keep them?”
The letter opener stopped. “Why are you asking me this, Tem?”
She stared up into his slate-gray eyes, seeking the answer herself. There was no reason to ask him other than she wanted to hear his voice. “Because I miss you.”
The same thing she’d told him when she came to the castle just one week after their wedding, to get an annulment. She’d meant it then, and she meant it even more now.
“You don’t get to miss me,” he said. “You sent me away.”
“I wanted you to be happy.”
“Do I seem happy to you?”
The answer was obvious, even if Tem didn’t want to say it. Leo was a man in crisis, caught between his obligations and his heart. And Tem had put him there.
“Leo…I’m…”
“Don’t.” He pointed the letter opener at her. “Don’t say you’re sorry.”
Tem pursed her lips. It was all she wanted to say. She needed him to know that she was sorry—that she regretted everything. But she understood why he wouldn’t want to hear it. It meant nothing coming from her. Tem was the one who did this to him. The fact that she couldn’t undo it now was as much his burden to bear as hers. She did not want him to bear that burden any longer. Without thinking, Tem stepped closer.
Immediately, Leo’s eyes widened.
Slowly, he set down his whiskey glass. The hand around the letter opener tightened, his veins standing out beneath his pale skin. An unspoken understanding passed between them.
The letter opener gleamed in his hand. When he raised it to her chest, Tem’s breath stopped. A moment later cold metal touched her skin as he slid the blade so it was flat beneath her dress strap. Then he lifted the strap so it hovered an inch above her shoulder. They stood there, staring at each other, the air on fire between them. Leo turned the blade on its edge. Then he began to cut.
Back and forth, back and forth. One thread at a time. This was no knife blade; it was not sharp. It sawed slowly through the thin fabric, fraying it centimeter by centimeter until all that remained was a single, tenuous thread. Leo stopped. Neither of them moved.
The thread snapped.
Tem didn’t bother pulling the strap back up. It was the last thing she wanted to do anyway. Instead she slid the other strap down her shoulder so that both her breasts were exposed. Then she let the dress fall to the floor.
The moment she was naked, Leo took a deep, strangled breath. It was exhilarating to stand here with him like this, completely exposed, nowhere to hide. Tem looked at him as he looked at her, his eyes traveling over every inch of her body. The last time she’d been naked before him was the night before their wedding. She’d thought about it every night since. Had he?
Leo stepped closer. His entire body was angled toward hers, his tall frame leaning down to enter into her atmosphere as he said, “No skin.”
