Page 84 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

Everything in him drew tight. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that I want our marriage to be more, Tiberius. Like I told you yesterday, I want it to be more than just sleeping together at night.’

Tension crawled through him, though he wasn’t sure why. ‘It is more. You wear my ring, you are at my side, you are my queen.’

‘That is not a relationship, and a relationship is what I want. And not one based entirely on sex. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for, especially if and when we decide to have children.’ One fair brow arched. ‘Or do you really want your children to have the kind of upbringing you did?’

That washed over him like a cold shock. He hadn’t spared a thought for children beyond knowing that he’d need heirs, and he certainly hadn’t thought about what kind of childhood he wanted for them.

One like yours? Crushed under the weight of other people’s expectations?

His chest grew tight with instinctive denial. ‘No,’ he said tersely. ‘I do not want that.’

‘Good. Then we agree on one thing, at least.’ She leaned forward and reached for the bottle of champagne sitting in the basket. ‘Let’s have a toast.’

‘We should be discussing what you need to do as queen,’ he growled. ‘Not drinking in the sun and talking about children.’

She only shrugged and uncorked the bottle with a deft movement. ‘Okay, then. Let’s talk about me being a queen.’

She handed him a glass, which he had no choice but to take, then she poured some sparkling liquid into it before doing the same for herself. Putting the bottle down, she picked up her glass and knocked it gently against his.

‘To the future.’

Then she lifted it to drink, and somehow managed to spill nearly all of it down the front of her pretty dress.

Tiberius sat there, unable to move, his gaze pinned to the wet fabric and the way it stuck to her skin, clinging to the curves of her breasts, making it very clear that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

‘Oh, no…’ She put down her glass and looked at him wide-eyed. ‘I’m all wet.’

He was suddenly painfully hard, with visions of himself peeling the damp silk from her and licking the champagne from her skin before checking to see just how wet she really was reeling through his brain.

Her deep blue gaze met his, and he knew that she could read the desire in his eyes because her own leapt to meet it.

‘This is a seduction, isn’t it?’ he asked roughly.

‘Is it?’

She made no move to dry herself, sitting there with the silk clinging to her, making it clear that her nipples were hard.

‘I’m already seduced. You don’t need to do this now. Couldn’t it wait until tonight?’

‘We’re talking about you teaching me how to be a queen, Tiberius. Nothing else.’

Except she wasn’t looking at him that way, and before he quite knew what he was doing he’d reached out, hauling her into his lap so she was facing him, her legs on either side of his hips.

‘Time for your first lesson, then,’ he said and lifting his hands, plunged them into her hair and took her mouth like he owned it.

It was reckless to do this out in the open, but Guinevere had decided that Tiberius wasn’t the only master strategist. She was one too. She’d organised the picnic with the kitchen, then given instructions to both the staff and the palace guards that the orchard was to be out of bounds for the next couple of hours.

She’d wondered if he’d even come, but when his tall figure had come striding through the trees her heart had leapt. He’d looked devastatingly attractive, in dark trousers and a black shirt, and it had been all she could do not to lay hands on him the moment he’d sat down.

He’d missed her the night before—she could see it in his face, hear it in his voice. If it truly hadn’t mattered to him then he wouldn’t have asked, but he had. And the truth was she’d missed him too. It had taken all her of considerable will to stay in the library the night before, to deny him the pleasure of her body. But this was part of the lesson she wanted to teach him—that he couldn’t have everything his own way—and that was a difficult lesson for a man like him.

Nevertheless, he had to learn. He had to understand that he could have moments for himself. That life wasn’t all about work or the burden of kingship. That there could be moments of joy and happiness.

She wasn’t sure when his wellbeing had come to matter to her so much, but it had, and so here, in the sunlight of the orchard, on a beautiful day, she’d spread before him a picnic and determined that for a couple of hours he could relax.

Then she’d thought that maybe that relaxation should be physical. They weren’t in bed, for a change, and maybe in the sun, after some pleasure, he’d lose some of the tension she could sense in the air around him.

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