Page 17 of A Tribute of Fire

I would have had a difficult time explaining why his entreaty softened me. It wasn’t spoken as a command or order. I’d certainly had plenty of those over the last year.

Instead he said it like he didn’t want to be parted from me.

I knew what he was doing. He was wielding his charm and handsomeness like a sword against me, and despite my earlier declaration, I felt helpless against the onslaught.

Maybe I did need someone else to save me.

“Why shouldn’t I go?” I asked.

“Because you want me to kiss you and I would be happy to oblige.”

“What?” My limbs were shaking, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure he could hear it.

I couldn’t just kiss some stranger in the courtyard of my parents’ palace. And it was humiliating that he’d correctly read my desire for him. I never would have acted upon it. I couldn’t. My mother would be shocked, my father furious. This was not how people like me were supposed to behave.

The smart thing to do would be to leave. To walk away and pretend that this had never happened.

I didn’t do that.

He sauntered over to me slowly, as if he had all the time in the world. My heart somehow managed to beat even faster, drowning outeverything else. He came to a stop in front of me and his warmth washed over me. He reached for my tray and took it, intending to set it down.

My dagger clattered to the ground and his eyes followed the sound. He gave me a half smile while he placed the tray next to my knife. “A dagger? Do you have need of a weapon?”

“I suppose that would depend on what you plan to do.”

Another smile. “I only plan to do things that you will enjoy. But if you were thinking about stabbing me, just know that you would not be the first woman to do so.”

Was that meant to be a warning? I should have taken heed, but I was watching him instead, completely enthralled, unable to flee.

“You have been looking at my lips since you first saw me.” He murmured the words so softly that I had to lean in slightly to hear them.

“I have not,” I protested just as quietly, but it was because I didn’t think I was capable of raising my voice at the moment. I felt as if I had no control at all over my body.

“You want me to kiss you.” He said this as a statement of fact and I wanted to protest that I did not because something at the back of my mind that sounded suspiciously like Demaratus’s voice was telling me,Stupid girl, this is not how a betrothed princess should behave!

I knew that. But in a week’s time I might be dead.

Time to push propriety aside.

“If you want me to leave, I will,” he said.

“I don’t even know your name.” My voice was breathless, unsteady.

“Jason.”

“I’m Lia.”

“Your heart is beating very quickly, Lia. I can see your pulse in your throat.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage to reply.

He touched the spot with his warm fingertip and I felt that same pulse jump in response.

Jason moved his mouth closer to mine but kept it tantalizingly out of reach and my core tightened in anticipation. “You’re trembling. Have you ever been kissed before?”

My heart reverberated inside my chest like a massive drum. “No.”

“Are you betrothed?”

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