Page 199 of A Vow of Embers

“You never know when you might need one.”

“Stay there,” I said. I did not need him following me. It was difficult to stand as I was lightheaded, my limbs still trembling. My stomachfelt sick and I realized that it was roiling with thwarted desire and frustration.

I opened his trunk and dug through it until I found the rope. I should have searched his belongings when I’d first arrived. This would have been so useful when I was sneaking out on the balcony.

“Hurry back,” he said as he sat up.

There was so much interest and desire in his gaze that it was very difficult to remember what I needed to do. I knew that Xander was otherworldly strong but the rope was thick. Hopefully he wouldn’t be able to break out of it.

“Lie down,” I told him.

He grinned at me and my knees felt hollowed out. “Something a man never says no to.”

The bed frame wasn’t strong enough. I stood over him as I tied one end of the rope to the torch bracket and then brought it down to his right wrist. I straddled him again, hoping that might distract him.

He stroked my inner thigh with his free hand and I was the one distracted.

“What are you planning on doing to me?” he asked in a silken tone.

I gulped as I pulled the rope over to his other wrist, tying it there. “What would you do if you were me?”

It was the wrong question to ask, and he made me regret it immediately.

“I would cover you with a sheet,” he said. “Then I would slowly pull it down your body, exposing one bit of flesh at a time. To draw it out so that I could see if my memory of you was as good as reality. To let you enjoy the sensuous, soft slide of the material over your heated and sensitized skin.”

I pulled the rope tight and then stood up to tie this end to the other torch bracket, ignoring the way that my core ached.

“Then I would kiss and touch you until you were slick with desire, wild, writhing, frantic for more. Begging me to untie you so that you could press yourself against me, to find your release.”

I couldn’t control my breathing and it took me several attempts to complete the knot.

His voice somehow went even lower. “Then I would find the most sensitive parts of you and I would rub and suck and lick until you were so hot and desperate that—”

“That’s enough,” I said, stopping him. Because if he kept talking to me like that, I would untie him and let him do everything he had just described, everything that made my body throb and my lungs stutter.

I had to be strong, though. He had done this for me when our situations had been reversed. The rope was in place. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Why did I like seeing him stretched out this way? He would be at my mercy and I could—

There was a knock at our door, startling me.

“Ignore it and come here,” he urged.

“Be quiet,” I said. I ran over to my trunk, pulled out a basic tunic, and threw it on, grabbing a belt to loosely tie it into place.

Xander made a disappointed sound when I came out from behind my screen. I went over to the door and only opened it enough that I could stick my face out.

It was Thrax. I didn’t want him to see what I had done and was about to tell him to go away. But I reminded myself that I had resolved to be nicer to him so that my sister would want to speak to me again.

Thrax had once accused me of poisoning Xander. What would he think if he saw his prince tied up?

This might be bad.

“Good evening, Princess Thalia. Is Xander here?”

“He is . . . indisposed.”

“What does that mean?” Thrax looked as if he might shove past me. Although I didn’t know him well enough to predict what he would or would not do.

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