The Dragon Prince Rejected Me, So I Married His Daddy

A More Suitable Location

“It is.”

Before I could ask what location he considered more suitable, the glasshouse door opened.

The chamberlain stopped on the threshold, a folded dispatch in hand. His eyes moved from Tristan to me before settling with remarkable discipline upon a row of orange trees.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty. A messenger has arrived from the north.”

Tristan’s hand was still around my thigh.

He seemed to realise it at the same moment I did. His fingers tightened once before he lowered my skirts and stepped back. The loss of his warmth was immediate enough to make me resent the entire northern territory.

“What has happened?” he asked.

The chamberlain unfolded the dispatch. “Lord Serrat has gathered armed men near the river. He claims the new retaining wall will divert water from his land.”

Only that morning, Tristan would have ordered horses before the message was finished. As he took the paper, his expression returned to the severe composure the court knew. For one uneasy moment, I wondered whether the man who had kissed me existed only behind rain-streaked glass.

Then he folded the dispatch and handed it back.

“Send General Corven and two royal engineers. Serrat may argue with the measurements before he argues with soldiers. I want their reports tomorrow.”

The chamberlain hesitated. “You will not be accompanying them?”

“No.” Tristan glanced at me. There was nothing improper in the look, yet I felt it in every place he had touched. “I have matters here requiring my attention.”

We returned beneath a single cloak. Tristan held most of it over me, accepting the rain along one shoulder. Those who noticed looked away, none displeased. One elderly steward saw my loosened hair and Tristan’s hand at my back, then smiled as though a private wager had finally been settled.

At my apartments, Tristan lifted a damp strand from my cheek. His knuckles grazed my skin, but his hand fell before I could lean into it.

“You should change before dinner.”

His voice was formal again. I searched his face for some trace of regret and found only restraint, which was not nearly as easy to distinguish as I would have liked.

“And you?”

His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth. “I will attempt to read the northern reports without thinking about this afternoon.”

The honesty warmed me more thoroughly than the fires waiting inside my rooms.

My maid made one horrified sound when she saw the state of my hair, then wisely asked no questions. She dressed me in black, the gown close through the bodice before falling in a long, smooth line to the floor. She braided the sides of my hair away from my face and joined them at the back, leaving the rest in dark red waves down my spine. Last came a little rose salve, coloured faintly with alkanet. It left my lips soft and only slightly darker than before.

I watched her close the little silver pot and remembered the first years after my body had begun changing. There had been restless nights and inexplicable warmth understood only through guarded lessons about marriage. Draco had never encouraged them. He touched me through gloves during dances and released me when the music ended. I had wondered whether he would speak to me, never whether he would put his mouth against my throat.

Those feelings had not belonged to him. I could see that now.

They had belonged to no one until Tristan.

With him, every neglected part of me seemed to have chosen at once.

The wedding had changed its bridegroom, not disappeared. My father and Mildred remained while the royal jurists revised the articles. Draco had ridden out before dawn, claiming a sudden desire to hunt. Amber had declared herself too ashamed to face the family and remained in her rooms. I had known her too long to mistake concealment for remorse.

My father and Mildred sat opposite us. He watched every exchange between Tristan and me as though searching for a consequence he had missed. Tristan, dressed in black as always, answered questions about the new articles and looked at me often enough that a servant nearly poured wine beside my glass. The court concentrated upon appearing not to notice.

When the final course was cleared, Tristan rose and the hall followed. He spoke briefly to my father, then met my eyes across the table. The look was perfectly proper and left no doubt that the afternoon remained between us. He departed through the side doors as the court began to disperse.

Before I could leave, the chamberlain approached my chair and placed a folded note beside my hand.

“His Majesty requests your presence in his private study.”

I opened the note beneath the table.

Come to my study after dinner. I would prefer not to leave the afternoon unfinished.

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Did the king ask you to wait for an answer?”

“He appeared confident that none would be necessary.”

I waited until my father and Mildred joined the departing court, slipped the note into my sleeve and left by the eastern passage. The walk there was short; anticipation made it feel longer.

Tristan’s study door stood open. He sat behind a desk covered in reports, one page upside down before him.

He rose when I entered. His eyes moved over my dress, lingered where the bodice curved over my breasts, then followed the length of my hair. The hunger in his face was controlled, but no longer hidden.

I closed the door and turned the key.

The metallic sound changed the room. Tristan braced both hands against his desk.

“Is this location sufficiently suitable, Your Majesty?”

His gaze travelled to the locked door before returning to me. “Not remotely.”

“And yet you summoned me.”

“That was an error in judgement.”

The report beneath his hand remained upside down. I crossed the room slowly, recognising that the same restraint which had seemed like distance in the corridor was costing him considerably more than I had understood.

“You made the same error in the glasshouse.”

“No.” He straightened as I stopped before him. “There, you kissed me.”

“Then we should reproduce the circumstances accurately.”

I took hold of his coat and kissed him.

For one breath, Tristan did not move. Then his hand closed around my waist and drew me against him. The kiss deepened, all the restraint from the corridor breaking beneath the turn of the key. He tasted faintly of wine. I wondered whether he tasted roses on me, but the thought disappeared when his mouth moved to my throat.

My fingers tightened across his shoulders. A sound escaped me before I could stop it.

Tristan lifted his head.

Embarrassment arrived hot and immediate. I had spent ten years controlling every word, every expression, even the precise degree of warmth in my smile. Now he had taken that discipline apart with his mouth, and I did not know what he expected to find beneath it.

There was no amusement in his face. Only attention.

“Do you want me to stop?”

His hand rested at my waist without moving. He could have decided that my silence meant consent, as so many people had decided what my silence meant before. Instead, he waited.

“No.”

He studied me for another moment, then lifted me onto the edge of the desk.

The movement pushed my skirts upwards. Tristan stepped between my knees, one hand braced beside my hip while the other travelled slowly along my thigh. Even through my stocking, the heat of his palm made my breath catch.

I had known the restless discomfort of growing into a woman. I had never known desire could have a voice, a face and hands large enough to make me feel delicate. Nothing I had once experienced in Draco’s presence resembled this. I had never imagined his mouth when I closed my eyes or wanted him closer when he moved away.

Tristan’s fingers reached the bare skin above my stocking and stopped.

“Tell me.”

I looked down at his hand beneath the black folds of my gown. Wanting had existed inside me for less than a day in any form I recognised. Now he asked me to give it words.

“I don’t know what to ask for.”

His thumb moved once against the inside of my thigh, so lightly that the touch was almost unbearable. “Then I will stop.”

The certainty of it steadied me. He was not asking me to prove that I was brave enough to continue. He would leave the choice in my hands even if it tormented us both.

I caught his wrist before he could withdraw.

“But I know I don’t want you to stop.”

Something changed in his eyes.

He kissed me again as his hand moved higher. When his fingers found the damp heat between my thighs, I broke the kiss with a gasp. Tristan watched my face, learning every response before giving me more. His touch was slow at first, almost cautious. Then his thumb found the place that made my hips lift from the desk.

I buried my face against his shoulder. He smelled of rain, leather and the faint smoke that always seemed to cling to him. One of his arms came around my back, holding me steady while his fingers worked with devastating patience beneath my skirts.

The pressure built too quickly for me to understand. I clung to him, unable to separate embarrassment from pleasure or either from the man causing both.

“Tristan.”

His name came out broken. His mouth pressed against my temple, and the arm around me tightened.

“Let go,” he ordered softly. “I will hold you.”

The command undid me.

Pleasure swept through me, leaving me shaking against him. Tristan held me through it, his hand slowing only when my body softened. For several moments, there was only my uneven breathing and rain against the windows.

When I could sit upright again, he withdrew his hand and lowered my skirts with care. He repaired what he could of my dress, then gathered my hair from where it had caught beneath my shoulder. His fingers moved through the long waves until they lay smoothly down my back.

He did not step away once desire had taken what it wanted. He remained between my knees, looking at me as though the moments after mattered as much as those before.

Draco had taught me that a man could spend ten years beside me without ever wondering what I wanted. Tristan had stopped at the height of his own desire and waited for me to tell him.

His thumb passed over my knuckles.

“This morning is no longer an excuse,” he said.

I understood immediately. The glasshouse, the locked door and the warmth still lingering beneath my skin had changed nothing essential. He was giving me the same choice again, now that shock and gratitude could no longer answer for me.

“No,” I agreed. “It is not.”

Tristan brought my hand to his mouth. This time, his lips touched my skin.

“Then I am asking again. Will you marry me, Odette?”

The answer did not come from duty. It did not come from a treaty, my father or ten years spent preparing to be someone’s wife. It belonged entirely to me.

“Yes.”

Something in his face eased. The change was slight, but I was close enough to see it.

“Good,” he said. “Because I have already ordered the adjoining chambers opened.”