The sorcerer falls silent.

There’s an ache in me, a very real ache, at his story. I don’t know why. Maybe because it sounds romantic—kings, and hordes, and a search for a woman he was connected to but could not find.

“What else?” I ask.

Memnon’s eyes linger on me. For a moment, they are so incredibly desolate. Then his mouth curves into a sly smile, and that calculating gleam reenters his expression. “Curious, Empress?”

My own eyes fall to his lips. “Why do you call me that? ‘Empress’?”

He settles back into his seat, and now his mouth curves into a sinful smirk. “Because the Romans subjugated you, and I quite like paying homage to your power in their language. It gives me a petty little thrill. You liked it even more.”

“Roxilana,” I whisper. “This all happened to Roxilana.”

Memnon’s eyes are like embers; I can’t look away from him. I sense so many pent-up feelings behind that face.

“Yes,” he agrees, “it happened to my Roxilana.”

This moment feels as though it’s balanced on a tightrope. At any second, one of us could fall.

“What do you want?” I say softly.

“Everything,” he says. “My empire, my riches, my palace, my adoring subjects. But most of all—I want you.”

I don’t know who moves first, him or me, only that we come together, and it feels inescapable. There is my rational, orderly mind, and then there is this. Instinct.

Memnon’s mouth finds mine, and he ravages it, kissing me with all the intensity one would expect from a warrior-king. I gasp in a breath when suddenly his tongue is there, sweeping through.

My body awakens at the contact, feverish for more of this, whatever this is. I delve my fingers into his hair.

Memnon groans into my mouth, then hoists me into his arms, wrapping my legs around him and cradling my ass.

“My queen, my queen,” he murmurs. “I need you to remember.”

“Shut up about that,” I murmur back. Memnon’s cute little delusions could ruin a perfectly good make-out session.

If I thought the sorcerer would be offended at my rudeness, I thought wrong. He smiles against my lips, then nips my lower one.

I moan.

“That is no way to talk to your king.”

On second thought, I could totally get behind role-playing this. “I’ll talk to you the way I want.”

At my words, Memnon growls, squeezing my ass, his smile searing against my lips. He maneuvers us onto my bed. My back bounces a little as it hits the mattress.

My fingers run over his scar, and he lets out a jagged exhale.

He pulls away, his breathing heavy. “Time to tell me to leave.”

Time to leave? I feel as though we’ve only gotten started.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I find out just how sweet that pussy of yours really is, and I don’t stop until I feel you come on my tongue.”

Memnon has teased me plenty about intimacy with him, but he’s offering the real thing to me now.

I find that I want it more than I’ve wanted anything in a long while.

I stare at him for several seconds, and I stroke his cheek again. “Stay.”

His jaw clenches beneath my touch, and the heat in his eyes grows.

He leans back in and kisses me again, only this one is full of carnal promise. “As you command, est amage,” he whispers.

Memnon grinds his hips against my pelvis, and I gasp into his mouth, the sound eliciting a grin from him.

His hands move to my body then, stroking up and down my sides. Eventually, they find the hem of my shirt. He fingers it, the action reminding me of when we first laid eyes on each other in his tomb. He played with my clothes then too. Only, we never had a chance to take it any further.

Memnon tugs the shirt up, unpeeling it from my body inch by inch.

“So beautiful,” he says as he takes in my exposed flesh, the look in his eyes searing. He saw my skin not even twenty-four hours ago, but concern shadowed his gaze then. Right now, he has no such restraint.

I’m still wearing a bra, and his fingers glide over one of the straps. A lock of dark hair slips over his eye as he studies the undergarment, grazing his thumb over the lace cup. I realize then that the sorcerer may have never seen a bra before. I don’t know what they wore during Memnon’s time, but it probably wasn’t this.

I sit up, forcing the sorcerer back to his knees. Then I take his hand. “You undo it from the back.” I guide his arm behind me to where my bra hooks together.

Memnon watches my face the entire time, more fascinated with my features than he is with the workings of my lingerie. Still, his hand closes on the clasp.

“This feels like something I would greatly enjoy breaking, Selene,” he admits.

Despite his words, his other hand comes up, and after a few probing touches, he deftly unhooks the bra. He slides the thing off and casts it aside.

“These breasts…” He bends and takes one into his mouth.

I gasp at the intense and unexpected contact, my fingers delving into his hair. Memnon sucks on my nipple, the sensation going right to my core. I gasp again, my grip on his hair tightening as the rest of me goes boneless.

Memnon cradles my back, holding me in place. “Sweet woman, you feel better than memory serves.” His lips move away from my nipple, trailing kisses along my skin until he gets to the other breast, which he then promptly takes into his mouth.

“Goddess,” I breathe, holding him like I’ll fall if I let go.

He rolls my nipple between his teeth before releasing it. “Don’t praise your goddess—praise me, your king,” he says, his breath fanning against my skin.

“You want me to call you my king?” I mean, I really could get into this role-playing.

“Yes,” he breathes.

Using the fingers threaded through his hair, I turn his head and lean in to his ear. “Would you like me to say it in English or Sarmatian, est xsaya?” My king.

A shudder works its way through his body.

He shakes his head and flashes me an intense look. “You don’t know what that does to me, hearing you say those words in our language.” he murmurs, his gaze fixed on my skin.

And then his mouth is back on my flesh, and he’s kissing down, down, down my torso.

I grab the back of his shirt, tugging it up. Memnon, after all, is not the only one who wants a glimpse of bare flesh.

The sorcerer pauses. “Does my queen want me to remove my shirt?” he asks in Sarmatian.

Before I even have a chance to answer, he pulls the garment off, then tosses it aside.

I get a sick little thrill at the thought of his clothes casually littering my room. I find I want them to decorate my space just as much as my Post-it notes do.

The sight of his exposed torso has me drawing in a sharp breath. I already knew his body is a work of art, but seeing it up close is an entire experience.

I reach out and run my hands over his thick coiled muscles. Beneath my touch, Memnon’s skin pebbles. I can feel those smoky-brown eyes of his watching me as I explore him.

There are lines of scars all over the place, mapping out the violence this man was once exposed to. My hands stop roving when I get to his tattoos.

“Will you tell me what these mean at some point?” I ask. He’s already said a little about them, but I’m curious about the rest.

Memnon cups my face, and the look he’s giving me makes me feel beloved. I like it far, far too much for my own good.

“At some point, I won’t need to,” he says cryptically.

He releases me but only so his hands can move to the seam of my pants. In a couple of deft movements, he undoes the top button and zipper.

“Lie back, little witch,” Memnon commands.

My pulse is racing, but there’s something about this sorcerer that also makes me feel so very…safe.

Maybe it’s simply the fact he actually did save my life.