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to side until he finally asked, “When are you going to remove your dress?”
    Her laughter vibrated through his chest as her lips pressed against the groove under his ribs. “When I’m ready.”
    This was a game of power, and as emperor, he wasn’t about to relinquish it to her so easily. He caressed the curves of her body, from the flare of her hip to the curve of her ass, gathering her skirt in his hands as he reached under the hem. Then he slipped his finger into the hot wetness of her sex.
    Her kisses stopped, and he regained control of the situation. She whimpered and clung to him while he explored it. When his thumb pressed against her clit, her body shuddered against his.
    “You feel ready to me.”
    “Almost.”
    He flicked his thumb against the swollen nub, and she whimpered again. Something about the sound pulled at his gut. She was trained to bring men pleasure, but had she ever experienced it herself? “I want to watch you come, Azurha.”
    “But I’m not finished with you,” she panted and shoved his hand away.
    The warmth of her body disappeared from his skin, but the scent of her desire clouded his mind like the most potent aphrodisiac, as sweet and rich as the jasmine perfume that bathed her skin.
    She spread the sticky substance over the head of his cock. His pulse thundered like the ground when a legion of soldiers swarmed a battlefield. Was she really planning to remove it as she had the other parts of his body? To lick it away in those slow strokes that had him wavering between moaning in pleasure and burying his cock inside so he could finally find a release for the desire welling up in him? By the gods, he wouldn’t last long if her tongue continued to dance around his shaft like that.
    He threaded his hands through her hair, ignoring the sound of her hairpins rattling on the floor. The only thing he wanted to focus on was the pure ecstasy he experienced from the rhythmic flicks of her tongue. “Azurha, please, no more. You have more than proven your skill.”
    With one final lick along the underside of his cock, she complied with his request. A rustle of fabric near his ear signaled that she stood over him. Her fingers tousled his hair, and a thump of a cushion falling to the ground was the only clue she gave for what she had planned next for him. Her bare skin brushed against his thighs, and his cock throbbed. She pulled his head forward. A pebble hard nipple teased his lips, and he tasted honey on it.
    He cupped the full breast she offered him in his hand and devoured the sweet spread she had placed on it like a starving man. She didn’t need honey to tempt him. Her flesh was more than sweet enough. His fingers pinched the other nipple, and her moan nearly sent him over the edge.
    He grabbed her arms and shoved her against cushions, eager to return the pleasure she’d given him.
    …
    Azurha enjoyed the game until the moment he pressed her against the cushion and mounted her. The weight of his body revived memories of her treatment as a slave, blocking all the pleasurable sensations she had experienced up until that point. She remembered the pain, the taunts, the fear she endured before she gained her freedom. Her body tensed, and her breath froze. By the gods, where I am taking this?
    Titus mimicked her reaction. “What is it?”
    Her voice refused to cooperate.
    He tugged the length of silk off his head. The worry in his blue eyes made her throat burn. No man had ever looked at her with so much concern. His fingers stroked her cheeks. “Azurha, what’s wrong?”
    She’d been so intent in distracting him that his reaction caught her off guard. She’d let him touch her most intimate area, and her body betrayed her. When he said he wanted to watch her come, the prospect of experiencing pleasure from something other than the kill clouded her mind and made her want to postpone his death.
    “Do you wish to end this and return to the harem?”
    The timbre of his voice warmed her heart,