with your hands tied behind your back. You’re a queen that will go down in the history books, and I’m proud I can say I was your king.”
Tears pooled in her eyes and he frowned and cupped her face in his big hands.
“Wait. Why are you crying? I was trying to compliment you.”
“I’m crying because your words feel as good as any praise I’ve ever gotten in my lifetime,” she said peevishly. “I’ve worked my ass off and you can just show up, tell me you’re proud, and make me feel as good as all that hard work and toil. What a scam!”
She let out a shaky laugh and Sanyu joined her.
“Earlier I told you I knew of only one True Queen, but all of the former queens were. They were all important in some way, and Musoke and my father’s deciding their value was as unfair as Musoke deciding mine. But . . .” He moved forward so the bulk of him was between her thighs and his face was close to hers. “You are both a True Queen and my queen. That is why I told the advisors to stop looking for the next bride. That is why I didn’t want to marry anyone else.”
“Sanyu?” Shanti placed her hands carefully on either side of his neck, and felt his pulse thrumming beneath her palms.
He was gazing at her with so much admiration in his eyes that she almost couldn’t hold his gaze. “I appreciate our teamwork, but I clearly need to get better at that and don’t want there to be any confusion while I do. I love you, and I want you to stay with me. As Shanti, as Queen Shanti, as everything you are whether it’s useful to me and this kingdom or not.”
The clouds above them parted and the brightness of the moon and the stars bathed him in silver-blue light. Shanti knew a sign from her goddesses, Thesoloian and Njazan both, when she saw it.
She smiled and slid her hands up to his ears, cradling his head. “Are you sure? You know I’m not going to be easy to get rid of if you change your mind. Once I’ve had a taste of power, and of you, it’ll be hard to give up.”
“I’m sure,” he said, laughing. “But you should take some time to decide. I know you had to make a spur-of-the-moment decision when you got the notification from RoyalMatch.com and I don’t want you to have any regrets this time.” His hands went up to rest on her thighs, draped over the hem of her nightgown. “And? I want to woo you, Wife. I want to make you love me.”
“But I already lo—”
Her words were cut off by a kiss from Sanyu, hungry and tender and exactly what she needed. His tongue caressed her lips then parted them, and his hands undid the sash of her bathrobe at her waist.
“Don’t say it yet,” he said when the kiss finally broke. “I want to work for it.”
“Why?” she asked. “You don’t have to—what I feel isn’t conditional, Sanyu. I know you grew up differently, but you don’t have to work for my love. I told you I don’t barter for affection.”
“I want to because . . . well, maybe I do need therapy,” he laughed, his eyes bright with mirth again. “But mostly because you deserve someone willing to work to have you. Our being already married doesn’t change that.”
“It does,” she said. “We can’t go back and have a normal courtship, and that’s okay. What is normal anyway?”
Sanyu was rubbing his hands back and forth over her legs and looking into her eyes so intently—looking at her like he had for months. It had never been hate—it’d always been desire.
“I don’t care about normal,” he said gruffly. “I was lucky enough to land the most amazing woman in the world by total chance and I didn’t tell her that for months. If you stay, it’ll be not because I want you to, but because you’re choosing to. I’m going to work as hard at making sure you keep choosing to stay as I do at improving my subjects’ lives.”
“Oh goddess,” she said, her face warm and her body warmer. “You’re off to a fantastic start. And you know I wouldn’t just say that to make you feel better.”
His hands moved up her thighs, pushing up her nightgown. “By the way, what you said about having a taste meaning it won’t be easy