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Chapter Fifteen

L ottie had played a lot of games in her time, but never one quite like this. The stakes were global, the upheaval was international and the deals ran into the billions. The target was the most intelligent, untouchable woman on the planet.

And yet, somehow, it was all slotting into place.

Bili had handled the Saudi and cleared Malik’s superyacht for Lottie’s pièce de résistance, and now here she was, being led through the actual Palace of Azzouan by the very woman she’d been sent to manipulate.

Gold fucking star to Lottie Finch. The Nightingale was going to be in her debt.

Except Lottie was no longer sure that was what she wanted.

Zynara moved ahead of her, the remnants of her regal act still clinging to her shoulders even as she tugged at Lottie’s hand with urgency in her fingers.

She’d barely looked at Lottie since they’d entered the palace.

She’d nodded to security, but then led her through the maze of corridors and courtyards.

The palace was beautiful, but Lottie didn’t see it at all.

She was watching Zynara—her face chiselled in the shadows with the flicker of fire in calculating eyes.

They stopped in front of a heavy wooden door, probably a few hundred years old, but Zynara simply put her hands to it and pushed. She didn’t meet Lottie’s eyes. She was being crisp and icy again—but Lottie could feel the heat that was burning between them.

Lottie knew what was going on.

The Qasira wanted her, and she didn’t want to show it.

And that was so incredibly erotic it made Lottie want to fall to her feet and give her everything, except she knew it would be loads more fun if she let Zynara take it.

Lottie leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, and tilted her head. “You know,” she murmured, “if you want me to believe this is just sex, you’ve got to stop doing this. Three times. The others will get jealous.”

“You’re lucky I don’t whip you pink for your insolence.”

“Third time lucky.” Lottie smirked and stepped closer. “You keep taking me home.”

“This is the guest wing.”

“In the palace . Like it isn’t yours. Like you didn’t build that tower in the city. Like you don’t own the country. Everywhere you take me, Zynara, is home. I like going home with you.”

Zynara swallowed. Something ticked in her jaw.

Lottie laid a palm on Zynara’s cheek. “I’ll say it again, though. It’s okay to want this.”

There was one long moment while Zynara’s expression stalled and she looked so beautiful and so desperate—as if she’d spent far too much of her life living up to duties and responsibilities and had forgotten how to live.

Lottie couldn’t decide whether to wrap her up in her arms and cradle the poor woman’s granite heart, or seize her hand and fly across the world with her and chase the sun til neither of them could breathe for laughing.

Zynara realised she was being watched. Her exasperated eye roll blasted through Lottie’s veins like rocket fuel and she utterly failed to smother a giggle when the woman finally broke.

“Lottie Finch, you drive me insane. I want you naked—now—and on that bed in there waiting for me on your knees like a good girl. I think it’s time to teach you how to properly respect your Qasira—”

Lottie squealed in triumph and tore into the room.

Zynara knew she was being played.

There were precious few who had the courage to meet the Qasira as an equal—inside or outside of the bedroom.

There was also a difference between being cute and brattish in the way most of her brother’s harem women seemed to be, and truly possessing the natural submission that was shining out of Lottie right now.

The fact that Lottie Finch bundled it all up with brazen impertinence and something that felt awfully like friendship made it all the more delicious.

She knew she should be careful, but Zynara was becoming rapidly aware that there was something about this woman that shook her caution to the ground.

Especially when she knelt like that on the end of the bed, naked to the world, and watched Zynara with eyes like pools—eyes that would be so easy to drown in.

Especially when she smiled that damn cheeky smile.

Especially— fuck —with those curls that had Zynara’s fingers itching, those breasts that rose and fell on her breath, those thighs she wanted to thrust open and kiss, bite, devour her way to their nexus just to feel them tremble and shudder beneath her.

She wanted to hear Lottie moan so hard it turned all the sass into those soft, gentle sighs that Zynara liked just as much.

If Lottie Finch was playing a game with her, Zynara was very close to not caring if she won or lost.

But one look at the woman all eager and luscious on her knees and Zynara knew her role remained. If it was a game, it was one they both liked playing.

“What should I do with you?” she mused, dragging her eyes over her as slowly as she liked. She watched her lofty attitude crinkle the woman’s skin in a flood of goosebumps. Watched her clench her thighs and wriggle as she knelt there. Watched her dig her teeth into her lower lip.

Gorgeous .

And then, right on cue, it came. The cheeky grin, the flash in her eyes, the deliberate desire to get in as much trouble as she could, just so Zynara could spank it away.

“I can think of a few things.”

She was perfect.

Zynara smiled viciously. She let the tension build, let it crackle like dry air before a desert storm.

“Oh, you can , can you?” she murmured.

Lottie’s grin widened. Zynara wanted to smudge that lipstick with a filthy hard kiss, tangle her fingers in that glorious hair.

“I’ve got a very creative mind.” Lottie tipped her head coyly. “Just think what you could do with it. Endless imagination.”

Zynara stepped forward, deliberately slow. Her heels clicked against the floor like a countdown. Lottie’s eyes darkened, her pupils blowing wide. Her breath stuttered and hitched.

“No,” Zynara said. She stopped right in front of her. “I think I’ll use mine.”

Lottie tossed her head, still trying to own the moment, but Zynara reached out. She caught her chin and held her still.

“You’re so clever,” she whispered, her mouth close to her ear. “Always three steps ahead. Always playing the game. But not here. Not now. Don’t you dare try to play with me.”

She dragged Lottie’s lower lip down with her thumb. Lottie panted, flushed, lust burning in her eyes like flames. She was just about to take Zynara’s thumb in her mouth when Zynara gently slapped her cheek.

There was a moan. Lottie looked surprised to realise it was her.

“Now,” Zynara said, slowly unfastening the first button of her shirt, “now you will do as you’re told.”

She smirked and watched Lottie’s soul leave her body.

This was going to be fun.

She held Lottie’s wrists above her head and pressed them into the pillows.

“They stay there,” she ordered. “Move your hands without my permission and you will regret it very much indeed.”

The woman actually writhed between Zynara’s thighs.

She was stretched out in the centre of the bed and Zynara crawled over her, both of them revelling in the touch of their skin.

Feeling the helpless cant of Lottie’s hips beneath her own was winding Zynara up dangerously fast. Looking down at her with her arms above her head, her breasts heaving— Fuck.

Zynara let go of her wrists.

Naturally, Lottie immediately tested her authority.

She reached for Zynara’s hip—and Zynara felt herself grin. She stifled it and twisted Lottie’s nipple instead.

“Uggghhh.”

Her back arched.

“What did I say?”

Lottie’s hand snapped back into position over her head.

“Good girl.” Zynara bared her teeth. “Now I want to hear you, my little songbird. Don’t hold back.” She dropped her mouth to one lush breast, squeezed the other at the same time, and almost laughed at the moan that spilled out. Lottie arched between her thighs and Zynara was drunk on it.

There was so much softness under her lips.

Zynara kissed, bit and dragged her tongue over mind-bending curves.

Lottie pushed up into her mouth and Zynara delighted in holding her down.

She sucked at a nipple, devouring and taking, tasting need and urgency, and knowing she was being given something beautiful.

She pressed hard with her tongue, nipped with her teeth—then simply dug her fingers into that gorgeous gentleness, marvelling at how artifice and guile surrendered to her touch, how all this was hers to play with, to command and control.

She grinded down on the legs between her thighs and Lottie moaned again.

She was quite a vocal little thing once Zynara got her going.

She kissed the amazing spot between her breasts, then sat up and watched her squirm.

“Don’t stop,” Lottie begged.

Zynara raised an eyebrow.

“Qasira! Don’t stop, Qasira.”

“I don’t intend to.” She crawled off Lottie’s hips and slapped her thigh—and adored how Lottie’s eyes rolled back as she did. “Open.”

Lottie spread her legs and then locked them around Zynara’s back when she slotted in between them. They fit perfectly. They felt so right .

But there was so much to do before Zynara contemplated that.

She placed her palms on the undersides of Lottie’s thighs and pushed them high.

Her core opened to her—a tangle of curls as riotous as her hair, and a glistening heat within.

She intended to leave a series of bruises on the insides of those thighs and torture the girl until she was begging, but it turned out the only thing that matched Lottie’s cheek was Zynara’s impatience.

She ran two fingers slowly through Lottie’s cunt.

Fuck . She was soaked.

She was hot—burning silk and a smooth, wet fire, and so much more— so much more than Zynara had ever imagined might be hers.

And the gasp she made? The way her back arched and her thighs fell open even wider. She was an invitation. She was sublime. She was—

She was looking at Zynara over the magnificent rise of her breasts and she was desperate.