He reached the bed and didn't stop at the edge. His knee pressed into the silk beside her hip, his damp tunic brushing her bare skin as he leaned over her, one hand flat on the mattress by her shoulder, the other already sliding up her thigh.
His mouth found her throat. Hot. Open. Teeth grazing the pulse point that jumped beneath his lips. She gasped, her hands fisting in his tunic, pulling him down, and he answered by pressing his fingers into the wet heat between her legs.
Still swollen. Still slick from his mouth.
"Adil—"
He drove two fingers inside her without preamble. No teasing. No waiting. Just the sudden stretch, the wet sound of his palm against her, his thumb finding her clit in a circle that matched the hard beat of his heart against her chest.
She bucked into his hand, a sound torn from her throat that she didn't bother to silence. The door was closed. The lock was thrown. No one would hear.
His forehead pressed to hers, his breath ragged against her lips. "You wanted the door unlocked." A statement, not a question. His fingers curled inside her, found the spot that made her see white. "You wanted them to hear."
She couldn't form words. Could only shake against his hand, her nails raking down his back through the damp wool of his tunic.
"Tell me." He didn't slow. Didn't stop. His thumb pressed harder, circles tighter, and she was climbing again, too fast, too soon, her body still trembling from the last time he'd made her come. "Tell me what you wanted."
"I wanted—" Her voice broke. His fingers drove deeper. "I wanted them to know."
He stilled. For one terrible, beautiful second, everything stopped—his hand, his breath, the world.
Then he pulled his fingers out slowly. Deliberately. Brought them to his mouth and licked them clean, his eyes never leaving hers.
"You want them to know I'm the one who makes you scream." Not a question this time. A truth spoken into the space between them, heavy as the crown she wore in daylight.
She should deny it. A queen doesn't admit she wants her captain's name on every servant's tongue, his scent on her skin when she holds court, the knowledge of what he does to her written across her face for anyone who knows how to read it.
"Yes." The word escaped before she could stop it.
Something dark and triumphant flickered in his eyes. He reached for the hem of his tunic and pulled it over his head in one motion, the fabric catching on the breadth of his shoulders before falling to the floor. His chest was damp from the bathhouse steam, the muscles shifting as he moved, and she reached for him without thinking—her palm flat against his sternum, feeling the rapid thunder of his heart beneath her fingers.
He caught her wrist. Pressed her hand harder against his chest. "Then let them know."
He guided her hand down, over the ridges of his stomach, past the waistband of his still-damp trousers, until her fingers found the hard length of him through the fabric. He was thick and hot beneath her touch, and the sound he made when she wrapped her hand around him was low and broken, nothing like the soldier who commanded armies.
"Show me," he said, his voice barely a rasp. "Show me what you want them to know you do to me."