4
SHE TREMBLED AS HE slid his fingers beneath the straps of her bra – such a serviceable, simple bra, just plain white cotton with no embellishments or detailing. “You’re cold.”
Her eyes were hooded when they collided with his. “Not at all.”
He frowned. So why was she shaking? Shock? Guilt punched him in the side. He shouldn’t be doing this. Not after the ordeal she’d been through today. But her plaintive statement rang inside his mind – if you’re not interested in me… There’d been such uncertainty in that pronouncement, even when she’d shrouded it in obvious bravado. He’d felt it reverberating off her, as though she truly believed he might not have been fighting a war with his own desires since she’d stripped out of her dress and stood before him in just her underwear, so achingly vulnerable for a reason he couldn’t exactly pinpoint.
It wasn’t that he disapproved of casual sex. Since he’d realised how he’d felt for Laurie, his best friend’s wife, he’d only allowed himself to engage in brief, meaningless affairs, just like this. It was the safest way to avoid giving any woman false hope – and that was something he’d never do. Having known the sting of unrequited love, he never intended for a woman to suffer that feeling because of his actions. One day he’d marry, but that would be a marriage of convenience and his bride would understand those terms.
He had no issue with meaningless sex and yet there was something about Ella that frustrated him – the ease with which she did this, the fact she thought it was good enough, for her.
The sentiment brought a frown to his lips even as he slid the straps of her bra down her arms, tiny goosebumps forming on her flesh as he stripped her of the garment to reveal two perfect, generous breasts. He feasted his eyes on them, pale and creamy with dusky aureoles, the nipples erect and begging for his touch.
“Not cold?” He murmured, lifting a finger and flicking one so she gasped, the plea in her eyes tormenting him with white-hot need.
“No.”
His smile was laced with mockery. “Then what?” He moved his free hand to her other breast, cupping it, feeling the weight of it in his palm, rubbing his calloused thumb over her sensitive nipple, watching the play of emotions dance across her face. Her responsiveness was a heady aphrodisiac and Elon felt some of his legendary control slipping.
“Hot,” she murmured in response, her eyes sweeping shut as she moaned softly, swaying her hips forward so her flat belly connected with his arousal. She blinked up at him, pink in her cheeks as her awareness of his masculine length became obvious.
“Yes, Ella,” he said quiet, dropping his head to nuzzle her neck. “I want you.”
She moaned.
“Can you feel it?” He pushed forward at the same time he clamped a hand around her back, holding her with vice-like strength against him, so she could be in no doubt as to how hard he was for her.
Her answer was a little trill in her throat.
She’d said she wanted to feel alive after what had happened to them, and he felt that too. There was a sense of triumph flaring in his veins at having survived the explosions today, and at having brought her to safety. A primal, animalistic sense of achievement that made him want to rush headlong into this act, regardless of how he might feel when the sun rose.
He ran his hand lower then, into the dip at the small of her back and beneath the elastic of her underpants, cupping her bottom so she gasped and writhed at the simple touch, as though she hadn’t been expecting the intimacy even after pushing them towards this edge.
His laugh was low in his throat. “You act like a shy little virgin.”
She gasped again, a noise he realised he could get addicted to.
“Such a contradiction.” He removed her underpants, sliding them down her legs until she could step out of them, cupping her naked bottom with both hands, holding her pressed against his body and revelling in the sensation of flesh to flesh. He could think of nothing but this woman in that moment. Not her position within the Mosar royal family, not the fact she was the sister of his enemy, he could think of nothing but her softness and curves and sweet little noises.
He liftedher as effortlessly as he had outside the palace, right after the explosion, his strong hands curving around her middle as he carried her to the bed in the corner of the room. It was not large but as he placed her down she felt the softness beneath her back and relaxed into it, surprised that she felt no nerves, no regret – just excitement and desire. Both pounded her from the inside out in equal measure so she was reaching for his shoulders and dragging him towards her, heat in her veins, trust in her heart. His face was over hers, his eyes probing, questioning, and even though she hadn’t heard the question she nodded, because surely ‘yes’ was the only thing she could say in that moment.
His kiss was – strangely – unexpected. It was the first time she’d been kissed and despite having seen hundreds on movies and TV shows, or in the nightclubs she frequented, she was still unprepared for the heat that the touch of his lips to hers could ignite. She whimpered as the force of his lips separated hers and his tongue pushed into her mouth, duelling with hers, flicking her soft, moist flesh until her back was arching and she was crying out at the sheer delirium of that sweet invasion. Her hands ran down his back, her nails drawing stripes on his flesh. His kiss only intensified, his body weight pushing her deeper into the bed, his hips pinning her as his arousal moved between her legs.
There was no time for anxiety. No time to second-guess the path she’d chosen. No time to wonder if she should tell him she’d never done this before after all. They were caught in the path of a freight train. His knee separated her legs and then, as she was caught up in the hypnotic perfection of his mouth’s dominance of hers, he drove into her hard and fast, one thrust pushing away her innocence, sweeping past the invisible barrier so she froze, the pain instant and intense.
She didn’t speak his language but she understood his curse as he muttered it into her mouth before pulling away, his head lifted enough to enable him to stare down accusingly at her, shock obvious in the darkness of his eyes.
But already the pain was dissipating, leaving pleasure and need in its wake, so she shook her head, lifting a hand to his shoulder, trying to pull him back. “Don’t stop.”
He continued to stare at her.
“Please.” And she lifted her hips in a silent, ancient invitation, an intrinsic understanding of how her body needed to move fuelling her movements. He cursed again, his lips a tight line in his face and then he withdrew a little and drove into her once more, more gently at first, his eyes watching her, reading her, his hands running over her body to cup her breasts, her nipples, his eyes always on her face, his body quickly becoming her master, and she his total, willing slave.
Rational thought, awareness, perception all shifted and changed, sliding away as pleasure devoured her completely. Her body was unrecognisable. She was calling out his name, over and over, and it was the first time she’d used it. Until then, he’d been ‘your highness’. She didn’t notice the transgression, and he didn’t care.
Flames were licking the soles of her feet; she was pulsing all over, and her heart felt like it might burst from her chest. Stars filled her eyes, pinpricks of light against the darkness of her lids and she dug her nails into his arms in a futile attempt to anchor herself to some kind of reality. But she couldn’t; it wasn’t possible. She was exploding, every cell in her body flying from her, cosmic dust combining within her as pleasure rung out, and she morphed into something and someone she didn’t recognise.
He watched her through it all, his body stilling as she climaxed, letting her feel every inch of that orgasm, watching her breasts as they moved with the force of her breathing then he shifted again, slowly at first before he increased his movements, showing her how gentle he’d been the first time. Now, he wasn’t gentle. He’d surrendered to his passion completely, and he drove into her so hard and so deep that she cried out, wrapping her legs around him begging him for more even as he filled her so completely. He didn’t stop. His power and possession were absolute. He caught her hands and trapped them easily over her head, pinning them there with one hand while his other roamed her body, twisting her nipples, flicking her flesh until she was almost crying with the force of pleasure he was invoking.