‘Come for me, Lise, forme.’
In this moment,she didn’t care about duty or responsibility. Only the feel of him against her. Rough against smooth. Hard against soft.
‘Rafe!’She shouted his name without shame. Gripping him as the waves of pleasure crashed over her.Her cries reverberating through the room as Rafe captured her mouth in a deep, unrelenting kiss.
Rafe circled the edge of the maelstrom as Lise fell, his body taut and primed only for her. Nothing prepared him for the beauty of her in ecstasy. The glorious flush of pink painted her skin. Her body rigid and panting, possessed by the pleasure of their joining. His mind blanked of anything bar the silken grasp of her body. He kissed her trembling lips, her breaths hard and fast as he thrust into the dark, wet heat at the centre of her.
FinallyLise was his.
Her hands tangled in his hair, the pleasure excruciating. They moved in a dance he knew too well but was nothing like he’d experienced before. Surging forwards, not so gentle now. This all-consuming desire to win, possess, pleasure. Something more than sex, a craving that only she could sate.
The noises she made, soft, mewling sounds. The gasps, the slide of bodies. Her softness under his palms. His own moans as the grip of her drove him wild. The prickle at the base of his spine, the heaviness that told him he was close, so close.
He ran a thumb over her nipple. Took it between his fingers and rolled as she moaned loud and long. A flutter deep inside her and he knew she was close again. He craved her pleasure once more. Pushed her harder, faster. She met him stroke for stroke.
Her body stiffened and grabbed him tight as she arched back. There was no holding on, the edge rushed up and he hurled himself over into the storm that was his wife.
As everything fell back into place around them, she softened into him. Relaxed as he stroked his hands over her silken skin, as the tremors subsided.
‘We’ll spend the day in bed,’ he murmured. His voice unfamiliar to his own ears. Rough and full of lust. A promise of things to come.
‘The whole palace will have heard us.’ Lise whispered the words. He wasn’t sure why, when only moments before she’d screamed his name.
And he craved it. The acknowledgement that they were together now, not just on paper, but in truth. Rafe traced his lips over the shell of her ear. A growl, full of heat and possession so she could never forget this moment.
‘Let the whole palace know you’re mine.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THECOLOURANDlight of the palace’s grandest ballroom swirled around her. People in their finest dresses and most opulent jewels glittered under the glow of pendulous chandeliers. The monarch’s annual ball was one of the most anticipated events on Lauritania’s social calendar. Lise looked around at the decorations, flowers. The food and wine. All she saw was the rivers of money lost on frivolous things when the country’s finances were on a knife edge. Still, the country looked forward to the ball as if it heralded a new beginning. This year, the date signifying the Queen and her people out of official mourning.
Lise took a moment to herself, sipping at her glass of champagne, the bubbles tingling in her mouth.‘Little bubbles of happiness’her mother had called them when Lise was introduced to the drink for the first time on her sixteenth birthday. Still, she wasn’t convinced joy was found in the sparkle of this fine vintage. What did soften the sharp edges was Rafe. She peered over the top of her glass at her husband. Strange how that word now fitted as comfortably as old clothes. Though nothing about him could be described as old, or comfortable. Certainly not the dinner suit exquisitely crafted to mould every hard line of his body. A body that seemed perfectly honed to pleasure hers. Like this afternoon, when she should have been preparing for the ball. Instead, trying on her trousseau, which hadn’t quite made it to the palace collection, despite her initial intentions. She’d wanted to surprise him tonight. Instead, he’d found her in her room. Slipped the cobweb-fine silk and embroidered confection wordlessly over her skin, laid her out on the bed. A flood of heat coursed through her. He’d been insatiable as he’d kissed down her body and she’d threaded her hands through his unruly curls. Her cries ringing through the bedroom as he’d feasted...
‘Your Majesty.’
Lise turned. Put on her formal smile. Ignoring the sliver of disappointment that she couldn’t immerse herself in the memories of the indulgent afternoon any longer. But the night was drawing to a close. Soon she could be in Rafe’s arms again.
‘Prime Minister.’
Whilst it probably wasn’t the done thing to think about Rafe making love to her whilst talking to Hasselbeck, her body wasn’t so keen to keep her libido in the box she attempted to push it back into. Every part of her flushed, hot and needy. All for Rafe. Always for him. His power to make her scream was only matched by his ability to make her laugh again. He’d firmly entrenched himself as her obsession. Her counsel, her rock of support.
‘Your announcement regarding Lauritania’s financial woes seems to have been a success.’
Hasselbeck’s words weren’t meant as a commendation. She dragged herself back into the conversation when he was the last person she wanted to speak to. He’d never rated her, and it was something she wouldn’t easily forget.
‘People will understand the difficult decisions if everyone shares in them. Those who have the most should proportionally bear the greatest burden.’
The prime minister’s face pinched, as if he’d sucked a lemon. He wanted her to fail. She knew it. She glanced at Rafe once more, now holding court with the British ambassador. In complete command of everyone and everything around him. He looked up, their eyes met, and he winked. Another rush of heat licked over her, no doubt pinking her skin. One more black mark on her queenly abilities because queens probably shouldn’t blush. Though Lise wasn’t sure she really cared any more about what she should and shouldn’t do in her role as monarch. She was turning it into her own in ways she’d not thought possible, and Lauritanians seemed to be happy with their new King and Queen...
The prime minister followed her gaze in Rafe’s direction. ‘It seems marriage to His Majesty suits you.’
The media had been fed carefully crafted stories about their relationship. The breathless reporting of a happy union buoying the people. To Lise, that reporting now felt real. She touched her neck where a scrape from Rafe’s stubble lay hidden under concealer. The make-up artist smirking as she’d obliterated the evidence of the afternoon’s lovemaking. She loved Rafe’s marks of possession on her skin. Owning every part of her. She trembled at the ripple of recollected pleasure.
‘It does.’
Hasselbeck leaned in, almost conspiratorially. Lise tried not to shrink away. People were now watching them, and she didn’t need any talk of instability or a rift between her and her prime minister, not when her whole country’s future was at stake. She pasted a fake smile on her face and gulped some champagne.
‘You know he went to school with my son? The De Villiers family always had grand aspirations. His Majesty was the most ambitious, even then.’