Does he even know what he’s saying?
“Until…you realize what this all means, and the truth hits you, too. Then you won’t be mine.”
He straightens and stares me down. “What are you saying that for, Anastasia?”
I can’t even bear to hear him call me that. By that name. I would even prefer one of the endearments he christened me with. Valkyrie. Or baby girl. Anything.
“It’s true. You took Uther Sidorov’s daughter. Your enemy. If I’m not her, then you have the wrong girl, and the appeal of it is gone. All you’re left with is me. When you go back to sea, you’ll most likely make that your new home, and I will never see you again.” I hate the way my voice shakes then breaks. And the tear that slides down my cheek.
I go to wipe the tear away, but he reaches out and does it for me.
The gesture brings more tears, and my heart warms when he kisses them away, then kisses me softly at first, then hard and desperate.
So desperate he awakens my own need and desire for him.
He grabs my waist and lifts me onto him, then picks me up so I can wrap my legs around him.
Desmier carries me back to bed, still kissing me in that devouring way I’ve grown used to. It makes my body come alive with spell-binding pleasure as the sensation sizzles through every part of me.
Thrills rush through my nerves when he sets me down on the bed and pulls off my nightshirt, leaving me in just my panties, which he rolls down my legs with that wicked smile he first used to charm me out of my dignity.
Now that I think back, he hardly had to do anything to charm me.
I was always his. Right from the moment we first saw each other.
I’m aware he hasn’t said anything, but I want this moment so badly that I don’t care. And while it would break me, if all we had was this moment where I could be with him as my husband one last time, I’d take it.
He lays me out on the bed and trails fiery kisses over my body, pausing to suck my hard nipples and lick and suck my clit.
When he has me moaning, he returns to my lips, and I taste myself on his mouth.
Moving to my ear, he licks the lobes. His warm breath strokes my skin, taming the fire into submission.
“Want to know how I feel about you?” he finally speaks. “Let me show you, my Valkyrie. Let me fuck the confusion and the pain and the sadness out of your system. Then you’ll know where my heart lies.”
My breath catches, stalling my senses, wrapping me in the protection of his words. I watch him take off his boxers, part my legs, then grab my hips to ram his cock into me.
The force is so strong I arch off the bed and cry out. Not in pain, but in pleasure. So much pleasure I’m robbed of every breath in my lungs.
My heart beats wildly, vibrating throughout my body in its own symphony until I’m lost in him and this moment where he’s making me feel him.
He starts pounding into my body, fucking me deeper into the sensation. I feel him everywhere. Inside and outside of me, fracturing time and reality so nothing matters but us.
He takes me higher and higher with every secret part of me screaming for more.
I give myself to him, and he gives himself to me. We’re no longer stealing; we’re giving and taking equally. It’s mindless ecstasy I want to remember forever.
The blissful pleasure turns to liquid fire, and I come hard and scream his name, pulling him under, too.
The savage energy burns between us, forcing another orgasm from my body as his furious pumps slow. When our breathing calms, he lowers himself on top of me and searches my eyes like he’s looking for me inside this shell of a body I borrowed.
The longer he looks, the more I worry it’s because he can’t find the woman he married. But he cups my face with the gentlest touch and presses his forehead to mine.
He brushes his lips over mine and meets my gaze again.
“I have loved you since the first time I saw you.” His voice holds a reverence I never thought possible from him, and his words fill me with everything I’ve wanted. “Love will always lead me back to you, because you are my home. And wherever I go, on land or sea, you will always be at my side and in my heart. I belong to you, Valkyrie.”
Elation reinvigorates my soul, and the tears that come now aren’t caused by pain but by love pouring from my heart.