Guarded King (Empty Kingdom #3)

Chapter 46

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHLOE

“ I think I’m going to head out,” I tell Sophie.

I’ve done my best to keep my contact with Roman casual for the last two hours, afraid that the desire hanging thick in the air around us would be impossible to miss. My skin still tingles, the dampness of my panties making it impossible to forget what he did and what he promised to do later.

All night, he’s mingled, networking like the professional he is, despite how little he enjoys this kind of thing. People eddy around him, vying for his attention, wanting a moment of his time.

I do too, but in a completely different way.

Each time he interacts with his family, my chest aches. The sight of him standing there next to his brothers and their partners only highlights how alone he is. Even his mom brought a date, I think. The dark-haired man with a smile wreathing his face hasn’t left her side all night.

I wish I could stand next to him, soak in his warmth, stretch up and press a kiss to his lips. But I can’t. And while I more than understand the reasons, it’s only now setting in the difficulty we’ll face as we continue to hide this.

For me, at least.

Dinner wrapped up an hour ago. After, the items from the charity auction went for jaw-dropping amounts. I’d be slightly scandalized if the money raised wasn’t going to a good cause.

Since then, Sophie and I have been dancing. I’d almost forgotten how fun it is to let go and enjoy myself. Knowing Dad’s being cared for at home means I can focus on the here and now.

As the evening has gone on, though, my mind has firmly set itself on… other things.

Sophie fans her flushed face. “Are you sure? There’ll be at least another hour of dancing and free alcohol to indulge in.”

I laugh. “It’s tempting, but I don’t think my feet can take much more. And if I have one more champagne, I’ll officially move past tipsy. I don’t think getting drunk at a work event is a good idea.”

With a wicked smile, she grasps my wrist and leans in. Her eyes are bright, if a little glassy, like she’s also one champagne away from passing the point of no return. “Are you going to tell me who you’re meeting up with when you leave?”

My stomach twinges. “What makes you think I’m meeting up with anyone?”

With a tug of my arm, she pulls me out of the way of the other dancers, leading me to a quiet spot near the bar.

“You made it clear that you wouldn’t be riding home with me, and the only reason for you to be so adamant about that is if you’re not going straight home.” She waggles her brows. “So am I right? Are you seeing someone? And if you are, why haven’t you given me all the details?”

I shift on my feet. “It’s very new, and… I’m not sure it’s going anywhere yet. I don’t want to jinx it.” It’s the same thing I’ve been telling Dad and Carol whenever they ask about my new boyfriend.

Brow arched, she assesses me as if she’s dissecting my every word. Am I being completely obvious? Can she tell what I’m hiding? Nerves send my pulse skyrocketing and nausea roils in my belly. I hate lying to her. Even though what I told her is technically true.

Her lips turn down in a pout, but she relents. “I get it. But I want to hear all about this mystery man as soon as you’re ready to talk about him.”

I nod. “Are you going to be okay getting home?”

She holds up the clutch housing her phone. “My Uber is already booked.” Then she gives me a hug, turns me by my shoulders, and points me at the exit. “Now go show your man how gorgeous you look.”

With a squeeze to my arms, she spins and saunters back onto the dance floor.

I’m smiling as I cross the ballroom, so thankful to have such an incredible new friend in my life.

As I approach the doors that lead out into the hotel, I pull my cell out of my clutch and, as agreed, message Roman.

I’m leaving now. I’ll see you back at your place.

I won’t be far behind you. When I get there, I want you on my bed in nothing but your panties.

An almost violent shiver races through me, and I feel that familiar clench low in my belly. I scan the room for him, spotting him standing with two beautiful women.

One of them puts her hand on his arm, causing my steps to falter for a moment. Roman smiles politely at her, then turns away, forcing her hand to drop. My heart is sinking back into my chest when my phone beeps.

Go home, sweetheart. I can’t think of anything but filling you up.

I’ll be waiting.

His eyes find mine in a flash of gray, the intensity of the look enough to cut through the space between us.

I pick up my pace, desperate to get home and strip down for him.

I arrange for an Uber of my own, and within minutes I’m in a car heading to his penthouse. Slumped back against the seat, I close my eyes and will my racing heart to steady. My skin is hot and tight, and my body is achy with need. Desire for what’s to come burns low in my belly.

By the time I step into Roman’s apartment, I’m having to fight the urge to sprint to his room, shedding my shoes and clothes along the way.

Though it takes a lot of willpower, I manage to walk through the apartment with measured calm, slip out of my beautiful dress, and drape it neatly over the back of a chair. I pad to his big bed and lie down, my heart drumming an excited beat while anticipation curls low in my stomach.

Fifteen minutes later, the elevator dings, then the deliberate pace of shoes across the wooden floor reaches me.

Just the sound of his approach has my nipples tightening and my breaths coming faster. I turn my head, eager for the first sight of him.

I’m not prepared when he appears in the doorway, so tall and dark and forbidding.

He’s already shed his jacket, and his lips are curled in a wolfish smile while he takes me in. My core clenches in response.

As he stalks toward me, he tugs at his bow tie until it hangs loose around his throat. When he reaches the end of the bed, he stops and stares down at me.

“Look at you,” he murmurs.

Goose bumps erupt over my skin at his slow perusal.

He drags the tie from his neck and drops it to the ground. “Spread your legs.”

Pulse racing, I obey, bringing my knees up before letting them drop to the side.

Though his movements are leisurely as he works at the buttons of his shirt, the look in his eye and the tic in his jaw are anything but.

“I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.” He shrugs his shirt off his shoulders. “All night, I counted down the minutes until I could get you here, in my bed.”

“I had fun.” My voice wavers with need.

He hits me with a wicked smirk. “I know. I watched you have fun all night. Now it’s my turn. Slide your hand into your panties and show me how wet you are.”

I tease the edge of my panties with my fingers, and when his eyes flare in response, heat pools in my belly.

“Keep going.”

Slowly, I slip my hand underneath the delicate material and into my slick heat. As I graze my clit, my lashes flutter of their own accord. As much as I want to linger there, I keep going, gathering my arousal then holding my fingers up so he can see how they glisten.

He groans, the sound vibrating over my skin. “You always make such a pretty mess for me.”

Without bothering to take off his pants, he drops to his knees on the mattress between my legs and grips my wrist.

“Don’t want this to go to waste.”

Instead of sliding my wet fingers into his mouth like I expect, he directs them to my chest and drags them over my nipple, teasing it to a hard point as he paints it with my arousal.

Then his lips are there, engulfing the tight peak and sucking. The sensation sends a bolt of electricity straight to my clit, pulling a gasp from me and causing my back to arch off the bed.

“You taste so fucking good, sweetheart.”

“Roman,” I moan, clutching at his hair.

He moves over me then, kissing me, sharing my taste and his. His tongue thrusts deep, stealing my breath and my mind.

With shaky hands, I fumble with his belt buckle, desperate to touch him.

He pulls away before I can unfasten it and stands. With far more ease, he works it open and pulls it free. Next comes the zipper. Then his pants slip down his hips. When he’s in nothing but a pair of tight black boxer briefs, he climbs back onto the bed and shoves his hand into my panties, sliding one finger into me.

“You’re still soaking. Have you been thinking about this all night?”

My entire body is on fire. “You know I have.”

As he slips a second finger inside me, he lowers his head and teases my nipples again, sucking and licking until they’re diamond-hard points.

He pumps into me while pressing his thumb against my clit. Before I know it, I’m bucking my hips as waves of pleasure crash over me.

I’m still coming back to earth when he wraps my thong around his fist and snaps the fabric. “Now show me how wide you can spread for me.”

I let my knees fall open again, reveling in his responding growl. Focus fixed on my center, he lowers himself, using his shoulders to force my legs wider. The first swipe of his tongue drags a whimper out of me. I’m so damn sensitive, and the thrusts of his tongue into me, followed by long licks from my entrance to my clit, push me dangerously close to another orgasm.

Head still buried between my thighs, he finds one nipple, pinching and tugging as he laps at me. “Come for me one more time, sweetheart. Then I’ll fill this gorgeous cunt with my cum.”

I bury my hands in his hair and pull. “I want that. I want to feel you. All of you.”

He slides two fingers back into me, pumping and curling them, and instantly, I tighten around him.

Raising his head, his eyes burn into me. “That’s it. Ride my hand. Make yourself come.”

I buck up into him, the pleasure building fast. When he sucks on my clit and flicks his tongue over it, an orgasm drags me under again. I’m still spasming when he presses the broad head of his cock against me and forces his way in through the pulses.

I cry out, the sensation too raw and powerful.

“You take me so fucking well, Chloe. But I have more for you. Now relax and open for me.”

“I’m trying,” I gasp.

He grips my ankles and holds my legs up and out, using them to tilt my hips as he pulls out and slams back in two more times.

When he finally bottoms out, we both groan. The pressure inside me and pressed against my center is overwhelming. Neither of us moves for a moment, and ridiculously, I find myself near tears.

I blink them away, not wanting to ruin this moment.

I should know better than to think I can hide anything from him. The skin around his eyes tightens. “Did I hurt you?”

I shake my head a little wildly, scared he might pull out and leave me empty. “It feels so good. You feel so good inside me.”

Expression relaxing, he rocks into me, his strokes languid. “Your beautiful little cunt is so hot and wet. I don’t want this to end.”

At this angle, with him still holding my ankles, he hits deeper than ever before. Every stroke sends sparks crackling along my nerve endings.

But I need more. I love when he loses control, and that’s what I want now. “Please,” I beg. “I can’t take it. Make me come, Roman. Fill me up.”

He pulls almost all the way out, his eyes going dark and stormy, then drives back in. Again and again, he powers into me. All I can do is hang on and savor the sensations rushing through me.

Every thrust, every time he forces my body to yield to his, every harsh grunt builds me higher. Sweat slicks his skin and mine and I’m trembling under his onslaught.

“You’re getting so fucking tight.” Every muscle in his neck and shoulders are pulled taut. “Your pussy’s clamping down around me, trying to suck the cum out of me.”

I bow my back, lifting my hips as best I can to meet his thrusts.

“You want to come on my cock?”

“Y-yes.” The single word is almost a sob.

He angles my legs wider, focusing on where I’m stretched around him.

“Your needy little clit is all swollen. Touch it and make yourself come.”

With a mind of its own, my hand flies to between my thighs, but I skirt that sensitive bundle of nerves and go straight to where we’re joined. Circling his girth with my fingers, I squeeze, reveling in his almost pained expression.

“You’re playing with fire, sweetheart,” he grits out.

The threat just drives the flames higher. I turn my focus to my clit, swirling over it, and instantly, sparks of pleasure ignite, spiraling out from my core. It only takes a few tight little circles before the orgasm tears through me and I cry out, my spine pulling into a taut bow as all my muscles seize.

Roman throws back his head, letting go of my ankles and gripping my hips, his fingers digging into me as he bottoms out. His release throbs deep within me, every spurt, hot and thick, coating my insides. The thrill of it makes me spasm again, and with a curse, he pulls out only to slam back into me.

When the last quake of my orgasm rocks through me, he loosens his hold, but he doesn’t let me go, and he doesn’t pull out.

Instead, he grinds into me, against my ultra-sensitive clit, making me squirm beneath him.

“I’m still fucking hard.” He gives a shallow thrust to prove it. “This is what you do to me.” He thrusts again.

Tremors radiate from low in my belly, spreading out along my limbs.

“You were made for me to fuck, weren’t you?” His voice is low and deep and dirty. But a thread of something more weaves through it. A deeper meaning that tugs at my chest and makes me want to hold him close and never let go.

He presses down on me, his mouth finding mine, all the while moving inside me. It’s hot and hard and desperate and full of need at the same time.

“Roman…” It’s barely a whisper against his lips.

He cradles my head, his gray eyes holding me hostage.

It’s too intense—how he’s watching me, the expression on his face. He looks at me as if I’m precious, his body moving over me the way I imagined for so many months, his cum leaking out of me even as he continues to rock into me.

His next thrust is more powerful. “Do you know all the things I want to do to you?”

I shake my head. The move makes me dizzy. The pleasure coiling deep inside me disorienting.

“I want to tie you to my bed and lick your sweet pussy until you beg me to stop. I want to fuck your mouth until tears run down your face. I want to feel you come with my cock buried deep in your ass. I’m fucking desperate for everything. And imagining all the things I can do to you makes me so damn hard.”

He picks up speed again, fucking me harder and harder, until I’m almost delirious and sobbing for relief.

“I just filled you up and I’m going to do it again. That’s how much you affect me.”

The tension in my core coils tighter. I’m close too. His words, his body, him, it all pushes me to the edge.

He stops abruptly, and I cry out in protest.

His eyes glitter dangerously. “I bought something.” Without pulling out, he reaches across the bed and yanks the drawer of his bedside table open.

I shiver when I see it. It’s one of those suction vibrators. God, I don’t know how I’ll survive what he’s planning.

“Hands above your head,” he demands.

I comply immediately, desperate for every sensation he can give me.

“Good girl.” He swipes his thumb around where he still fills me and smears a combination of his cum and my arousal over my clit.

I jerk, and he chuckles darkly in response, turning on the toy and placing it lightly over the already over-stimulated bundle of nerves.

“Oh my god.” I fist my hands into the bed covers above my head to keep from grasping his forearms and digging my nails into his flesh.

His eyes turn stormy, and his throat works with a hard swallow. “I fantasize about fucking you all the damn time. I want you full of my cum every hour of the day. But I can’t have that, so every time I get to fill you up, I’m going to make sure we both feel it for days.”

With that, he turns the toy up higher, and with a flex of his hips, he spears back into me.

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you look like this? Your body under mine, your cunt swollen and dripping.” He runs the tips of his fingers over the curve of my hip. “You already have a full load of me, but you need more, don’t you?”

“Yes, god yes.” The toy is unnecessary. His words alone are enough to send me hurtling toward yet another release.

“Then fucking take it.” He slams all the way in, pressing so hard against the end of my channel I’m awash with both pain and pleasure. At the same time, he dials the toy up another level, and I shatter.

The resulting orgasm is like an electric shock to my system. I can’t breathe, and sparks dance behind my eyes as my body spasms. My internal muscles clamp down on him so hard I’d worry about hurting him, except the feral groan he lets out is all pleasure.

He swells inside me, then comes again. Each throb of his cock presses against my sensitive flesh, driving me higher, dragging out my climax. Our bodies work in sync, my channel milking his shaft, claiming every drop of him.

I’ve never experienced anything like it. And by the way he crashes his mouth to mine in a violent claiming, my name a desperate vibration against my lips, I don’t think he has either.

I can’t stop shaking, and as he throws the toy to the mattress and sinks his fingers into my hair, holding my head still for his possession, I swear he trembles too.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he murmurs between heated kisses. “Everything, Chloe. Everything about you. You’re even more beautiful when you have two loads of my cum dripping out of you.”

My heart thrashes against my ribs. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. How can he be so dirty and so tender at the same time?

What we have is incredible. All but the secretive nature of it. As good as we are together, to the rest of the world, there is no us.

A pinprick of uncertainty pierces through the haze of warmth filling me, but I ignore it.

Here, now, Roman belongs to me.

I press against him, and when he pulls back, I twist from under him and roll so that I’m sitting on top.

He gazes up at me, eyes half-lidded, mouth curved in a smile I’ve only ever seen him give me.

I trail my fingertip over his sternum. “My turn.”

“I think I’m dehydrated.” I fan myself as I lie flat on my back. My heartbeat is only just returning to normal after my last orgasm.

“There are bottles of water in the fridge,” he says, splayed out beside me. “I’ll get us some.”

He tenses, like he’s going to get up, but I put a hand on his abdomen to stop him. “I’ll get them.”

I climb out of the bed, and, still feeling a little self-conscious about waltzing through his apartment completely naked, look for something to cover myself up with.

“Here.” He leans over the side of the bed and tosses his discarded shirt to me. “Put that on.”

With a grateful smile, I slip my arms into the sleeves and do up a couple of the middle buttons.

“You look good in my clothes.” His voice is gravelly.

I turn toward him, and find he’s rolled over. He’s lying on his stomach now, chin pressed to his bicep and the sheet barely draped over his ass so that the long, lean line of his back is exposed. The way he’s looking at me, his eyes dark and possessive, kicks my heart into overdrive.

A faint smile plays on his lips. “What?”

It isn’t until he speaks again that I realize I’m staring. He looks so relaxed, so content just to be in this moment. Suddenly, I want to capture it, to hold it close when doubts about what we’re doing creep in. Those times when I worry that all of this will dissolve, and I’ll be left with nothing but memories.

It’s happened more than once since he told me about his history with Katherine. After being so thoroughly betrayed by his wife, would Roman even consider a permanent relationship?

And as painful as that thought is, I can’t imagine I’ll ever want to forget seeing him like this.

“Do you have pencils? Paper?”

He starts to push himself up, but I throw out a hand to stop him.

“Please don’t move.”

He arches his brows, but without argument, he settles again. “In my office.”

My heart races, and excitement unfurls in my stomach. “Don’t move. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I dart out of the room and scrounge up a blank notepad and pencil in his office. On the way back, I detour to the kitchen and snag a couple of water bottles from his huge fridge. When I return, I find him just where I left him.

After putting the bottles on the side table, I fling myself back onto the bed.

He frowns over at me. “What are you doing?”

I bite my lip and look back at him through my lashes. “Memorializing.”

“Memorializing,” he repeats quietly.

“Mm-hmm.” I cross my legs, and since I’m only wearing his partly buttoned shirt with no panties, his focus drops straight to the spot between my legs.

A laugh bubbles out of me. “Don’t get distracted.” Considering how many times we’ve both come tonight, I’d think he’d be satiated by now.

“How am I supposed to help myself?” he growls. “You’re making me hungry.”

I ignore my own renewed spark of desire. “You can eat later.”

Instinct kicks in, and my hand moves across the paper. I’m rusty. I haven’t done anything like this in a long time, and this pencil isn’t a proper sketching pencil. Even so, it feels good. As I continue, outlining the shape of his eyes and the angle of his jaw, muscle memory kicks in and I loosen up.

He’s watching me. Every time I look up from the paper, his wolf-gray eyes are roaming over my face.

I’ve picked up speed, capturing the straight line of his nose and the curve of his lips with ease. Then I move on to the way a dark lock of hair hangs over his forehead and the muscled slope of his shoulder.

Fifteen minutes later, I put the pencil down on the bed next to me and hold the notepad in both hands, studying what I’ve drawn. It’s rough, but considering it’s the first portrait I’ve attempted in years, I’m happy with it.

More than happy. Looking at it makes me feel… light.

I smile at him. “You can move now.”

He rolls over and props himself up against the headboard. “Can I see?”

My breath catches. If I show him, will I be revealing more of how I feel about him than I’m comfortable with?

Though nerves skitter through me, I take a deep breath and turn the notepad around.

He stares at it, his brows pulling together.

My chest tightens. “It’s not perfect?—”

He shakes his head, cutting me off. “Come here.”

I put the notepad down and scoot closer.

When I’m within arm’s reach, he brackets my waist and lifts me until I’m straddling him. “It’s incredible. I look happy.” His mouth twists. “I wasn’t sure what that expression looked like on my face.”

My heart swells. “It’s my favorite expression.” I press my lips to his and wind my arms around his neck, my own hunger returning.

He slides his hands up my thighs and under his shirt. Then he flips me onto my back with ease and shoulders his way between my legs. “You promised me I could eat later. So give me what I want and come on my mouth like a good fucking girl.”