Chapter 22 #2
But—oh, goddess, save me!—that was a terrible mistake.
When Gerard’s big, capable hands closed around her sensitive breasts through all the layers of her bodice, they fit as no one else’s hands ever had, as if they had been made to her own personal specifications—made for Lorelei from the very beginning.
Her back arched against her will, and hot sparks shot through her skin in a moment of near-divine revelation.
Had she been looking and waiting for this singular man all along, without realizing?
The twin groans they let out at that shattering moment of contact felt perilously like a shared prayer of gratitude.
Damn it, she was not in love with Gerard de Moireul, no matter what that unyielding force of a man might think.
No matter how right his body felt against hers—no matter how perfectly they fit together as partners both on and off the tournament field—no matter what a subversive delight it was to spark off him in arguments or conversation!
—he had not been made for her, nor she for him.
But it was impossible to make herself focus on that stern reminder when his fingers were exploring her shape with a slow, relentless thoroughness that threatened to destroy her completely. Closing her eyes, Lorelei tipped her head back with a helpless moan of pleasure and despair.
He’d always been much too adept at spotting weaknesses in her armor.
Now, his hungry lips closed around her throat without hesitation, the bristling golden stubble on his cheeks and the delicate scrape of his blunt teeth against her skin making her shiver uncontrollably.
Silk shifted against her chest as he tugged at her bodice; she let out another, embarrassingly raw moan as his warm, calloused palms closed around her newly revealed, bare breasts.
Goddess help her, he was taking her apart! If she didn’t retake control of this encounter soon, she’d end up in a puddle of melted willpower, helplessly agreeing to anything he wanted. It was unthinkable. No, intolerable.
“Enough!” Her voice was a pitifully breathy rasp, but her power swept out without fail, tipping their cradle of vines onto a newly made bed of soft, green grass.
Those vines vanished an instant later, leaving Gerard flat on his back on the fresh greenery before her, covered in golden glitter she didn’t even remember shedding.
The sight was intoxicating enough to make her light-headed, but Lorelei pushed herself up anyway to straddle his waist, while chains of lushly scented, de-thorned roses wound themselves around his outstretched arms and legs to pin him down.
“My turn,” she announced smugly.
His amber gaze fastened on her exposed bosom, which spilled over her loosened bodice as she sat triumphantly over him—and his lips curved with an unexpected wickedness that made her breath catch in her throat.
“I yield,” Gerard said gravely, “and can only hope that the conditions in which you keep your prisoners of war are not too burdensome.”
“Oh, they’re just terrible,” Lorelei assured him.
She tried to keep her expression appropriately stern, but as she met his wicked grin—Gerard de Moireul, of all people, grinning up at her like a rake and playing delicious games in bed!
—she found herself smiling helplessly in return, a years-old knot inside her chest melting in a sudden wave of warmth.
Still, she hardened her voice as she laid down the only law that could allow her to survive the rest of this reckless encounter with her heart unscathed. “From now on, you have to lie back and let me do everything to you.”
His head tilted; rapid calculation shifted across his face.
Before her eyes, despite his prone position and the unbreakable bindings that held him firmly in place, she saw her wickedly amorous captive transform once more into the dangerously brilliant and ruthlessly determined strategist who’d countered her every daring move for seven long years. “We’ll see about that,” he murmured.
Gerard had spent years fantasizing against his will about exactly this situation.
In reality, though, even the sight of her gloriously lush breasts hanging over him—the most mouthwatering of offerings, maddeningly just out of reach—couldn’t blind him to the glaring truth: Lorelei was still running scared.
She wanted to make it clear that this was just another meaningless encounter, no different to her than any others she’d indulged in. She was gambling that, if only she stayed firmly enough in control, she wouldn’t be affected by any of it.
Gerard was more than willing to be sensually tormented by this particular woman … but he would be damned if he let her keep her own emotions out of it.
“Do you know how often I’ve dreamed of you in exactly this position?
” He couldn’t move his arms or legs, but as she sat scandalously astride him, deep instinct drove him to roll his hips, pressing firmly up against her center.
Her lips parted into a silent O, and molten heat flooded through all of his bound limbs, gathering at that single point as he rocked up against her again and again with focused intent.
“Do you … have any notion … of just how you’ve tormented me across the years? ”
She bit down on her generous lower lip, eyes fluttering closed and fingers flexing into fists in the air beside her as if she were grasping for something just out of reach.
“I … think you’re the one tormenting me at the moment.
” A stifled gasp ripped out of her throat as he shifted to a different angle, and her eyes flew open. “Aren’t you supposed to be a virgin?”
“I am inexperienced,” he agreed, “but I know how to pay attention.” He’d been obsessively studying this woman for years. It was a nearly vicious pleasure to learn new nuances of her expressions now as he deliberately tested her reactions to every possible approach.
“Well, maybe I can teach you a few new things.” She fluttered her lashes flirtatiously, and vibrant specks of rainbow glitter showered through the air around him.
They were the fierce, bright colors she used for showing off to the world, not the pure gold she shed by nature whenever passion overcame her—and that observation put him on guard even before she reached down to unbutton the placket of his trousers.
Jovar, keep me strong. He swallowed hard, bracing every muscle as she released him from his confines.
As her soft hands closed around him, shock lanced his body, shooting white fire through his limbs … but he forced his eyes to stay open and fixed on her face.
“Lorelei…” His voice was hoarse, his head a pleasure-blurred jumble, but he still refused to surrender. This was the most vital battle of his life, so he fought for words through the flaming chaos. “This is you. Me. Us, together.”
Her small fingers stilled for one telltale moment before they began to move again, this time working with a firm confidence that left him gasping.
“Well, I am glad you haven’t lost your memory, darling, and forgotten who we are.
But if you can still think clearly enough to speak, I may be doing something wrong. ”
“Don’t need … to think … to know the truth.
” As his back arched against his will, every muscle straining against his floral bonds, Gerard forced his eyes open wider and levered his head up from the impossible grass that made his bed—one more reminder of the jaw-dropping powers of this woman, as if her touch weren’t magical enough—until he was staring directly at his tormenter, meeting her veiled gaze with all of his own shields lowered, emotions open and defenseless.
“I love you … Lorelei. You … love me. It’s like this now … because it’s us. Together.”
She looked momentarily stricken as she wavered in her upright position, swaying closer …
And then she rallied, because this brilliant, headstrong hurricane of a woman would never offer him an easy victory.
“Well, if there’s really only one way to make you finally stop talking…
!” Dropping him a lascivious wink, she rose over him, shifted aside her skirts and petticoat …
and then sank down to take his full length inside her.
Flames shot through him, and his vision whited out.
When he could finally see again, he found Lorelei’s head tipped back in an arc of wordless pleasure, her own eyes closed and their bodies still impossibly, incredibly connected.
Every muscle urged Gerard to move, to power them both towards fulfilment—but he kept himself torturously locked in place, waiting.
Her eyes finally reopened, pupils so dilated that she looked utterly drunk on the sensation of him inside her. As if he were her most powerful intoxicant.
As Gerard met her gaze, he felt their connection in every tingling inch of his skin. “Us,” he gritted out through clenched teeth and shifted his hips in deliberate tandem with his statement.
“Oh, goddess … yes, Sylvana help me, us!” The words came out in a broken moan as Lorelei’s eyes crossed at his move. “But only this once. Do you understand?”
Her inner muscles squeezed tightly around him as she spoke, and he lost his own voice to a new, blazing madness … but he made a silent vow as they battled together towards a fiery completion that laid waste to every careful, logical plan he had ever made for his future.
Not just once, he swore.
Forever.