Chapter Six #2
Finally, she and Venediktos could kiss each other the way they had always wanted to, but didn’t. Because they’d agreed they couldn’t.
They had stolen a few kisses here and there, of course, but both of them had been so determined not to cause the faintest whiff of concern about their relationship that their kisses were over almost before they began.
They had been talking about the wedding night for ages.
Finally, they could kiss each other as much as they pleased and for as long as they pleased.
They could touch each other. No one would be telling them to maintain an appropriate distance, to stand up straight, to make sure their faces betrayed no emotion.
She hadn’t been able to imagine what any of that felt like, but she had been certain she would love it. She had also been certain that her excitement was likely the very last thing her mother would wish to hear, as it did not involve her duties, only her desires.
I think I know, she had told her mother, carefully.
Her mother had seemed to sag in relief. Good. That’s very good. What I would tell you, if I were to give you advice on this very last night that I might imagine myself in a position to do so, before you ascend—
And her mother had stopped, and smiled in a way that seemed real, because it was finally happening. The thing that they had all worked toward for so long.
When Aikaterini smiled back, her mother continued. If I could offer any aid at all in the unlikely event it’s needed, I would simply say that whatever happens, you should follow your husband’s lead. And if things are not immediately delightful, expect they will become so in time.
Why would they be anything but delightful? Aikaterini had asked, baffled. She couldn’t think of anything that was better than a kiss from Venediktos.
Except a whole lot more kisses from him, and with no one watching.
Her mother had given her a look, as if considering something. I’m only speaking of possibilities, she had said after a moment. Almost apologetically. With you and the Prince, of course, I am certain there is nothing to worry about.
There hadn’t been. That was the part that she didn’t understand, now, lying on the same bed with all of that dark hazel intensity aimed her way.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she told him, aware that she was frowning at him—but then, he was the one person who she found she did not feel compelled to model her perfect behavior for.
“What I can tell you is that from the moment we were married, Venediktos and I took great delight in the things we did in this bed.”
Maybe she thought that he would react badly to that, but he did not. His eyes crinkled in the corners.
“I only ask that you show me what those things are,” he said, and the fact that he sounded even more patient than before made everything in her seem to stutter a bit.
She should refuse. She told herself that she needed to refuse immediately, get up from this bed, and go to her own rooms at once.
But she had not been raised to disobey the Prince, no matter who he was.
Though even as she had that particularly pious little thought, she knew that wasn’t the reason that she didn’t move.
Aikaterini knew that the real truth was, she wanted to stay. There was that stuttering inside of her. And she felt a deep, compulsive need to understand what he was doing here. What, exactly, he was accusing her of.
But mostly, he had done unspeakable things to her in that car. And she could not bring herself to walk away from him.
That was so shattering, so deeply overwhelming, that she had to move to deal with it. Or she was afraid it would simply tear her apart.
She closed the distance between them, watching that flame in his eyes kindle into a blaze as she moved until she was almost on him. Then she pulled in a breath, and held it. Only then did she gingerly reach out and put her hand on that marvel of a chest.
That rendering of the male form that she had convinced herself must be some kind of marble breastplate—
But it wasn’t. Kyriakos was hot to the touch. So astonishingly hard, but burning bright with heat. She pushed against the wall of him, slightly, and he seemed to understand what she wanted because he immediately rolled to his back.
She slid herself closer still and then she leaned over him, and this all felt very different than when she had done it with Venediktos. It was all off, proportionally. He was so much bigger. So much wider and denser and—
But that wasn’t the point. And there was no sense being missish about this now, because they had kissed in the car. Among the other things they had done in the car, but she focused on the kissing.
Not that kissing this man was anything like kissing Venediktos.
Aikaterini had decided to show him exactly what she and Venediktos had done, and so she did. She leaned over Kyriakos. She settled in. And she kissed him.
His mouth was the same stern temptation it always had been, but she didn’t let herself get carried away. She kissed him once, then again, without all of that licking he liked to do—and even thinking about that made her want to shiver. She repressed it.
Then she lifted her head. “There. Are you satisfied?”
“That’s all you did?”
“Yes, but he didn’t lie there like a tree trunk,” she said, perhaps a bit more sharply than necessary.
Kyriakos didn’t seem to notice. “Show me.”
So she fiddled all around and she pulled his arms into the approximate positions, and she kissed him again. And this time, he kissed her back, though what he did not do was take thrilling control the way he had in the car—
She didn’t want to think about that. And everything that had happened after he’d pulled her onto his lap. The way he’d slid his hand between her legs, so sure, and the way she had simply—
No, she ordered herself. No, you can’t.
And then her virtuousness seemed to be pointless anyway, as he was the one who pulled his head back. Then they were simply lying there. Tangled together.
“This is how it was with the two of you?” he asked, and there was a different sort of shade to his expression, then. She almost thought he seemed…compassionate, for some reason.
That made no sense at all.
“We would kiss and kiss until we fell asleep,” she told him, which wasn’t something she’d ever intended to tell anyone. Much less him. “It was lovely. We always slept like this too, tied up together. We used to call it our royal knot. Is that what you wanted to know?”
He had that same look on his face, and she didn’t like the way it settled in her and seemed to kick. Hard. He brushed her hair back from her face. “Did you do all of this with your clothes on?”
She blew out a breath. “Of course not. We were married. We slept together naked, like married people do.”
“I have an idea,” he rumbled at her, and he tipped her over on to her back, so that this time when he came up over her, he was more above her than beside her. “I want to know what your royal knot looked like. I’m going to show you different configurations. You tell me which ones you and he did.”
Aikaterini felt her cheeks go scalding hot. Her eyes felt flooded with embarrassment. “I don’t understand why this is necessary.”
“I think that you do,” he said, and his voice was solemn. Almost stern, despite that look in his eyes. “I can see that you’re wondering yourself. You know as well as I do that the Princess of Zaccaria should not have been married for five years and yet remain a virgin.”
She scowled at him. “I think your definition of virgin is wrong.”
There was a sort of gleam in his gaze. That was all, and then Kyriakos slid his body over hers. In one smooth motion, he pressed her down into the mattress and then he was sliding his body against hers until he was cradled between her legs.
It was shocking.
Not least because he was so big, so covered in all of those muscles. His thigh muscles alone had more definition than anything she’d ever seen on Venediktos. Or any other man, for that matter.
And yet somehow, instead of crushing her, it was as if her body…softened for him. As if it opened itself wide and found space.
She didn’t understand how that could be true, because surely, bones were simply bones and there was only so much wingspan available. And yet.
But as Aikaterini realized that she could easily accommodate the weight of him and all that muscle and the enormity of his size, she realized something else, too.
There was that huge, hard part of him between them now, and it grew harder with every breath.
In this position, he was pressed up against her so that all of that hardness seemed to be nestled deep between her legs, in her most private parts, where, until tonight, no one without a medical license had ever touched her.
She barely touched that part of her body herself, outside of certain days of the month when it was necessary. Venediktos certainly never had.
She felt a little bit like she might be having a medical event. It was like her whole body was shorting out.
“I take it that he never pressed against you like this,” Kyriakos said, in that calm tone that he’d been using. As if he was not experiencing even the faintest hint of the maelstrom that was ripping through her.
She tried to match his tone. She failed. “I told you. We knew that someday, we would want to have children, and that would be the time to look into such things.”
“But Aikaterini, why didn’t you experiment with those ahead of time?”
She shook her head, not following him. “Why would we?”
He stared at her for a long moment. “You mean that, don’t you?
” He put that to her as if it was a question, but she got the distinct impression that he was not actually asking her.
That it was more of a rhetorical question.
She didn’t really understand that, either.
“Let me ask you this. Did you enjoy what happened in the car?”