Chapter Twelve #2
Her breath hitched. Her eyes widened. Her pink lips parted on a gasp. And it was all the encouragement he needed, any glimmer of doubt that he was doing the wrong thing disappeared in less than a puff of smoke. His hands moved from her shoulders to skim her back and wrap her in his embrace.
His lips met hers. Softly at first, drinking in the sweetness of her mouth, tasting the salt of her tears, making him want more of her. Making him want all of her. He wanted to experience all her flavours, the sweetness and the salt, the spice and the umami.
She took her sweet time, almost as if she didn’t trust him, thinking that he might once again realise he’d overstepped a mark and that he would pull away like he had done last night.
He didn’t break the kiss to assure her that wouldn’t happen.
He sought to reassure her with his mouth and lips moving over hers, with his hands and arms pressing her closer to him.
Maybe it was all of those things, or maybe it was his tongue, plundering the hot depths of her mouth, enticing hers into the dance, because suddenly, like a switch had gone off inside her, she kissed him back with a fervour that matched his own, her hands framing his face, pulling him deeper into a kiss that rocked his soul and that told him one thing—he hadn’t been wrong to kiss her last night.
The only question in his head as her mouth opened hotly to his was why it had taken him so long to realise?
His hands skimmed down her sundress, relishing the feel of tight, toned skin beneath, cupping her buttocks and squeezing their ripeness.
She groaned in his mouth as she arched her back, pressing her breasts and the hardened bullet points into his chest. Breasts that didn’t require any bra.
Breasts he ached to release from their bodice.
Breasts that had driven him crazy ever since he’d seen her in first her pyjamas and then that tiny bikini that had tied him up in knots.
And suddenly he couldn’t wait to see them anymore.
He lifted her to his waist. She went with him, wrapping her legs around his torso, the action pulling her skirt up high, baring her legs.
He groaned. He only had two hands, and two hands were nowhere near enough when he had this much going on around him.
Smooth, slim legs, the sweet curve of a buttock.
Everywhere his hands glided was filled with reward.
But standing up was not where he wanted her now.
He backed her into his bedroom, dropped to his knees by the bed, and folded her gently down onto it.
She looked shocked that he’d let her go, her eyes wild with surprise, desire and need.
Until she realised where she’d been laid.
A brief smile touched her lips. ‘Theo,’ she said, in that beguiling accent she had and that held an inherent promise that banished sense from his head and punched a hole in his heart at the same time.
He reefed off his shirt, got to his feet and shucked off shoes and pants. His erection sprang free and he witnessed the Princess’s eyes widen, looking hungrily at him.
‘I think I’m overdressed,’ she said, her voice husky. Shaky. Uncertain.
‘I’ll take care of that,’ he said, slipping off her shoes before sliding his hands up her legs, hooking fingers into her underwear, and tugging it slowly down.
There was nothing for it then but for her sundress.
He skimmed it up her thighs, then her waist, and slipped it over her breasts.
She gasped, as if feeling the rush of cool air against her nipples, but lifted her head so he could fling the garment away.
And then he looked down at her, drinking her in with his eyes. ‘Perfection,’ he said, taking the time to drink in her petite hourglass figure. His cock bucked in agreement.
She held out her hands. ‘Please,’ she said, as if uncomfortable with his gaze. ‘Please.’ Okay, so she was relatively new to this, and maybe her lovers hadn’t taken the time to show their full appreciation. But then he wasn’t inclined to take his time now, not when she was so eager.
And it had been so long.
He didn’t want to think about how long. That time ceased to exist. He just wanted to live in this moment. He wanted to bury himself in her. Here. Now.
Bury himself in Isabella.
Except… Protection. He wasn’t carrying. He’d given that up years ago.
He’d given up thinking he’d ever need it again.
But he was sure he’d seen something discreetly positioned in the side table.
He reefed open a drawer. Bingo. He pulled out a foil packet, tore it open with his teeth and sheathed himself.
Next time they could take their time, he told himself, as he lowered himself over her perfect body. Because he knew with the certainty of a man who had found a second chance at paradise that there would be a next time.
He kissed his way up her legs while she squirmed on the bed, her breath coming in heady gasps and mewls of surprise and delight as his lips made their way north, over her jutting hip bones and the slightest swell of her belly to her ribs.
He kissed one tight bud of a nipple and then the other, before he circled it with his tongue, and drew her breast into his mouth.
Her spine arched, forcing her breasts higher to meet him—to welcome the attentions of his hot mouth and to turn his attentions to her second breast.
His cock bucked, aching for completion, but it was no hardship filling his mouth with her second breast. Her skin tasted delicious. Of warmth and honey and that increasingly familiar citrus scent that suited her so well. That he would never forget.
And all the time her hands were in his hair, her nails raking his skull as she clung to him as he made his oral onslaught. When he found her mouth, she drank him in like she’d been trapped in the desert and he was the oasis, the water source, the life giver.
Little had he realised that it was she who was the life giver. Little by little, day by day, she was giving him back his life.
Laughter. Joy.
Hope.
Resting over her on one arm, he swept the other down the side of her torso to her hips, where his hand found her mound, his fingers separating her, sliding into the folds between her thighs. He was rewarded by her heat and slickness and the promise of magic.
His erection juddered against her belly at the knowledge. She shuddered and shifted one arm, and the next thing he knew was that she had taken hold of him with one hand, encircling him with her fingers and taking him to the limits of his control.
She groaned, a sound of need that fed and built his own. ‘Please,’ she cried, urgent and insistent and almost like she was pleading for her life. ‘Please!’
He was already primed to go off. Her touch only notched that up. And he knew that there was no more time. There was no more waiting.
Next time, he thought in what was left of his remaining brain cells, next time, they could take their time. Next time they could explore each other’s bodies at length, tease each other until they were both begging for release.
Next time.
But next time could wait. This time was now.
He positioned one knee between hers and she opened for him.
Opened herself up for him. He found her core, found his place.
He still wanted to take it as slow as he could.
Wanted to preserve this perfect moment where his mouth was on hers, his arms cradling her head, her arms at his shoulders, clinging on, anxiously waiting.
The breathless moment before. The moment of anticipation where time stood still.
Suddenly he couldn’t wait a moment longer.
His cock bucked one more time and his hips moved with it, pushing him, driving him into her.
Except, in spite of her slickness that met his glans, there was no easy glide, instead he met resistance that made no sense.
But then, it had been a while, he was rusty at this.
And the resistance just made his thrusts work harder.
Until something gave, there was a sound, and he was inside her, her walls wrapping tightly around him in the most intimate of embraces.
Bliss.
Theo wanted to howl with success. He let himself feel the perfection of being enclosed by tight flesh that wrapped around him, cocooning him, before he was withdrawing, his hips moving to their own score.
Not all the way, this connection was too important to lose.
Before he plunged into her again. And only then did the sound he’d heard make some kind of sense.
A cry, coupled with the resistance he’d felt.
He didn’t want it to register. He wanted to blot it out, he wanted to deny it, refute it, his body already on a trajectory that he could no longer stop or wanted to, but one that he sensed could ruin his life—and hers—forever.
But it was too late, and right now there were more important things to worry about.
She cried out, calling his name, her muscles tightening around him, urging him on, desperate to hold on to him when he withdrew, welcoming him when he plunged ever deeper.
Until he emptied himself in one final juddering thrust. Her cries told him of her own climax as her whole body shuddered around him with her own orgasm.
His bliss was short-lived, as the whole horror of what he’d just done registered.
And post-coital bliss turned to self-hate in an insta-second.
There was no time for wrapping her in his arms and cuddling her next to him.
No time for breathy kisses and warm shared words as their bodies hummed down from their heights.
Instead, Theo pulled out of her, sat up on the side of the bed, rubbing his jaw with one hand before he headed for the bathroom, wanting to rid himself of the evidence of his actions as if he could so easily wipe out the truth of it.
He returned to the bedroom to pull on his underwear, before turning to look at her.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
The Princess looked still shell-shocked, like she’d been thoroughly made love to as she had, her hair mussed, her features in glorious post-coital disarray, and that didn’t help matters at all. That just made him angrier.
‘Tell you what?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘What do you think? That you were a virgin!’
Her eyes flickered between opened and closed. ‘Oh, wasn’t that in the dossier you were given?’
‘Actually, it was. But since then, you’ve had however many flings with some surfer dude and a barista and who knows however many else. Isn’t that what you said?’
She sighed, pulling the covers up over her, but not before he saw a telltale smear of blood on the sheets.
‘Did I ever say that I’d slept with any of them?’ She raised herself up on one elbow and looked at him disingenuously. ‘I might have admitted to being tempted, but I never admitted to having sex with anyone, did I?’
It was worse than Theo had imagined. It was a horror story but a horror story of his own making. His rescue was a virgin—had been a virgin—and he’d been the one entrusted to return her home, but he’d been the one to deflower her. It was a nightmare.
‘That was—um, nice,’ the Princess said from the bed. ‘Is there any chance we might try that again?’
‘No! Was this one of your plans, then, Princess? To seduce me and try to convince me not to return you to your homeland?’
She blinked, looking sheepish. And he didn’t need her to answer to know that he’d been played. That this had been her plan all along. To seduce him, to bend him to her will. A pity it wasn’t going to work.
He pulled the bedcovers from her. ‘Get out of my room. Pack your bag. And stop with the tears, because, like it or not, you’re going home to Rubanestein tomorrow.’
He didn’t wait for her response. He took himself to the bathroom, stepped into the shower. If he couldn’t erase every memory of what had just happened, he could at least try to erase every possible scent of her from his body.
Forget thinking that the Princess might be telling him the truth.
Forget thinking that she might have a case.
She was a manipulator, pulling his strings any way she could.
A sob story about her brother bartering her off.
A sob story about him abusing her puppy.
Forget feeling sorry for her, or that her brother was taking advantage of her.
She’d just pulled the worst strings of all.
Her story was rubbish.
As a result, he was more determined than ever to deliver her back to her home. She would be someone else’s problem then.
And they were welcome to her.