Chapter Fifty-Nine
Xander’s mouth crashed into mine. He kissed me, desperate and hot.
Fiercely, wildly, with an unrestrained hunger.
I was so greedy, so frenzied for more. Our mouths and bodies danced together, and it was like we were breaking down everything that had come before so that we could rebuild ourselves into something new.
Together.
I felt him moan deeply against my mouth. Pleasure coiled inside me, red and burning, leaving me in a prolonged heightened state where the tension seemed to endlessly build.
“Are you ready?” he asked, his breathing harsh.
“Yes.” I wanted all of him.
He lifted himself up. “This will probably hurt. I wish that it wouldn’t. But it should only be this first time.”
I reached my shaky hands up to his face. “I know. I trust you. I love you.”
His entire body tensed at my words and he swallowed, hard. “I imagined you saying those words to me for so long it doesn’t feel real.”
“It is real. I love you.”
The look in his eyes stole the breath from my lungs.
“I love you,” he said. He pressed himself into me and it felt strange at first. He moved extremely slowly, kissing me while he did so. As if to distract me.
And I soon realized why, because suddenly there was a sharp pinch of pain. I exhaled deeply against his lips.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes. Keep going.” I had certainly dealt with worse than this.
“I’m trying so hard to take this slowly,” he groaned, his words ragged. I saw the sweat on his brow, the quivering tension in his muscles, the tight cording of his throat. I heard his harsh breathing, as he held back.
Taking matters into my own hands, I lifted my hips up and pushed into him, until he was fully seated inside me, cringing at the way it hurt. He groaned, “So tight, so wet, so warm,” and dropped his head on my shoulder.
My core burned, but I didn’t care. This was like a sword being slipped into a sheath. I felt completed. Full in a way I never had before.
We were one.
I did my best to relax, to breathe evenly. To let my body adjust.
He kissed my shoulder, and then he began to whisper white-hot words of desire, of love, against my skin as he set about restoking the fire within me.
He told me how good I felt, what I was doing to him, how badly he wanted me.
The things he said thrilled me, and every pulse point in my body throbbed.
My husband knew just as many ways to please as he did to kiss, and it didn’t take long for my blood to simmer, my heart to thud, my breath to stutter.
“How does it feel?” he asked. There was so much care and concern on his face.
“It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the last time I was impaled.”
He started to laugh and I joined him. I loved the way this felt—that in the midst of all this, we could laugh and tease and have this joy. I hadn’t known it could be like this.
“I have never been this happy,” I told him.
Again, the love in his eyes overwhelmed me. “Neither have I.”
The pain had abated to the point that I was ready for more. “I have been led to believe that there is supposed to be some sort of movement involved.”
He grinned. “There is, if you want it.”
“Move, husband.”
He did, going slowly. And at first it was pain and pleasure mingled together, until the pleasure crowded everything else out.
“I told you that you’d be my undoing,” he breathed against my lips. “But I was wrong. You are my beginning. You are the making of me.”
His thick, languid thrusts made me feel like I was coming back to life again, being reborn. Touching and kissing him, moving with him, with our love bond between us, intensified everything. Every kiss and touch was imbued not only with desire but with love and connection and intimacy.
I understood why he had demanded more than just my body. With our hearts, our minds, our souls . . . this was transcendent. Otherworldly.
“You are so beautiful like this,” he said roughly. “I love you so much.”
That caused an explosion of heat that radiated throughout my body until I felt like I might catch fire. All my feelings—physical, emotional—threatened to drown me.
And my whole life I’d been terrified of drowning.
Had actually drowned. But this, drowning in his kisses, his touch, the pledges of his love .
. . it was the best thing I’d ever experienced.
No matter how hard the waves crashed against me, no matter how much the riptide pulled me under, he was there. He was my safe harbor.
He took my hands and put them next to my head. Then he laced his fingers with mine, our hearts beating in one rhythm, our breath low and hot, humid. And every time he thrust, every time we moved, sparks of need flashed behind my eyes.
My nerves were on edge, my skin feverish, and all the blood in my body throbbed low and liquid.
Everything was heightened and it was nearly unbearable.
There had to be a limit. Some boundary where the pleasure would cease.
Where the sensations would ebb. But we hadn’t reached it and all I could do was move and whimper beneath him, desperate for release.
He let go of my hands and I grabbed on to him. Then he slid his hand between us and said, “One more time, wife.”
It was as if he had thrown oil onto a fire. It blazed up inside me, and I became a writhing mess, clawing at his back, my moans drowned out by his hot and frantic kisses.
“I . . . I can’t . . .” I insisted. It was too much.
“You can. I have you. Come undone for me, Lia.”
Waves of shocks, tingles, and excruciating, intense pleasure burst inside me and ripped a strangled sound from my throat.
He tore my soul open and my brain whited out.
I threw my head back, arching toward him and canting my hips up.
I unraveled, completely shattered, riding a bolt of ecstasy that I couldn’t have even imagined.
He sped up, thrusting with abandon three more times before his hips jerked and he went rigid, shouting my name as he found his own release.
This moment was ours, only ours. Our hearts, our bodies, our souls, our minds. It was everything.
His face was buried against my neck and we were both breathing hard. Just as he’d once promised, he had brought me to completion.
Because I was complete with him.
With his weight pressing into me, I felt connected to him in a way that I had never felt connected to another person. Everything felt right. Even though death and destruction waited for us beyond the city’s walls.
“Are you telling me that we could have been doing that the whole time?” I asked when I was able to speak again. I had been so cheated.
His mouth curved into a smile. “Yes, my beautiful wife.”
“I . . . I didn’t know it would feel that way.”
“Nor did I.” He lifted his head and, while still joined with me, braced himself on his elbows to look down at me.
I smacked his side. “You are no novice.”
He kissed me gently, tenderly. “It has never been like that for me before. You made it feel like my first time, too.”
This probably should not have pleased me as much as it did. “Let’s do it again.”
Letting out a soft groan, he slid out of me and rolled over onto his back. “Men need a recovery period before they are ready for the next round. I will need a few minutes.”
I propped myself up on my left elbow. “I didn’t need that.”
“Women don’t.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose that’s proof the goddess favors her daughters.”
He grinned. “I favor her daughter, too.”
Not wanting to be parted from him, I climbed on top of him, putting my hands on his chest and resting my face there. We were both sweaty and hot but I didn’t even notice. This was where I belonged.
He brushed hair away from my face and tucked it behind my ear while letting out a long sigh. “You know, you did promise that once I became king, you were going to kill me. I never imagined that you intended to do it in our bed.”
I laughed.
My husband continued to play with my hair, his heart slowing and his breathing evening back out. As if he intended to fall asleep.
Not wanting that I asked, “When did you know that you loved me?”
“When I saw you punch that goose at the library. You captured my heart that night, and I didn’t know what to do. How could a prince love a celibate priestess of the temple? There was no future for us but I didn’t care. I kept seeking you out.”
While it was incredibly sweet, it was also a reminder that there was still something I had to do for the goddess, something that could wreck all this. That we might not have a future.
I decided that was a problem for another day. I would have this night with him and wouldn’t allow anything to get in the way.
“When did you know you loved me?” he asked.
“It took me longer.”
“I noticed,” he said with a knowing smile.
“Honestly, I don’t know when the exact moment was.
It just happened. But I think I started to have feelings for you the same night.
When I found out that you had protected me and Quynh, had saved me, it unlocked something inside me that I tried to keep shut for so long.
And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t lock it back up again. ”
I leaned my head to the side, looking at him. How could I have ever thought that I hated him? That seemed unimaginable to me now.
“I’m going to be so furious if I just got this and I lose it because of Artemisia,” I said.
“You and I will stop her. It’s fated.”
His fingers moved over to my face, tracing my jaw, down the line of my neck, across my collarbone. “I am going to explore every inch of you. I want to know every curve, every hollow, every freckle, every scar.”
“That last one will take a long time,” I warned, and he laughed.
“When I explore your scars, you will give me the story of each one.”
I propped myself up and began running my fingers through the hair on his chest. “Do I get to do the same?”
“You may explore my body to your heart’s content. But perhaps now we should sleep. There will be much to do tomorrow.”
“Do you want to sleep?” I asked incredulously.
He nodded seriously. “I am very, very tired.”
“So much for that incredible stamina.”
I giggled when he poked my waist, and then I became aware of a delicious sensation. “The part of you that can’t lie? It says you’re not tired. And I thought you needed a few minutes.”
“So did I.”
It delighted me that I had that effect on him. “Good. Because I am owed many, many nights’ worth.”
He pulled me up to his lips. “I promise to spend the rest of this one making it up to you.”