Chapter Seven #2
The words reached in and found the most vulnerable place inside her. The place where she kept this want welled up inside her. And she found that she simply couldn’t hold up that wall any longer.
“No,” she whispered, the words both pain and relief. “I didn’t want him. I wanted you.”
It felt like the wall inside her, one she had been working so hard to prop up, was finally crumbling. When she looked up into the darkness of his eyes, she found a cruel sort of satisfaction, mixed with something else she didn’t want to identify.
“I was ready to punch him the day after those photos came out. I haven’t spoken to Edvin since then,” Gustav growled.
Her eyes widened. “You were going to punch him?”
“He would have known he had it coming,” he muttered. “Swear to me you will stay away from him, no matter what happens between us.”
The promise was easy to make, but it was the last thing he deserved.
“You ask for my loyalty after eight years?” Livia glared at him. “On the night before you plan to destroy everything around us?”
“You are mine,” he growled.
“Give me one reason to believe that.” Too late, she heard the plea in her voice.
And then his hips were flush with hers, his hard length pressing against her core. He bent forward, and his lips brushed against the tender shell of her ear. “I’ll give you as many reasons as you want.”
* * *
Livia met his gaze, and it was as if time had slowed.
It stretched out between them in a ribbon that bound the past and the present together.
The eight years of anger and resolution and single-minded determination, the necessary isolation it took to plan and wait for the right opportunity—everything that had fueled him was shifting, directing him toward Livia.
Energy crackled inside him, searching for an outlet.
He took a long inhale of her enchanting scent and ran his hand down her lush curves.
He had fantasized about this from the moment he’d put his plan into action.
He had fantasized about touching her. And though he told himself that it was all about revenge, he couldn’t lie to himself.
He had always wanted her, and right now, it was worse than ever.
I didn’t want him. I wanted you. Her words had loosened a vice around his chest. The jealousy had eased—at least for now. If she walked away tomorrow when he publicized his father’s excesses… But that was another story. Tonight she was his. For real.
Her lips brushed his, and he felt the same electric spark that had lit in the church. But now there were no traditions telling them what they should do. No priests watching. No boundaries. It was just the two of them again, the way it had been in the forest years ago.
Her fingers were still pressed against his neck, cooling his overheating skin, both soothing and provoking. He lifted her fingers to his mouth and kissed them.
Mine.
He focused on the palm of her hand and brushed his lips against the soft skin of her exposed wrist.
Mine.
Livia let out a quiet gasp, and want and need surged inside him as she stole her hand out of his hold and threaded it into his hair, tugging him closer.
His lips met hers in a long, sultry kiss that made him shudder and ache.
He couldn’t get enough of her. Each sweep of her tongue, each touch, each moan was kindling to the fire that flared between them.
In one, quick motion, he lifted her, and she straddled him, pressing her core against him, each kiss hungrier than the last. Slowly, he moved toward the bed and set her down.
He tugged off his shirt and unbuttoned his trousers, all while keeping his gaze fixed on Livia.
She lifted her dress and stepped out of her panties, and then she was standing in front of him.
Naked. He had never seen her like this, not during any of their teenage fumblings, but now he drank her in. Full breasts. Curved hips.
But he found that he got just as much pleasure from the way her hands explored the planes of his chest.
“All of this is different,” she whispered.
“Better,” he groaned. His voice had a graveness that he had not meant to reveal, so he focused on pleasuring her. Later, he could take his time, but the word mine clanged far too loudly to ignore.
“Do you have protection?” she asked.
It was the right question, and Gustav, who had suffered under the name of the Bastard Spare for his entire life, knew too well that an unplanned pregnancy to complicate these royal games spelled disaster. And yet there was a part of him that resisted.
He told himself he was far more calculating than that, far wiser than the whims of his father, so he nodded and grabbed a packet from the drawer that he had stocked, and finally, finally, he rested on his forearms and kissed her neck and settled between her legs.
Then he stilled, letting the moment settle between them.
“Mine,” he whispered.
And before she could reply, he entered her. Livia cried out as pleasure overwhelmed him. He stilled, fighting the urge to follow the shortest road to ecstasy and steadied his gaze on Livia. Her mouth was parted and her cheeks were flushed, but there was a crease between her brows.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered.
The words had claws that sank into his skin. It would be so much easier if she meant something physical, but he couldn’t pretend that she did. She was staring up at him in a sort of unfocused daze, like he was the only thing in this world.
But it was a lie. Twenty-four hours ago, she would have married his brother.
“You know I can’t promise you that,” he growled, his voice too much like the wounded animal he never again wanted to be.
“Then I guess I can’t, either.”
Gustav didn’t like that answer, so he put an end to the conversation and began to move.
Slowly, ruthlessly, he built the pleasure between them, reading her body, listening for those little gasps of pleasure.
Each thrust, each tilt of her hips brought a new flood of pleasure to drown out her plea that wouldn’t leave him alone. Please don’t hurt me.
“More,” she cried. This was a plea he could answer. Gustav gritted his teeth and adjusted his angle until she cried out and fell, and only then did he bury his face in her hair and let go.