Chapter Eight #3
But the thought was as insubstantial as smoke, and it slid away as he moved harder, faster, reaching for her to hold her close to him, his mouth on hers as he drove them both on to the edge of pleasure and then over the side of it.
She cried his name against his mouth as she came, her sex convulsing around his cock, and it didn’t take him long to follow her, holding her tight, burying his face in her long, silvery hair as the climax came for him too.
Then, he simply held her, breathing in her scent, relishing the softness and warmth of her skin.
He would be content with this, he realised.
She would be his for the rest of his life, she would be his only, and he would be content with it.
He couldn’t imagine, for example, ever wanting anyone else right now.
You can’t afford to be complacent, though.
That was true enough. The strength of his desire for her had nearly ruined him, and he couldn’t ignore that. Control, even with her, was paramount.
Slowly, he pulled out of her, adjusting their positions so she was lying in his lap, against his chest, her hair falling softly over his bare skin. He could feel her cheek against his chest, her breath ghosting over him.
‘There,’ he said after a long moment. ‘Now we can talk.’
Wren lifted a hand, her fingers stroking over his bare skin. ‘Are you still going to insist that what I feel is sexual obsession?’
He glanced down at her, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear so he could see her face. ‘I don’t mind if it is,’ he said honestly. ‘In fact, I would even encourage it.’
‘If it were, I wouldn’t be lying here against you. I would have put my dress on and walked out.’
He traced the shell of her ear with one light finger. ‘Why would you have done that? You enjoyed this, didn’t you?’
‘Because love is about being with the other person,’ she said. ‘It’s sitting here with you, being with you in a way that isn’t only sexual.’
Well, that he understood. ‘Why do you think you love me?’ he asked idly. ‘What is it about me that you love?’
She turned her head so she could look up at him, her gaze searching his for long moments.
‘I love your mind,’ she said eventually.
‘I love how you think, and the ideas you have. They’re exciting and inspiring, and I love hearing you talk about them.
I love how you care for your country and how being a good king matters to you.
I love the way you smile at me, as if you’re happy to see me, and I love how you listen to me, as if what I say matters to you. ’
The ache in his chest became unexpectedly painful, though he wasn’t sure why. ‘Surely you feel that way with lots of people,’ he said, wanting to minimise what she was saying for some reason. ‘I’m not the only one to smile at you, Wren.’
Again she was silent. Then she said, ‘I didn’t get many smiles from anyone when I was a kid.
My mother abandoned me to go and be with my father, because he didn’t want me, and then I was lumped on my grandparents, and they didn’t want me either.
I’ve been a burden to everyone who should matter to me, but you never treated me that way. Not once.’
A burden. Wren? He’d known about her mother—she’d been up front about that from the day she’d started—but she’d never said that her mother had abandoned her.
He frowned. ‘What do you mean she abandoned you?’
Wren glanced away, looking at her finger still tracing a circle on his chest. ‘She used to go away periodically to see my father, but she wouldn’t bring me.
I was the scandal that ruined his career, and he didn’t want a bar of me.
Then when I was five, she told me that she would be going to live with him permanently and that I’d have to live with my grandparents. ’
There was another painful shift in his chest, a flick of anger coming with it. He knew what it was to be abandoned. His mother had left him, too, but she’d done so without even the grace of a goodbye. She’d just gone.
That never mattered to you, though, because you didn’t care. Did you?
Again, another twist in his chest, making him shift in the chair. Wren looked up at him once more, frowning. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ he said dismissively. It was true. He hadn’t cared. Not one bit. He just felt sorry for Wren, that was all. ‘I’m sorry that happened to you.’
‘You know how that feels though, don’t you? Because of your own mother.’
‘It’s not the same,’ he said. ‘I didn’t care about my mother. She didn’t have any time for me, so her leaving didn’t matter.’ Yet the words sounded hollow, even to his own ears.
Wren stared at him for a moment longer, then she said, clearly deciding to let the subject of him go, ‘My grandparents weren’t pleased. They were hoping for a child-free retirement and got stuck with me instead.’
Isandro tried not to think about his own father’s not-so-silent resentment that Isandro wasn’t the son he’d hoped for.
Xavier had continually told him that he was sour-faced, and judgemental, and that he had no respect, and Xavier had been right in a way.
Isandro had judged him, and found him wanting, and so he didn’t care about Xavier either.
‘Did they tell you that?’ he asked, dismissing his own unwanted thoughts and concentrating on her instead. ‘That seems very unfair.’
‘Not in so many words. They were deeply disapproving of my mother, and were worried that I was going to be the same, so I spent most of my childhood being told to be good in case I ended up like her.’