Disappointment filled her. She’d hoped … but she hadn’t really expected anything else and she’d made up her mind that she would accept whatever was offered and try to live with it. She could hardly blame him for having another agenda when she knew that she would leave at the first opportunity.
She surged closer, lifting her face to him, parting her lips in anticipation as weakness washed through her, leaching the strength from her muscles and bones. His breath left him in a rush as he gazed at her, as if he’d been holding his breath, waiting to see what she would do. A gentle quaking traveled through his arms and palms along her waist and into her as he drew her slowly closer, lowering his head until his lips just brushed hers. For many moments, he did nothing more, as if savoring that lightest of touches as he brushed his lips back and forth gently across hers, and then, just as gently, plucked at first her upper lip and then the lower.
Lifting his head fractionally, he drew in a ragged breath, studied her a moment as if waiting for objections and then slid his arms around her tightly, crushing her against his length as his mouth descended once more, this time with hungry urgency held barely in check. Khalia sighed with both pleasure and relief as his mouth covered hers, feeling the rush of dizzying sensation wash through her that she’d felt before when he’d kissed her, and more, the excitement of knowing this time he wouldn’t pull away and abandon her with a sense of loss and incompletion.
She dug her fingers into the muscles along his shoulders, then slid her arms around his neck as the heat of his mouth flooded her with a like heat, as his taste and scent and the stroke of his tongue along her own filled her with a hunger for more. Her senses rioted. Heat suffused her. Her racing heart pounded harder still, and faster, until she struggled for breath.
Abruptly, he released her, dragging her arms from around his neck and setting her away from him.
Chapter Thirteen
Stunned, Khalia opened her eyes with an effort, watching numbly as he shrugged his simple garments off and dropped them to the floor. Reaching for her once more, he tugged the ties of her gown loose with fingers that shook noticeably and dragged the sheer fabric off over her head, tossing it aside. He caught her up in his arms when he’d dropped it, carrying her to the bed and laying her gently on top of the coverlet, then tugged his boots off and climbed onto the bed beside her.
Relieved, Khalia turned onto her side and traced her hand slowly down his chest, then along one arm. Her gaze came to rest on the evidence of his arousal and she paused, studying the jutting phallus with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness. It looked impossibly huge. She couldn’t imagine how they would fit together, though she knew that they would. Strangely enough the thought of it was enough to dispel the nervousness and replace it with anticipation. Glancing up at him to see if he would object, she reached for him, wrapping her fingers slowly around his erection.
It jerked at her touch and her gaze flew to his face once more. He caught her exploring hand and lifted it to kiss her fingers. “Another time you can explore me as much as you like,” he said, his voice rough. “Now is a very bad time.”
“Why?” she asked, discovering her own voice was husky.
He ran a hand along her body, stopping to cup one breast and tease the tip with his fingers before he skated his hand along her belly and cupped the mound above her femininity, threading his fingers through the curling hair. “Because I have wanted you so badly, for so long, that I will disgrace myself and disappoint both of us,” he growled, leaning toward her and covering the tip of her breast with his mouth and suckling.
A jolt went through her at the contact, snatching the breath from her lungs. She gasped, clutching him to her as he nudged her nipple with his tongue, sending jolt after jolt of exquisite sensation through her. The pleasure was so profound she was of half a mind to drown in it and half a mind to escape the almost unbearable intensity of it. But the moment he ceased tormenting the sensitive tip, lifting his mouth from her, a sense of loss filled her with aching need. Nuzzling the cleft between her breasts, he kissed the edge of each and climbed the second peak, capturing that tip as he had the first, suckling, teasing her to near mindless delight with the tip of his tongue.
When she thought she could bear no more, nor endure it if he ceased, he moved upwards again, placing open mouthed kisses across the upper slope of her breasts, and then her throat. Finally, he sought her mouth once more and kissed her deeply, greedily. She threaded her fingers through his hair, kissing him back with the fervor of her longing, then stroked the silken skin that sheathed his taut muscles along his shoulders and back and finally along his arms and chest and belly.
A tremor went through him. She felt his flesh roughen with tactile sensation as her own had at his touch. Warmth flooded her at his reaction to her touch, and greater need. She moved restlessly beneath him, arching upward to press herself more closely to him, tightening her arms around him.
He resisted the demand, holding himself slightly away from her, stroking her body in a restless caress that awakened every inch of skin that felt the touch of his roughed palm and fingers to heightened sensation. He skated a bare foot along her leg and insinuated one knee between hers. She shifted, spreading her legs to accommodate him, lifting one leg and stoking his hair roughed leg with one foot as his shifted his knee higher until it nudged her femininity.
A jolt went through her at the contact. She moved against his knee, feeling her belly grow taut with need as her breasts had. She began to feel almost fevered with the heat radiating from her body, the dizzying, intoxicating pleasure that filled her mind.
At last, he pulled slightly away from her, holding himself up on one elbow so that he could look down at her. With an effort, she lifted her lids and gazed up at him with complete trust, making no attempt to hide anything that she was feeling. Slowly, he placed a palm over her collar bone and, skimming her body with the lightest of touches, brushed his hand down over her body until his fingers tangled in the curling hair of her woman’s mound. He turned to watch the movements of his fingers as he delved her gently, parting the sensitive petals of flesh until he found the heart of her desire. Lifting his gaze to hers once more, he held it as he moved his finger in a tiny, massaging circle that left her gasping for breath, closing her eyes against the intensity of the need she saw in his eyes and felt in her own body. A sense of urgency grew in her as he explored the hot, moist cleft with slow deliberation. She sensed him leaning toward her, felt the heat of his breath a heartbeat before he settled his mouth over hers once more. With a great effort, she lifted her arms, encircling his head as she kissed him back with a sense of desperation and abandon she’d never felt before.
Without breaking his kiss, he moved over her, forcing her thighs apart to accommodate his weight and settling his hips between them. She felt his hand on her thigh, lifting her knee until her foot was planted against the mattress, felt his heated, swollen member slipping along the heated cleft his hand had caressed moments before.
When he broke the kiss and leaned back, she looked up at him, waiting impatiently for what she sensed would come next. She felt him then, the rounded head of his phallus pressing insistently against her, felt the resistance of her flesh, felt her body slowly yielding to his possession as he pressed inexorably into her, claiming her inch by agonizing inch until at last he had buried himself to the root inside of her.
A sense of wonder filled her with the realization that he had joined his body with her own, that she could feel his heated length along her passage, feel the head of his member resting against her womb. She found that she was panting, partly in fear of anticipated pain that never materialized and partly because the need had grown inside of her until she could no longer catch her breath. She looked up at him in mute appeal, knowing he could give her body what it craved, even if she could not name it. “Damien,” she said in a throaty gasp of appeal.
His face twisted as it filled with the agony of need denied. Hooking an arm beneath one thigh, he withdr
ew slowly until he filled only her opening and thrust inside of her again, deeply. Khalia gasped as quakes of pleasure echoed outward from the stroke of his flesh. Digging her fingers into his shoulders, she moved her body in counter to his own as he withdrew slowly again, and again pushed deeply inside of her. A sense of something momentous gathered inside of her with each slow, deep caress until she began to urge him to stroke her faster.
He moved with the demands of her need, watching her face intently as she struggled to reach an unknown goal. Abruptly, the gentle quakes of pleasure gave way to an explosion of ecstasy that tore a ragged cry from her throat as her body convulsed and blackness filled her mind.
Grinding his teeth, he scooped her up into his arms, holding her tightly against him as he sat up, settling on his knees with her astride his lap so that her own weight bore her down upon him, driving him more deeply inside of her. He squeezed her tightly, driving swift and deep and finally shuttering as his own body convulsed in release. “Khalia,” he groaned against her throat.
Contentment flooded through her in the aftermath of their lovemaking. At first, she merely clung to him weakly, her head resting on his shoulder, but as her muscles and bones became substantial once more, she kissed the side of his neck and stroked the back of his head.
His arms tightened around her. Finally, holding her to him, he rose up on his knees and moved across the bed. “What are you doing?” Khalia whispered, content with whatever he had in mind, reluctant to lose the feel of his body inside of hers.
Slipping an arm beneath her buttocks, he climbed from the bed. Khalia locked her ankles behind his back as he strode toward the adjoining bath. The faint, musky smell of their lovemaking tickled at her nostrils, but the scent did not offend her, rather the reverse. She nipped his neck playfully as he stepped into the shower with her and finally released her, allowing her to slide slowly down his body. She kissed the faint hollow between his pectorals, and looked up at him dreamily.
His own expression was somber, but the muscles in his face grew taut with renewed need as she gazed up at him. He caught her hair, tipping her head back until he’d exposed the tender flesh of her neck and then lowered his mouth to place a sucking kiss there, climbing up her throat with nibbling bites until her could claim her mouth. The thrust of his tongue inside her mouth sent a wave of heat through her, made her body quicken.
He walked her backwards until her back was pressed against the back wall of the bath and the water pelting from the numerous spouts barely reached them. Lifting her up, he aligned his body with hers once more and drove deeply. Khalia gasped, both startled to feel him erect and hard and driving inside of her, and delighted. She locked her arms and legs around him as he drove into her hard and fast. Instead of building her toward release with the agonizing slowness he had before, he drove her there with swift, savage almost angry thrusts. Within moments she felt the tension seizing her muscles, winding tighter and tighter inside of her.
She knew, now, what her body craved from his, reached out for it, and still it took her by surprise, exploding more powerfully inside of her this time even than before, dragging a startled, ragged cry from her throat. As if her release pushed him over the edge, he released a hoarse, ragged groan, shuddering as he embedded himself deeply.
The release left them both gasping, leaning weakly against the wall. Slowly, he withdrew from her, releasing her to slide down until her feet touched the floor of the bath. Slowly, the strength returned to her muscles and still they trembled as he finally stepped away from her.
Without a word, he lathered a cloth and began to wash her. She stood perfectly still, studying his face surreptitiously, allowing him to do as he would. When he would’ve rinsed the cloth, she took it from him and bathed him as he had her. He seemed reluctant to allow it, but he didn’t resist, standing perfectly still as she scrubbed the cloth over him with the same thoroughness that he had bathed her.
When they’d rinsed the soap from themselves, Damien stepped from the bath and grabbed a towel, drying himself cursorily before he helped her from the tub and dried her. He retrieved her gown when they had returned to the bed room, helping her to don it once more and tying the ties at the sides.
Khalia frowned, feeling the rosy glow that had lingered from their lovemaking slowly fade at his continued silence, realizing finally that he meant to leave her. Hurt washed through her, and behind that anger. “You’re not staying.”
He glanced at her a moment and then looked away. “If you wish it,” he finally said slowly.
She felt a sudden urge to curse him. Instead, she swallowed her pride and nodded, reminding herself that she had decided to take what she could. He lay stiffly beside her when they’d lain on the bed once more, but when she turned onto her side and snuggled closely against him, he stroked her back with a gentleness that made her feel like crying for some reason she couldn’t fathom.
Finally, despite her distress, the repletion of her body gained the upper hand and she began to drift toward sleep. “There’s always tomorrow,” she murmured her thought aloud.
His arms tightened around her briefly and he leaned toward her and kissed her brow. “There is no tomorrow for us, Khalia,” he whispered, so faintly she thought she might have dreamed it. “May the gods have mercy on us both if I have planted my seed inside of you.”
He was gone when she woke. She lay staring at the ceiling as she listened to Charrisa moving about the room, wondering if she had dreamed all of it. The faintest movement of her body was enough to convince her that she had not … not all of it, at any rate.
His behavior confused her, angered her. When she had pondered it a while, however, it occurred to her to wonder if she was misjudging him. He’d guarded her since she had arrived and he had taken the utmost care to treat her in a gentlemanly manner. Perhaps he wasn’t reluctant to be with her so much as he was reluctant to blacken her reputation?
She felt better when the thought occurred to her, but she examined it suspiciously, wondering if she’d invented it only to make herself feel better. There was no one, after all, to talk other than the servant, Charrisa … but then that was probably enough. She wasn’t accustomed to having servants, but she’d heard them chattering in the markets of the city. Whatever their employers did seemed highly entertaining to them, and the more damning the tale, the more excited they were to share it.
He cared enough, at least, to make certain she didn’t suffer the stigma attached to women of loose morals. It wasn’t much, perhaps, especially considering his overdeveloped sense of honor and duty, but it was something.
Feeling slightly better, she got up and dressed and ate her breakfast, then wandered from the room to find him. As she’d more than half expected, he was politely, coolly distant, but she could feel his gaze upon her and when she glanced at him, she caught the heat of his gaze before he looked away. Satisfied, at least for the moment, she allowed him to lock himself away in the study and retired to the apartment she’d been given, biding her time until the evening.
He didn’t disappoint her. Charrisa had scarcely left her for the night when he came to her, ravishing her with his urgency, making love to her until she fell into an exhausted sleep.
By the third day, she’d tired of the game and decided to take matters into her own hands. Damien might not be able to think beyond her role as his future queen, but she had not been born to such a role. It was absurd to consider herself above him, beyond his reach. He was a noble. If he cared for her, she had no intention of honoring their silly customs.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t be entirely certain that he did care for her … not as a woman, a person. She made up her mind, however, that she would find out, one way or another. If he did not, then she would try to be content with the bargain she had made with her conscience. If he did, then she would not allow anyone in this world to dictate to her whom she should love, and whom she could not.
Her resolve faltered as she descended the stairs, however. There was an ominous
quiet about the fortress that she had not sensed before. She tried to dismiss it. With only the three of them staying in the great structure, they rattled about like three peas in a pail. It was always quiet.
She realized the moment Charrisa showed her into the study that she hadn’t imagined it. Something was very wrong. Both Damien and the stranger who stood with him made an effort to appear relaxed, but there was strain on both faces and neither man would meet her gaze for more than a moment.
Khalia felt her stomach clench, but since they were making the effort to appear at ease, she followed their lead. “I see we have a visitor?” she remarked questioningly.
Both men knelt, saluting her. When he rose, Damien bowed his head. “Your highness. This is my youngest brother, Basil. He has brought word today from the palace at Caracaren.”
With an effort, Khalia smiled, acknowledging the introduction as she studied the newcomer. He was quite as handsome as Damien, in a more boyish manner, though he did not look to be younger by much. There were lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth that spoke of ready smiles and laughter, but no sign now of the happy-go-lucky nature she sensed in him.
She clasped her hands together, feeling the moisture of nerves in her palms. “What word has he brought?”
Damien’s face, if possible, looked even more grim. “Both Nigel and Samala have been arrested for plotting treason against you. They are to be tried in two days time … and executed as traitors within the week.”
Chapter Fourteen
Khalia merely stared at Damien in shock, her thoughts chaotic as a coldness swept over her. “How civilized of them to try them first,” she said faintly. Her lips felt stiff and uncooperative, making it difficult to form the words. She looked around a little vaguely for a place to sit, certain that she would fall if she didn’t.
Damien and Basil exchanged a look at her comment, but when Damien glanced at her again a look of alarm washed over his features. Surging forward, he caught her arm and helped her to a chair.
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