Untouched Queen by Royal Command

by Kelly Hunter

  He looked so good naked and wanting, almost vibrating with tension as he waited for her to choose which part of him to kiss. He might not even allow it. Maybe all he wanted to know was her preference so he could destroy her with wanting and never having any of it.

  She dropped to her knees and his eyes flared a heated warning.

  ‘Really?’ he rasped.

  ‘I want to know what it’s like,’ she replied. ‘Do you?’

  ‘I already know.’

  She kept her gaze on his face, willing him to let her have this. ‘I want to know too.’

  ‘Brave,’ he rasped. ‘Did they teach you how to do this?’

  ‘Yes.’ With toys and tutorials but it was nothing compared to the soft warmth of his shaft as she leaned forward and placed her moist and parted lips against the most sensitive area just beneath the tip.

  She tongued him carefully and he tasted of nothing but water. Not until she ran her tongue across the slit did she get a sense of his essence. The skin was slick and smooth. His hiss was hopefully one of pleasure. She knew not to use her teeth. She sucked, ever so gently, and received a fresh burst of flavour for her efforts.

  ‘That’s it,’ he murmured. ‘How much can you take?’

  All of it. She closed her eyes and opened her throat and took him deep, down to where her lips met his testicles and she had to breathe through her nose. His hand came to cover her head, not pushing, just keeping her there, then he slowly withdrew until only the tip of him touched her lips.

  ‘Breathe,’ he ordered, even as his hand reversed its pressure and he drew her back down onto him. ‘Again.’

  She lost herself in the rhythm of his slow and measured thrusts.

  ‘Put your hands on me,’ he said, and she did, first his thighs while her thumbs brushed the swell of his balls, and then more boldly while he simultaneously thrusted and cursed.

  ‘Look at me,’ he ordered on his next withdrawal and she opened her eyes while he searched her face as if studying a puzzle he had no answer for. ‘You like this,’ he muttered finally. ‘Heaven help us both.’

  Yes, she liked it. The careful thrusting, his innate gentleness and iron control. The satisfaction that came of knowing that she was the cause of his arousal. She knew how to finish a man, theoretically. Suck and swallow, throat muscles working him over, but when she tried he withdrew so fast and roughly he left her blinking up at him. What had she done? Or not done? ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ he said, but she still felt as if she’d failed and he must have seen some of that thought written on her face, because he groaned and hauled her up and into his arms and crashed his mouth down over hers, hard and hungry, all power and unrestrained passion, and she responded in kind because this kiss was better than anything she’d ever felt.

  He groaned into her mouth and she swallowed it down and opened for more. He tilted her head and consumed her and she fisted her hand in his hair and worked her lips down his neck, nipping and sucking, because she could do that to him here, and skating the edge of violence suited her, suited them both.

  She had too many clothes on and he had none. They were ignoring so many steps in the sex-making process. Or maybe they weren’t.

  ‘Take me in hand,’ he muttered. ‘Touch me.’ He lifted her bodily and she curled her legs around him. He put her back to a column and rocked against her as his mouth claimed hers again.

  He came with layers of silk clothing still between them, grinding down hard against her core and tipping her over into orgasm moments after his own release, strong hands to her buttocks, wet hair at odds with the harsh heat of his breath and the still scorching feel of his mouth on hers. She’d always known about the fire deep down inside her. It was the reason they’d chosen her.

  She’d suspected from the beginning that there was a matching fire in him.

  After a dozen more harsh breaths, both his and hers, he set her gently on her feet and turned away, not looking at her once as he found his clothes, put them on. He didn’t speak, didn’t look her way as he headed for the main room and swiftly strode towards the door. He didn’t speak as he opened it and let himself out. He left, that was all.

  And then the emptiness crashed down on her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AUGUSTUS, RULER OF ARUN, had always kept himself tightly under control. Born to inherit his father’s throne, raised to think before he spoke, to weigh and qualify every action. His sister had been the unruly one, governed by her emotions, and only careful tutelage and cultivation of a serene public persona had ever contained her. For Augustus it had been easy. Not for him the pitfalls of adolescent crushes or fierce bursts of anger. He was the cool-headed one, the old soul, the stuffy one. No unexpected or unplanned behaviour from Augustus of Arun. He knew what he had to do at all times and he did it, all childhood resistance to his lot in life long since diminished.

  So what the ever-loving hell had just happened in there?

  Because he’d never done that before in his life. Taken his own pleasure and given nothing back in return. Leave a woman, any woman, let alone a virgin, leaning against a wall for support, her clothes stained and her eyes blown wide with shock, her lips...

  Her lips...

  What she’d done with them.

  He could write an incoherent ode to them.

  What had he done? Where was all his rigid moral certainty now?

  No one should be made to serve the way she had been groomed to serve him. Even kings needed barriers. Free rein and ultimate power was never a good combination. That was how despots were created.

  He hadn’t even given her pleasure.

  Augustus stopped to lean against the cold stone of the corridor wall. He closed his eyes and bowed his head and tried to make sense of what he’d done. He was attracted to Sera—had been from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. He’d wanted to set her free from the duty bestowed on her and he’d tried. He’d combed every old text and obscure law journal he could find for ways to release her. It was the honourable thing to do. So far, so good. And while that was still happening he’d allowed her to settle into those dusty old quarters and revive a tradition long dead, and legitimise it with artwork and furnishings, and he’d left her alone to get on with it. He’d given her a secretarial role to be going on with because he’d needed a social organiser and she’d needed to serve.

  He’d let her draw up a list of potential brides, not because he wanted to get married but because if he did marry she would surely go away. A stupid reason to marry but he needed to marry sooner or later and he wasn’t complaining.

  He’d behaved.

  Right up until he hadn’t.

  He’d left her standing there, wide-eyed and mute, her mouth a wreck and her body trembling.

  He heard a slight sound, a shuffle, and opened his eyes and met the shadowy gaze of one of her guards, half hidden in a recess. The man wanted him to know he was there, that much was obvious. Would he check on Sera once Augustus had gone? Would he comfort her and curse his King?

  When had all reason and rational good sense deserted him?

  Augustus pushed away from the wall and turned back towards the double doors that kept people out and Sera in. He rang the bell and stared at the flowers and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  He rang the bell again, and this time, after several more impatient seconds, a peephole opened and he moved to stand in front of it.

  She opened the door to him in silence, a towel wrapped around her otherwise wet and naked body.

  Washing the stench of him away, he thought grimly, and his heart clenched.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ she said, and her voice was huskier than it had been earlier, and he certainly knew why.

  ‘You know my name.’

  Only she didn’t say it.

  ‘May I come in?’

  She s
tood aside and opened the door and glanced behind him and so did Augustus. The guard stood there watching them, fully visible now, arms crossed in front of his chest and his eyes sharp. Augustus didn’t know what she did—more of that silent communication business—but the guard nodded slightly and faded from view.

  ‘You told him you had everything under control?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that what you really think?’

  ‘I think you’re conflicted.’

  ‘I think I’m a monster,’ he said.

  ‘Because you gave me what I asked for?’

  ‘You didn’t ask for that.’ She looked at him sharply and then glanced towards the big circular sofa. ‘I don’t want to sit at your cursed wheel,’ he muttered. ‘You were bathing. Do you need to continue with that?’ She might as well be clean. God knew no amount of water was going to wash him clean of this sin.

  With the grace of a dancer and no inhibitions whatsoever, she walked towards the pool and shed her towel before stepping lightly into the water, deeper and deeper still, until she was shoulders deep and her hair billowed about her like tendrils of ink.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She’d never know how much. ‘The way I treated you earlier was unacceptable.’

  She watched him pace and then reached for the soap. ‘You fear passion,’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  She raised an elegant eyebrow.

  ‘I lost control. I took without thinking. I hurt you.’ The way she’d taken him in her mouth, letting him push deeper than he’d ever pushed before—all animal instinct. ‘I can hear the damage in your voice.’

  She looked at him, her thoughts her own, and then swam to a tap and turned it on and pushed her face beneath it and opened her mouth and drank. He wanted to look away from the innocent abandon in even that small act. The open mouth and the eyes that never stopped watching him, cataloguing every tiny twitch—or so he imagined. She swallowed and so did he, remembering, and the deep ache of desire that should have been sated sputtered to life again.

  She swallowed more and then turned the tap off and cleared her throat. ‘How do I sound now?’

  A little less rough. ‘Your lips are still swollen.’ The make-up was off but the lush redness remained.

  ‘I can’t tell.’ She was at the side of the pool again, closest to him, all graceful hands and arms, breasts with the nipples puckered up tight, but she wasn’t self-conscious—not one little bit—and he looked away and kept right on pacing, wondering why he’d turned around and come back because he was unravelling all over again. ‘Have you finished bathing?’ she asked solemnly.

  He’d finished undressing in front of her, full-stop. At least one of them should be clothed at all times. It was his new motto when dealing with her. ‘I didn’t—’

  She waited for him to continue.

  ‘You didn’t—’

  She was still waiting for him to finish a damn sentence.

  ‘First times should involve satisfaction for all concerned,’ he muttered finally. ‘I should have made it so. I can still show you what it can be like.’

  ‘By taking control?’

  ‘Yes.’ By taking control and keeping it and pasting over the last twenty minutes with something infinitely more palatable.

  ‘You do realise that my satisfaction isn’t the goal here?’ she asked, and that, more than anything else in this crazy set-up, made his temper spike.

  ‘Because your teachers say so? Because you’re here to serve and my satisfaction comes before yours? Because you don’t deserve a first kiss that’s gentle and respectful? Because, believe me, Sera of the High Reaches, everyone deserves that.’

  ‘It wasn’t gentle, true.’ She was getting out of the bath now and walking towards him, water caressing her skin. ‘But my self-respect is intact, even if yours is not.’ She tilted her head back to look at him. ‘Your ego is bruised because you think I didn’t like your taste or touch? I can assure you I did.’

  How could she have?

  Her eyes seemed to soften as she stared at him. ‘Would you like to try again?’ she invited softly. ‘Bolster your ego, dilute your guilt—whatever it is that brought you back here to apologise? Because you can kiss me again if you like.’

  It wasn’t about him. ‘What would you like? From me?’

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘Right now.’ Because he’d do it. ‘This isn’t about me.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ She picked up a towel and patted her face and wrapped it around her small frame and tucked it in. She pushed her hair to one side and combed through it with her fingers before wrapping slender fists around the dark mass and stripping the water from it in one smooth movement. ‘I’d like to kiss you again,’ she said at last. ‘I’d like for you to kiss me, gently and respectfully, whatever it is you think I need, and we’ll see how that goes. I might like it more than our earlier kisses. I might not. I’ll let you know.’

  She would like it more. She had to—for his sanity. He didn’t know what he’d do if she liked it greedy and rough, because that wasn’t him. He wasn’t drawn to explore the darker sides of desire, those places where control bled away and chaos slipped in. Regardless of whether she was willing to accommodate him.

  One kiss, and this time he’d do right by her, ease in slow with the barest touch of his lips against hers. Plenty of room for her sigh and his relief as her eyes fluttered closed as he slanted his head and fitted his lips more firmly against hers. Waiting rather than demanding her compliance, and there it was, the tip of her tongue skating along the edge of his upper lip, and he was careful, so careful to follow her cues and keep his hands to himself. Easy, never mind the want that pushed up from those places he always kept hidden. Sweet, because first kisses should be savoured, not driven into someone with the force of a fist.

  He pulled back slowly, letting the space between their lips grow, watching her face come back into focus, pale and perfect, and her eyes open to regard him steadily.

  ‘Better?’ he asked and she smiled ever so slightly.

  ‘Different.’

  He could do better. Another kiss, this time with the reins less tightly held. Letting slip, just a little, to allow for a response that wasn’t so carefully composed. She responded beautifully, so willing to follow where he led, so open to whatever he wanted to bestow. Enough to make a blush light her cheeks and her eyes look unfocused. Enough to risk his thumb against her lips when his mouth wasn’t there, smoothing them, learning them, setting everything back in order because he couldn’t have it any other way. ‘Better?’

  ‘Is this what you want from a wife? Someone who’ll never truly know your heart because you’re too busy hiding beneath all that delicious self-control?’

  ‘Don’t push me.’ Even as he pressed her bottom lip lightly against her teeth. Not hurting her, no. And yet. ‘Rule number one of the Arunian monarchs: don’t ever lose control.’

  ‘And what’s rule number two?’

  ‘An eye for an eye.’

  He dropped to his knees in front of her and tugged the towel from her body. He pressed his lips to a bead of water that sat at the junction of her perfectly toned thighs. She gasped, and it was all the encouragement he needed. Hands sliding up her thighs to part them. The taste of her sweet on his tongue, and just like that he was ravenous again, licking and striking, flicking and sucking, listening and responding to every sound and twitch she gifted him with. He was good at this.

  And she was so utterly, gloriously responsive.

  Virgin.

  A virgin he should have left alone or, failing that, someone whose pleasure should have very definitely come before his own. His shaft twitched, only this time he ignored it. He’d taken his pleasure. Now it was her turn.

  Her fingers came up to guide his head with more force than expected. But then, this slip of a woman knew
exactly how to wield swords and knives and even sharper words.

  A ragged curse that felt like an endearment. A trembling ‘oh’ when he redoubled his efforts.

  He wanted her to say his name again as she came.

  Words that seemed lost beneath her quiet gasps and his growls when he grew greedy and still couldn’t get enough.

  She came on his tongue, tense and trembling, and he could swear he felt the ripples of her body beneath his hand, and he should have withdrawn then, done and done, but there was always one more taste he had to have, even if he did avoid her most sensitive areas, and then she was dropping to her knees to face him and her hands were on his shoulders, and she said, ‘Kiss me again and mean it, Augustus,’ and his name on her lips was like a promise, so he did as she asked and knew himself for lost.

  ‘Don’t,’ he whispered, when he finally found the will to pull away from her. ‘Don’t tempt me.’

  This time, when he left, he made it all the way back to his quarters before shedding his clothes and stepping beneath a scalding shower in a futile effort to cleanse his soul.

  Don’t make me lose control.

  * * *

  Physical activity was the only thing that prevented Augustus from climbing the walls in the days that followed. He swam until he either had to get out of the pool or drown, he ran on the treadmill in his private gym until he bent double and emptied his stomach. He put his recently purchased catamaran through its paces until he found its tipping point and it still didn’t take the edge off.

  He tried burying himself in work, which worked until his put-upon secretary demanded an assistant.

  He went on a date with a perfectly eligible woman who was charming and accomplished and didn’t challenge his self-control one little bit. He hated every awkward, stilted moment of it.

  He visited Theo’s cousin Benedict to look at horseflesh and met the long-term mistress of Theo’s father, who just so happened to own the horses they were looking at, and he’d stood in the stables and wanted to ask her what it was like to own the heart of a king but never to hold his hand in public. In the end he didn’t ask because he didn’t have the right to pry and he probably wouldn’t have liked the answer anyway.