by Elise Marion
Isabelle returned with a book, and settled back into her chair.
Once she’d begun reading, Serge found he could not concentrate on the words coming out of her mouth. She had a pleasant voice, soft and lyrical, its tone changing to match the events of the story. Yet, the relentless desire caused by their intimate situation made it difficult to focus.
He contented himself with watching her instead. Having never seen her in such a state of undress, he found he could not stop staring.
With one leg crossed over the other, she unwittingly offered a glimpse of a slender ankle and a bit of calf. It was enough to make him want to kneel before her, running one hand beneath her gray silk nightgown to see if her skin was as soft as it appeared.
Her body was a thing of beauty, hips bursting with curves, plump thighs showing in an enticing outline through the silk of her nightgown. She did not possess a fashionably slender waist, but it fit with the curves that had him salivating at the thought of touching her and filling his hands with all that flesh. The breasts pressing against the lacy neckline of her nightgown were the perfect size to fill a man’s hands. His hands. He wondered if the tips would be the color of pink rose petals, or the shade of a ripe peach. He licked his lips at the thought, his belly twisting at the images that thought brought to mind.
His gaze roamed up the graceful slope of a slender neck, lingering where her throat met the line of her jaw. Would she shiver if he kissed her there? Would she moan with delight if he cupped her breasts in his hands? He imagined tracing a path with his lips up toward her mouth, and gripping a fistful of her flaxen hair.
He’d become so lost in his salacious thoughts that he could no longer follow the story. He shifted beneath the bedclothes and adjusted them to hide the evidence of his growing arousal. If he sat there much longer with his mind wandering so freely, she was sure to discover he wasn’t listening. All the blood soon leech out of his brain and go straight to his groin—and then how could he keep from doing something stupid?
“What will you do now?” he blurted, cutting her off mid-sentence.
She lowered the book and glanced up, eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I meant, in regards to Barony? Will you leave us to go back?”
Yes, that was it. If they went back to talking, his mind would keep working and his traitorous prick would eventually be forgotten.
Isabelle shrugged, closing the book and resting it in her lap. “I haven’t decided yet. While everyone seems to have some idea what they think I should do, I have no notion yet of what decision I will make.”
He drew in a sharp breath at what her words implied. Damn it … he was going to kill his only remaining brother. He was going to commit fratricide, and he wasn’t altogether sure it wouldn’t be completely warranted.
“I see Damien has been putting ideas in your head, too,” she said, taking in his stony expression.
“Damn him,” he said with a heavy sigh. “He wasn’t supposed to mention it to you. I told him you couldn’t possibly be ready to marry again and even if you were, you wouldn’t be happy with anyone’s interference. Please don’t think I had anything to do with this harebrained scheme of his.”
For some inconceivable reason, she stood and set the book in her place … then approached his bed. His hands clenched into fists when she lowered herself onto the mattress’ edge.
Too close … she was far too close for comfort.
She seemed oblivious to the effect it was having on him, sitting beside him as if chatting with a brother or a friend. He might have been her brother through marriage, but they were most certainly not related—a fact that his cock persistently reminded him of with every surge of blood rushing straight into the organ.
Heaven, help him.
“What about you?” she asked, once again commanding his attention. “Have you decided what you will do?”
Talking. Talking was good. He just had to keep the conversation going until he could politely eject her from his room.
“Damien wants to abdicate the throne,” he told her. “He wants me to take it, as I would had I not been unconscious for the past year. He seems to think it will solve everything, but I’m just not certain. I’m not the same man I was before, and I don’t think my taking the throne will make things right. If anything, it could make things worse. Damien was born to be king, even if he was born last. I will not take that away from him.”
“Yes, but what about you?” she urged. “What were you meant to be?”
He was silent for a moment before answering, truly mulling over her question. “I don’t know. I suppose, like you, I’ve had enough of people telling me what to do, but have never had the chance to consider what I might do when given an actual choice. For so long it was—Lionus will be king, and Serge will become general. Now, I wake up to find Damien is king and he’s appointed someone else as general in my stead. How can I, in good conscience, step in and make a mess of everything?”
Isabelle nodded her agreement. “It’s not easy, is it—deciding for yourself when it isn’t only your own life hanging in the balance. On one hand, a person could simply do what they please and decide based upon pure joy or satisfaction. Or, one could rely on the dictates of duty and choose as they know they should, even if it means sacrificing their own happiness. Which do you choose?”
“The answer is quite simple, really,” he said with a little shrug. “Whenever we have the choice, we select the thing that will bring us the most joy or satisfaction. There’s so little of that for us—people born with crowns to uphold and names to live up to.”
“Yes, but as a person who is in a position to affect the lives of so many other people, would it not be selfish of me to make a decision based on pure happiness?”
“A happy ruler rules well,” he replied, echoing the words his father had drilled into him as a boy. “At least, that was what my father used to say. He might not have loved my mother very much, but he doted on his sons, and therein lay his happiness. He was one of the greatest rulers Cardenas has ever seen. You will find a crown sits much easier on a head that rests easy on its pillow at night.”
“Should my head and my pillow rest beside those of another?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Damien seems to think so.”
He had forgotten how easily conversation and banter had been between them, the easy volley of ideas and thoughts flowing like water. Aside from being enraptured with her beauty and her form, he had always been fascinated with her mind—her resilience and strength when one would expect a coddled and spoiled princess to be weak and weepy. But, Isabelle had shown him time and time again just how strong she could be when she put her mind to it.
“When you do marry, it should be of your own free will. You should marry because you want to, not because you feel as though you have to.”
“I am told that Barony needs a king,” she countered.
“I have also heard it needs a queen.”
She laughed, the sound warming his heart. “You seem to have an answer for everything.”
Serge’s chuckle mingled with hers, and he wiggled his eyebrows at her mischievously, the tension between them suddenly dissipating. They were young again—a boy and a girl arguing over the things learned in their philosophy lessons, or discussing literature and poetry.
“Haven’t I told you often enough that I know everything?” he teased.
She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “Oh, the arrogance of men! I don’t know why we women bother with you in the first place.”
“You need us to protect you and lift heavy things. You also need us to sire children upon you.”
“You are incorrigible,” she replied with another uninhibited laugh. God, how he loved that musical sound. “But I am thankful for it. It’s nice to have you around to laugh with again.”
“Anything I can do to help,” he murmured. “I am always at your service.”
She glanced about them, seeming to notice the lateness
of the hour for the first time.
“Well, I think you’ve done enough for one night. I should get back to my own bed before one of my guards comes looking for me. They peek in on me periodically at night.”
“Yes, perhaps you should. It would be improper for you to be found in my chambers so late at night, dressed so scandalously.”
Even though the tone of his voice was a teasing one, Serge knew just how intimate their situation would appear. She sat in his bedroom, which was lit by no more than a lamp, wearing a nightgown that bared more of her than he’d ever seen. Meanwhile, he lay abed as naked as the day he was born.
Color rising in her face, Isabelle cleared her throat. Her gaze shifted away from his face, lingering on the expanse of his bared chest. Granted, there wasn’t as much to look at as there had been in the past. Though, his insatiable hunger and steady regimen of activity were going a long way toward restoring his former figure.
Biting her lip, she looked back into his eyes. “You’re right. I’ll go now.”
Except, he didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want to be alone, having spent an entire year trapped in his own mind. More than that, he didn’t want to be away from her … from the one person who didn’t look at him as if he were a ghost or an invalid.
Before she could rise from the bed, his arm shot out on its own accord, his hand closing around hers. She stiffened when he placed a kiss on the back of it, the touch of his lips light. He had done it before, a gesture that should have been quick and chaste, yet somehow became something more. His lips lingered a bit too long, and she shivered as the warmth of his breath tickled her skin.
Could it be … she’d reacted to him?
The dilation of her pupils, the shudder that went through her as he kissed her knuckles again to test the theory, the slight hitch of her breath.
It had never been this way before, touching her, kissing her hand in this innocuous fashion. Perhaps that was because she’d never responded this way.
You’re reading too much into this, seeing things that aren’t there, he told himself.
And yet, letting her go was no longer an option, and the need to know that he wasn’t alone in this attraction began to gnaw upon his insides in a way it never had.
His grip on her hand was firm but loose enough that she could have pulled away if she wanted to. But when he met her gaze, and placed another kiss on the inside of her wrist, he found indecision in the depths of her crystalline blue eyes.
Instead of pulling away, she shocked him by shifting a bit closer. Her gaze fixed upon the place where his hand connected with her wrist, she seemed unable to look away. Emboldened, he tried again, brushing his mouth against the delicate skin on the inside of her arm, them placing an open-mouthed kiss in a spot that made her shiver.
Stop this … you have to stop!
His mind railed at him to use reason, to remember why this was a terrible idea. But his mind could not overwhelm all his primal urges, all the desires he’d held at bay when it came to Isabelle for so long. He couldn’t stop.
Running both hands slowly up her arms until they rested on her shoulders, he marveled at the silken texture of her skin. So soft and smooth. He needed more … he needed her flush against him, her heart beating against his own.
Using a light hand, he urged her closer and silently prayed she wouldn’t pull away. Isabelle seemed to be in a trance, her eyes heavy lidded and her breath uneven as she let him hold her. She came on her own, leaning forward until she practically lay on top of him.
He held her there for a moment, pressing the upper half of her body against his. Her breasts shifted against his bare chest with every breath she took, and he could see the rapid cadence of her pulse at the base of her throat. He wanted to grasp the back of her head and pull her swiftly down to meet his lips; he wanted to ravage her mouth. Instead, he lay back and held her, watching the war of emotions happening upon her face. She went from arousal, to confusion, to fear, and back again in the span of a few short seconds.
So, he wasn’t the only one wrestling with himself right now, fighting what suddenly seemed like an inevitable event. There was no fighting it anymore, not now that he’d seen the evidence of her desire, her reaction to him bolstering instead of discouraging.
The slightest pressure of his hand on her nape was all the convincing she needed to lower her head toward his. Then she was melting into him, pressing her open mouth against his with a barely audible sigh. A spark of electricity seemed to arc between them, crackling and erupting into a burst of bright light and searing heat when their mouths touched.
Kissing her was everything he had ever imagined it would be; sweet and soft and perfect. Her plush mouth was pliant against his, offering the possibility of more.
He cupped the back of her head with one hand while his other hand clutched the bed sheet in a white-knuckle grip—as he didn’t trust himself to put it anywhere else on her person. He itched to touch her, to pull her hair loose from its braid and run his fingers through it. He wanted to rip her nightgown away and touch her in places sure to make the blush on her cheeks spread even further across her body. But, he couldn’t risk doing anything to make her pull away from him; not when he felt as if he’d been waiting most of his life just to taste her lips.
Then, everything changed. She ran her fingers through his hair, and pulled him closer to deepen the kiss. He groaned into her mouth, allowing her to take the lead and push past the barriers he felt too anxious to challenge himself. She was letting him in, parting her lips and offering her tongue in a tentative sweep against his lower lip. The moment their tongues met, rasping against one another in a velvety caress, Serge became lost to the moment.
His hands spanned her waist, moving upward until her breasts filled his palms. She moaned into his mouth, but did not pull away as he massaged the soft flesh with gentle hands. The feel of her made his mouth go dry, and he longed to do more than touch.
He needed to taste.
Sitting up straighter, he adjusted her position until she straddled him, the hem of her nightgown bunched up around her thighs. Panting and sighing between kisses, she sank down onto him without hesitation, the only thing barring the touch of her most secret place against his the stretch of the sheet across his lap.
With a swift tug, he had the nightgown down to her waist, exposing the perfect globes of her breasts and nipples that turned out to be a soft pink. She gasped when he flicked his tongue over one of the buds, then groaned and went limp in his arms when he bit down playfully with his teeth. He leaned her back until she was arched over his supporting arm, and continued his assault.
She shook and quivered in his arms, as he moved his open mouth over her neck and shoulders before going back to her breasts. He nipped and sucked at her, desperate to taste every inch, to fill his mouth with her breast and make more of those arousing sounds emanate from the back of her throat.
Isabelle proved more responsive than he’d ever imagined, coming alive in his arms like a match struck to a burning flame.
Her hips bucked against his, creating friction against her mons and the rampant erection separated from her by nothing more than a thin sheet. His hands traveled down her waist to her hips—the soft, supple flesh overflowing in his hands. He grasped her tight, pressing her even closer, seeking to ease the ache by grinding her against him.
His vision went hazy, his head falling back as he reveled in the pleasure of being so close to her. Close enough, that all he need do was whip the sheet aside and drive up into her. She’d feel so good, so perfect, so right.
Then, he realized what he was about to do as if someone had doused him with a bucket of cold water. Pulling the sheet aside and joining their bodies would likely prove the greatest mistake of his life, even if it was currently the thing he wanted most.
He couldn’t do this.
Reluctantly breaking their heated kiss, he ignored her desperate, frustrated cry and dropped his hands away from her tempting curves. He felt like the wor
st sort of person as she gazed down at him with confusion in her eyes, her lips pink and swollen from his kisses. She seemed dazed, confused, not herself. And this was why he couldn’t take her. If she were too far gone to realize they’d not only crossed the line, but traveled pretty far past that line, she surely wasn’t coherent enough to think logically about this. In the morning, she’d regret it, and he’d hate himself.
“We have to stop this,” he managed between ragged, uneven breaths, his chest heaving with the effort it took just to breathe.
She nodded, but said nothing, seeming to slowly start coming back to her senses. Already, horror began to overtake her features, as the realization of what they’d been about to do seemed to set in.
His gaze traveled over her mussed hair, down to her kiss-swollen mouth, and her body almost fully exposed to his view. He ought to be rewarded a sainthood for resisting the temptation she presented while sitting astride his hips with her nightgown lowered over her breasts and hitched up around her hips. With a pained groan, he tore his eyes away and focused on a spot on the wall over her shoulder.
“Please, for the love of God, cover yourself before I forget all my good intentions and do something we may both regret.”
As if snatched out of a trance, she leaped away from him before jerking her nightclothes back into place. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, her back turned to him, shoulders trembling. He stared at her back, torn between reaching out to touch her, and the self-preservative act of keeping his hands to himself.
Touching her again would be a bad idea.
After a long moment of sitting in silence, she finally rose to her feet and took up her lamp.
“I should go,” she said, her voice a choked whisper. “I hope you will be able to find some rest tonight.”
Serge did not know what to say, but found there was no need to try to form words. Within seconds she was out the door, leaving him alone in the darkness of his room.
When she was gone, he flopped back against the pillows with a sigh, one arm thrown over his closed eyes.
