by Annie West
‘It’s okay, glyka mou. I just want to see you.’
Lambis pressed forward and Amelie’s eyes widened as the hot breadth of him stretched her, slowly, inexorably. Deliciously. Her breath stopped and something caught in her chest at his expression as he watched her. His brow puckered in concentration and his mouth twisted as if with pain. Yet still he pushed further.
Was it because Lambis was such a big man, or was it the angle at which he held her, that made his glacially slow possession so much more? Or perhaps it was the heat in his eyes, and his low moan of pleasure that made her heart palpitate and pleasure radiate in rippling waves.
He surged higher, further than she’d thought possible. Her fingers clutched the bedding at how impossibly good that felt. So good her inner muscles grasped him of their own accord and he stilled, sucking in a breath.
For long seconds neither moved, each absorbing the exquisite sensations of their coupling. Then, with a groan, Lambis withdrew.
Amelie reached out and tried to anchor herself, grabbing his thighs, not wanting him to go. Her fingers dug into solid muscle as he retreated then, at the last moment, thrust hard and sure right to her core.
White light flickered on the edge of her vision. Her throat closed as she pushed high, impaling herself on him. Another retreat, another quick, decisive thrust and the flicker became sheet lightning, exploding around her.
Another thrust and another, his pace quickening, his possession so deep she felt melded to him. Amelie had never experienced anything like this. She relished every thrust, every caress, every second. His raw, urgent need and her own savage hunger to possess him. As if she’d waited all her life for this man and this moment.
When his hand dropped between her thighs, feathering that most sensitive spot, a spark detonated the long-banked fire within her. She called his name, needy and grateful, as he pushed her into ecstasy, into a place she’d never been before.
Seconds later he faltered, his fluid rhythm grew uncoordinated and he pulsed, out of control within her. Lambis leaned in, slipping her wobbly legs aside and took her mouth, tongue dancing with hers as their climaxes crashed through them and their bodies jerked and shuddered as one.
Dimly Amelie was aware of her hands lifting to tangle in his hair. Of the brush of chest hair and heavy pectorals against her breasts. Of the restless, almost worshipful stroke of his hand along her trembling body as she eased from ecstasy into a dreamy state of boneless satisfaction.
Lambis lifted his head then drew back but she wrapped her rubbery legs about him and hung on tight, refusing to let go. He didn’t go far, just enough to kiss her breast. Instantly fire shot from her womb to her nipple and she arched helplessly against him, her eyes snapping open in astonishment.
Satisfaction flared in those silvery eyes, a tight, knowing smile curved his lips and again his hand slipped low. His thumb pressed her clitoris, circling, pleasing, and she heard her gasp of pleasure. Lambis leaned down, kissed her nipple then sucked hard at it just as his thumb pressed again and, to her astonishment, another explosion consumed her.
Amelie convulsed around him, heard her own high-pitched cry and felt herself disintegrate into wave upon wave of rapture.
Her only compass point was Lambis, his heat surrounding her, his breath feathering her flesh and his deep voice stroking through her. He whispered words she couldn’t translate but knew instinctively were endearments.
Strong arms surrounded her, pulling her to him as he rolled over and clamped her to his chest. Amelie never wanted to move again.
How long she lay in that blissful state, Amelie didn’t know. She might even have slept. Finally she became aware of change, of movement. She was in Lambis’s arms, her face turned instinctively into that solid wall of hot, honed muscle that was his chest. The steady rhythm of his heart reassured, as did the way he held her, sure and safe as he crossed the room.
Amelie smiled muzzily, still overcome by the glow of wellbeing that had been his gift to her.
Then to her amazement she felt water against her heels. Her eyes shot open. They were in a vast bathroom, softly lit by candles. Lambis had run her a bath while she slept.
‘I didn’t think you were a candle person.’ Her words were slurred. Yet even as she said it she remembered how they’d dined by candlelight.
Lambis huffed and she heard a smile in his voice. ‘My housekeeper is. But it seemed right to use them tonight.’
With that he lowered her into the deep, warm bath.
Amelie didn’t try to stop the sigh of pleasure as she sank below the surface. Before she could settle, Lambis stepped in behind her, pulling her back against him so she reclined between his long legs, one of his arms wrapped around her waist.
She let her head loll back against his shoulder, concentrating only on this moment, coveting this interlude of peace and...oneness.
No, she wouldn’t think about that, how from the moment on the beach she’d felt...connected.
‘This is perfect,’ she purred. ‘How did you know?’ She’d been incapable of coherent thought after their urgent, explosive coupling.
She felt him shrug. When he spoke, the sound rumbled up inside him, making her smile. ‘I wondered if you might be sore. I’m not a small man and you were...tight.’ His voice dropped to that bass note she loved. It sent desire quaking through her.
‘Amelie?’ Definitely concern in his voice. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes.’ Now he mentioned it, she was achy between the thighs and her muscles felt well-used, as if she’d spent a long session in the gym. But that was nothing to the hum of delight in her pleasure-hazed body. ‘Lovely.’
‘Truly? I should have been gentler.’
Amelie roused and she slid her arm over his where it circled her waist. ‘You didn’t hurt me. And I was too hungry for you to care about gentle.’ A tiny smile caught her lips. ‘My only other experience was so gentle it was almost a non-event.’
Hazily she realised she was letting slip information she’d never shared with anyone. Never even voiced to herself. But in this candlelit room, seduced by the luxury of Lambis’s closeness and the sensual heat of the water, that didn’t seem important.
‘You’ve only had sex once before?’ He stiffened, his voice shocked.
Amelie patted his hand and ran her other hand down the muscled thigh beside her, intrigued by its shape and the way it twitched beneath her hand.
‘No. More than once. But with the same man. Jules. And it was a long time ago.’ She frowned, calculating. ‘Ten years.’
Lambis said nothing, yet she heard him thinking. His heart rate quickened and the arm holding her curved closer.
‘You were celibate for ten years and you suddenly give yourself to me?’
Now she heard it, an echo of something that might even have been fear, if she didn’t know Lambis was scared of nothing.
‘Don’t read too much into it, Lambis. I’m not expecting hearts and flowers. I know this is a no-strings arrangement.’ Even so, looking around the candlelit room, inhaling the seductive scent of the bath salts he’d thought to use for her, Amelie knew Lambis wasn’t as unfeeling as he pretended. He’d taken time to think about how she felt and what would please her.
‘I don’t regret what we’ve done.’ Far from it. Making love with Lambis—no, having sex—was an experience she wouldn’t have missed for anything.
‘Who was this Jules?’ His voice was gruff.
She shrugged, aware of the way her shoulder blades slid up over his chest and his hand relaxed a little to splay over her stomach. A tiny trickle of awareness stirred within and she shifted in his hold.
Seconds passed. Why not tell him? Lambis was one of the few people she’d trust not to reveal secrets. She’d never had the luxury of a confidante. Irini, lovely as she was, had continually looked to her for support and guidance. Amelie hadn’t felt able to unburden her own troubles.
‘Jules was a medical student when I was at university in St Galla.’
‘He swept you off your feet?’ Lambis’s breath feathered her scalp. Strange how that tiny sensation made her flesh prickle.
‘Not exactly. Jules wasn’t one for dramatic gestures. But he was kind and funny and he didn’t treat me like a princess.’ That didn’t come out right. ‘I mean, he didn’t care about my title or connections. He saw me, liked me for who I was.’ How appealing that had been. To her father she’d been an asset to be trotted out for official occasions, playing royal hostess after her mother’s death and, as time passed, doing more and more of the behind the scenes work he couldn’t be bothered with.
‘We were engaged.’ Amelie blinked, surprised the words slipped out.
‘Yet you didn’t marry?’ Lambis’s deep voice wrapped around her like his embrace.
Funny how easy it was to share confidences with him.
‘No.’ She strove to keep emotion from her voice. ‘My father didn’t approve. He was of the old school, insisting a princess of St Galla marry another royal, not a commoner. He persuaded Jules to leave.’
Silence. Finally Lambis spoke. ‘You felt betrayed. That’s why you haven’t been with another man?’
Amelie’s mouth twisted. ‘I couldn’t blame Jules. He was a poor student. Who could expect him to stand up against a king?’ Yet that didn’t stop the flutter of remembered distress, the echo of shattered dreams and the sense of betrayal. She’d stood up to the King. She’d been prepared to walk away from the palace, her title, any financial support, since that was what her father had threatened. She’d have left with only the clothes on her back if she had to, because she’d believed in Jules, believed in them.
She drew a shuddery breath and shook her head. ‘I was naïve. I thought he loved me and we’d be together no matter what. Instead he said he’d made a mistake. He’d come into a sudden...inheritance and was moving to the far end of St Galla to set up as a GP.’ She injected a lighter note into her voice. ‘Last I heard he was married, with a brood of children.’
Lambis said nothing, merely lifted her hair from her shoulder and pressed his lips there. Instantly a fine wire of tension pulled taut from the spot straight down to her pelvis. Her head angled back against him.
‘He soured you off men.’
Again Amelie shrugged. It was true, but she hated him imagining her as some tragedy queen. ‘You’d be surprised how few opportunities I have to be intimate. Everywhere I go the press are watching. Every holiday is just a couple of days tacked on to the end of official engagements. It’s hard to get to know men away from my royal responsibilities and I’ve never been interested in a purely sexual affair, or one conducted under the press spotlight.’
The exception had been Lambis. But he’d shied from her and her desire for a meaningful relationship.
He wasn’t shying now. She lowered her hand to his other leg, stroking and delighting in the shifting bunch of his muscles that told her he wasn’t immune to her touch. Behind her his erection stirred. Her inner muscles clenched.
‘Why now?’ He breathed against her shoulder, his breath humid and seductive on her shivery flesh. ‘Why me?’
Why Lambis? Because, despite what she’d told herself, it had always been Lambis, from the moment he’d walked into her life. She’d tried to obliterate her feelings but hadn’t succeeded. All she could do was accept she still had a weakness for him and hope their affair would cure her of it.
‘Because I’ve given up on love.’ Saying the words made her feel strong, despite the pang of distress. ‘It’s not for me.’ If she made it her mantra one day she’d convince herself.
‘But you want a husband and children, surely? A family? I see it in you when you’re with Sébastien.’
Damn the man for being so perceptive. And for forcing this issue. He was the one, with Jules, who’d trampled her romantic dreams. What did he want? Reassurance she wasn’t hoping he’d change his mind and offer her more than sex?
Amelie moved to sit straighter and put distance between them but Lambis tightened his arm around her middle and for some reason she let him pull her back.
Face it, you like being held by him! Even when you feel you shouldn’t.
‘Well, I’ve got Seb to look after, haven’t I? And if I want more I can go the old-fashioned route. Our Prime Minister has already suggested an arranged marriage with another royal.’
‘You? In an arranged marriage?’ Again that note of shock. For some reason it pleased Amelie that she’d surprised Lambis. She hated the idea of being an open book to a man who kept so much of himself hidden.
‘Why not?’
His answer, when it came, stunned her. ‘Because you need love. You’re the sort of woman who devotes her life to those she cares about. You deserve someone who’ll care for you too. Someone who will fight for you, no matter what the odds.’ There was a resonance about his words that spoke of deep feeling, and conviction, and it melted the frost of indignation forming around her heart.
See? He really is a nice guy.
He does care, even if only from a distance.
He wants you to be happy, even if he can’t be the man you want.
Yet it would be a terrible mistake to read more into his concern. She might still yearn but he couldn’t give her what she needed. Pain squeezed her chest.
She had to live for the moment. Enjoy this liaison to the full then walk away with her head high.
Deliberately she stroked her fingers up his thighs, trailing higher and higher till he shifted.
‘You’d better not do that,’ he growled. ‘It’s difficult enough already just holding you and not doing any more.’
‘You mean sex?’
His erection twitched, making Amelie smile.
‘I’m trying to restrain myself.’ It sounded as if he spoke through gritted teeth and Amelie’s smile widened. She loved that he made her feel desirable.
‘What if I don’t want you restrained?’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LAMBIS CLENCHED HIS jaw and prayed for control.
Amelie’s words threatened to undo him.
All through this conversation he’d struggled against baser instincts that urged him to take her again, now, but he’d held back.
The shock in her eyes when he’d positioned her on the bed, the exquisite tightness of her inner muscles, had proved what she’d since revealed, that she was a sexual novice.
‘I don’t want to hurt you, Amelie.’ The words ground from him. That was why he’d tried to keep his distance, right from the start. Yet there was an inevitability about them together that he couldn’t deny. There’d always been something about her, a brightness and gentle tenderness, that attracted him.
He hadn’t been gentle. He felt guilty about that, but not enough. For she’d surprised him with her eagerness.
‘You won’t hurt me. I know you won’t. Besides, we don’t have much time. Seb and I must return to St Galla soon. We can’t stay away indefinitely.’
Strange that, instead of satisfaction, her words unsettled him.
‘I want to have sex with you again.’ Did she know how those words struck home? His already hard groin hardened even further. It was all he could do not to grind himself against her. ‘I want to learn more.’
‘Learn?’ Lambis was so busy trying to control himself.
‘Yes.’ One of those delicate hands crept round behind her and circled his shaft. Lambis shut his eyes and shuddered. This felt impossibly good. ‘Before tonight my sexual experience was very limited.’
The idea of being Amelie’s sexual tutor should have delighted him. It did. Except Lambis felt far too close to the edge. Amelie was dainty and inexperienced and he was—
Her fingers tightened, sliding up in a long voluptuous stroke that had him groaning aloud.
On the other hand, she’d welcomed his carnality, with an ardour that stunned and excited. Far from being the fragile creature he’d once imagined, Amelie surprised him again and again with her strength, facing him down, calling him on his behaviou
r instead of shrinking back.
She stroked him again and he was lost. ‘Turn around,’ he ordered through gritted teeth, hands rising to her waist, turning her. Water splashed over the side of the bath and limbs tangled.
Then she was kneeling above him, slick and wet, her tip-tilted breasts glowing pink and glossy from the warm water. He traced a line from her breastbone down to her navel, then over her smooth belly to the triangle of dark golden hair just visible above the water.
Amelie shuddered as he stroked her there, her eyes growing heavy-lidded, her hips circling.
Did she have any idea how beautiful she looked, with her long golden hair falling damp around her breasts and her eyes foggy with arousal?
She leaned over, putting her hands on his shoulders and made to lower herself, but he stopped her. Watching her in the bedroom, writhing with the climaxes he’d given her, made him hungry for more.
Holding her hips, he moved forward, exploring that secret cleft with his tongue. She jolted as if an electric current passed through her and his erection throbbed in response. Again he licked, this time parting her folds and finding that tiny, sensitive pearl. Her heat enveloped him, her scent, the tremors of her body as he licked again, harder this time, and her fingers clawed at his shoulders.
‘Lambis!’ It was a gasp and a cry of tension as that judder came again and she tilted towards him. This time he kissed her, open-mouthed, drawing at her core until the soft cries became a scream and he heard his name echo again and again around the room.
Amelie shook against him, her breath tiny sobs that took his creaky heart and wrung it.
Tenderly, carefully, he drew her down into the warm water and kissed her, absorbing those final shudders of ecstasy, his heart sprinting. Then he rose, reached across and grabbed the condom he’d left near the bath.
When he was sheathed he sat, moving down till her knees were either side of his hips and he nudged against her. One gentle tug and she slid down, enveloping him, drawing him home. He felt heat and wonder and a sense of rightness that was new, yet familiar.
