My mouth licked and sucked at her skin as I slid to my knees before her.
“Jaime...what are you—”
“Trust me.”
I held my breath as I tugged on the silk tie that kept her robe closed, and then let it go in a ragged sigh. My eyes feasted on her body, from the curve of her waist to the high, heavy breasts my mouth longed for, to the tiny strip of curls that led to her sweet pussy. She was everything I’d fantasized and more.
For the first time in my life, I was tongue-tied.
“Jameson?”
My eyes met hers, and my exhale was shaky. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. You know that, right?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head slowly. “You’ve been with so many.”
“And none of them were you. God, if you had been intended for me, there never would have been another woman in my bed. Ever. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”
Without losing eye contact, I spread her thighs.
“You’re all I’ll ever want,” I swore. Then before she could answer, I set my mouth on her.
She arched, her hands gripping my hair.
I licked her from opening to clit, tasting her sweetness. When I tongued that sensitive bundle of nerves, she gasped. Then her fingers weren’t tugging my hair; they were holding my head in place. As if I’d ever leave.
I alternated flat strokes of my tongue with swirls and pressure, her moan filling her bedroom when I sucked her clit between my lips.
“God. Yes. Jaime!”
I gripped her ass and pulled her to the edge of the chair, eating at her like she was the last meal I’d ever have on this Earth.
She had to say yes. She had to be mine because I couldn’t live my life without having her on my tongue every night.
I entered her with one finger, using it to tease until she writhed against it.
“More.”
“Demanding, aren’t you?” I teased.
“Jameson. More.”
“As always, you command me.” I used two fingers to find her g-spot, stroking it as I worked her clit with my mouth.
Then I switched, fucking her with my tongue as my fingers rubbed her clit.
She came apart, and God, her orgasm was beautiful. To know that I’d brought her that pleasure, made her lose that rigid control made me almost come in my damn pants.
I brought her down gently, ignoring the state of my dick. He could wait.
She looked at me with wonder in her eyes. They were hooded, glazed with desire. Her cheeks were flush, and her hair a mess from where she’d thrashed against the back of the chair.
She pulled me up by my dress shirt—I’d been too keyed up to change after dinner—and kissed me ravenously.
With a gasp, she pulled back. “I can taste you and…”
“And yourself?”
“Yes,” she admitted, her eyes on my lips.
I lifted her into my arms and headed for the bed.
“Still want me?” I asked. I’d stop if she wanted me to—I’d never hurt any woman, let alone Charlotte, but damn, I was going to be dead if she said yes.
What a way to go.
“God, yes,” she answered, throwing her robe to the floor as I laid her back on the bed. “Now strip. I’m not the only one getting naked here.”
I grinned, then peeled off my dress shirt, shoes, socks, tux pants and my boxer briefs. Then I stood as she came up on her elbows, letting her look at me the same way I’d done to her. Slowly, I turned in a circle.
“Do I pass inspection?” I asked.
She wet her lips and nodded, her eyes dropping to my cock where he was more than ready for her. Her breath sped up, and her eyes widened.
“You’ll fit, I promise,” I told her.
She raised an eyebrow. “I know. I’m a virgin. Not an idiot. I was just admiring you.” She sat up, her hands skimming my thighs until she cupped me in her palm. “And there’s a lot to admire.”
I hissed as she squeezed lightly, but I didn’t move, just let her explore my body.
“I’ve been wondering about this since that day in the gym,” she said, her thumb stroking over my tattoo.
Well, shit.
“That was a drunken night in Vegas after I saw a picture of you and Xander on the front of every American tabloid at some charity event.” If she didn’t understand what she meant to me, that patch of ink pretty much gave it all away.
“It’s a gardenia.”
She looked up at me, and I just about drown in those eyes. As hard as I was, as desperate and hungry to have her, this moment was more intimate than sex could ever be.
“Why?” her voice was a plea.
I cupped her face in my hands. “Because you were on his arm, but you’d always been imprinted on my soul. I’d always think of you reading in the gardenias, those moments when you were mine before we both knew you were his. I simply let my skin reflect my heart.”
She rose up on her knees. “I was never his. Not in the way that I was yours—am yours.”
Before I could question her, she kissed me, and my thoughts all went south, where her very soft belly was pressed against my very hard dick.
Gripping the globes of her ass, I lifted her and brought us to the center of the bed. Then I worshipped her skin with kisses and caresses, memorizing every line and curve of her body. I drove her to madness, until she was writhing, her nipples pink from my mouth, her skin flushed from my hands.
“Please, Jaime,” she begged, grabbing my ass and raising her knees around my hips.
My cock nudged her entrance, and I locked down every muscle in my body, ignoring my most primal urge to thrust.
“Condom.” Was that my voice? It was so hoarse I barely recognized it.
She blinked up at me. “Of course.” She reached into her nightstand and tossed one at me.
“You…” My brain was foggy with lust, the hunger to take her gnawing at me, but I could still put that thought together. “You have condoms.”
“I got them today. I knew what I was asking you for last night.”
I tore open the condom with my teeth, then rolled it on with one hand as I kissed her. She’d acknowledged that we’d end up here, thought about me when I wasn’t with her.
This was better than Christmas.
Using my thumb, I lightly rubbed her hyper-sensitive clit until her hips rocked, seeking more, needing pressure. Needing me.
“God, Jaime. Please. Now.”
That was a plea I couldn’t refuse.
I kissed her again, then kept my eyes on hers, only a breath apart, as I maneuvered into her the slightest inch.
Heaven. Her pussy was hot, tight, slippery from my mouth and her desire. I locked my jaw and took a breath. “Okay?”
She nodded, wiggling her hips, and I hit that barrier.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I gritted out.
Her fingers curled around the back of my neck, and she brought me down for a long kiss. “Take what’s yours, Jameson.”
I thrust home, taking her virginity and sinking into her up to the hilt in one smooth motion.
She gasped.
Perfect. Glorious. Hot. So fucking tight. Home. There weren’t enough words to describe this feeling, or the need to pull out and thrust again and again—to pound us both to orgasm, to rip off this condom and ride her bare, fill her with our child. To bind her to me irrevocably.
Instead, I stayed completely still, keeping my weight on my elbows so I didn’t crush her.
“Charlie?” I searched her eyes.
“I’m okay. It just hurts a twinge, and you’re...God, Jameson, you’re in me.”
I groaned. There was a spot in the restraint hall of fame for me somewhere.
“Yeah, I am.”
She wiggled her hips, and I cursed.
“Charlotte. Stop. Give yourself a minute to adjust.” If she moved like that one more time, I was going to come, and this would be over before it ever started.
�
��It feels good when I move,” she said, her thighs locked onto my hips.
“Then I hope you’re ready because it’s about to get even better.”
I withdrew until I almost left her, then slid in again, slowly, carefully. Her eyes closed, her neck arched, and she let out the sweetest fucking moan I’d ever heard.
“Again.”
So I did.
I moved inside her over and over again, keeping my pace slow, the thrusts steady, watching her for any sign of pain while I kept my body on lockdown.
Her body was liquid fire, our fit the kind of perfection that was always written about but never existed...but we did.
“More,” she said, arching her back.
That was quickly becoming my favorite word.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” I ordered, my jaw locking as I increased our pace, taking her faster, my thrusts harder. She wrapped her legs around my hips, and I realized this was it—the moment I’d always dreamed about, fantasized about.
And the reality was better than I’d ever imagined.
“Stop holding back,” she ordered, then kissed me. “I want everything you have.”
My control snapped.
Fisting my hand in her hair, I buried my face in her neck, kissing the most sensitive spot, then fucked her like I’d always dreamed about.
Long. Hard. My hips pistoned, swinging rhythmically, but wild. Her moans drove me on, her nails in the skin of my back, her legs tight around me.
I felt my orgasm build, the sensation shooting from my balls and up my spine, but I bit it back. I wanted this to last forever.
“Jaime,” she pled, seeking her release, her muscles tight beneath me. She was right on the edge.
I slipped my hand between us and pressed on her clit.
She screamed my name as she came.
I pumped twice more and lost myself to my orgasm, and in the white-hot pleasure, I could only say one word. “Charlotte.”
Then I said it again twice before morning came.
I left her room as the sun rose, knowing the house would be up, and there was zero chance I was fucking up her reputation—even if it got her in a wedding dress. She had to choose me, not be press-shamed into marrying me.
I looked back at her—sprawled, satisfied, and sleeping before I snuck into the passage. She was exquisite, and mine.
Every part of me screamed to get back in that bed with her, to make love to her as the sun rose and fuck the consequences. Instead, I shut the passage door behind me softly and walked back to my room.
I was leaving her bed today so I could keep her in mine forever.
Charlotte
The cool, crisp…empty sheets woke me from my deep slumber. I kept reaching across my bed, expecting for my fingers to meet warm flesh before I opened my eyes.
When I finally managed to pry my heavy lids apart, I shot straight up in the bed.
No Jaime.
I lifted the sheet to cover my naked breasts, the chill in the room raising bumps all over my skin. My gaze darted to every crevice of my room, my eyes lingering on the panel of wall that led to the palace tunnel Jaime had used to sneak in here last night. After staring at it for ten minutes straight, it was clear he hadn’t rushed out to grab us morning tea.
My shoulders dropped, and I tried to ignore the weight sinking in the bottom of my heart. Last night…things had changed. I’d submitted to him, and him to me. Or so I’d thought.
We’d struck this bargain, or I had, that ensured we wouldn’t become more to each other. It was too dangerous. He had to become King, and I had plans of my own. Help him secure his queen and become the ruler Elleston has always needed. To return home where a prestigious, coveted position at the Foundation for Women’s Progression awaited me. I was proud of that offer, and couldn’t wait to accept the position and start making something of my title, do something that was solely mine, and not attached to the royal family that I loved so much.
Love.
Jaime. God damn him.
I’d never stood a chance. I’d loved him for much longer than I’d ever admit—that truth tucked away in a locked box deep inside the crevices of my mind. A place where proper ladies hide their most intimate secrets and only pull them out in the secluded darkness of their private bedrooms, and only in times of desperate need. Jaime had his own box. And it wasn’t one I often visited because it was too painful.
Now. Things had changed, and yet they hadn’t.
He was the one promised to someone else, now, despite his heavy feet when selecting his bride.
And me?
I was doing the one thing I wasn’t supposed to. I was letting those secret dreams slip through the keyhole of that box, floating to the surface, begged out by the power Jaime had over my body, my heart.
A full body flush raked over my skin, and I touched my lips. Flashes from last night consumed my mind, making my heart race and heat rush to my thighs. The man was incredible. No, he was more than that. It was like he’d been made for me. He’d awoken me, shook up my soul, and ravaged me all at once.
Being a virgin at my age, I’d had countless years of fantasizing about my first time. He’d blown all of my wildest dreams out of the water. But, of course, Jaime had never had a problem blowing women’s minds.
The cold penetrated my skin and sank into my bones.
I was the one who said this couldn’t be more than a satisfying our years of sexual tension. I’d said we couldn’t be more.
And yet, more is what I’d demanded of him last night. He’d given it to me and then some. He’d taken my heart, tattooed his name across it just like that damned gardenia under his hip bone. His delicious, perfectly sexy hip bone.
“I’d always think of you reading in the gardenias, those moments when you were mine before we both knew you were his. I simply let my skin reflect my heart.”
I’d believed him. I’d let go of the world and become his in those moments. Maybe I’d always been his.
But now he was gone. Like this had been what I’d said it would be in the first place—just sex, nothing more.
How many women had he left like this in the dawn? I hated that I’d seen his pattern too many times. That I knew I’d never be able to put a number to what had been his past. One he was completely entitled to but one that now crushed the breath from my lungs.
Could last night have really meant more to me than it had to him? I thought I knew him better than that, thought we were on the same page.
A virgin who knows nothing. Frigid.
I cringed against the hateful, doubtful bitch who tainted my thoughts. He didn’t think that. He wouldn’t have made love to me a second and third time if that were the case…or was it simply…fucking? God, I didn’t even know enough to know the difference.
It felt real.
It still felt real. My heart threatened to burst with the idea of happiness, of having Jaime as mine, and having more nights like last night…
A shudder rippled down my spine, and I shifted in the bed. A sharp twinge of pain pulsed between my thighs, but it wasn’t so unpleasant. A sort of soreness I was beyond pleased to have earned. If anything, at least I had that with him, held on to that part of him for that time.
I rubbed my palms over my face, slipping out of the bed and into my silk robe. Jaime couldn’t abdicate the throne, not like Xander did, and I needed to go home. I needed to live a life that was my own, one where I made choices for myself, choices that weren’t up to a Parliament or a royal family.
An ache wrenched itself in my chest. Jaime had always been a painful dream. One I knew I’d never be strong enough to survive.
Rushing to the bathroom, I ripped off the robe, ready for a hot shower to help rid me of the tangled web of thoughts threatening to suffocate me. I paused when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
My lips were swollen, my skin flushed and puckered, my eyes bright and churning, and my face hardened in pain.
Jaime.
The man was capable
of transforming me into this—a wild woman, desirable, starved for him.
I quickly stepped into the shower as if I could outrun the thoughts shredding my soul. I was in love with him and had been much longer than I’d ever admit.
The steam surrounding me was heavy with the scent of Jaime and me combined—something unique and signature to us. To what happened between us last night. The warm water rolled down my oversensitive skin, and I could almost feel his fingers on me. The way he’d been gentle yet demanding, soft yet hard in all the places I desperately needed.
My fingers slick with the gardenia-scented soap, I closed my eyes and only saw him. His sculpted body, his tattoo that was meant for me, for a time when a contract and his brother wasn’t between us. I heard his words, felt his breath on my ear as he whispered, felt him between my legs, saw his eyes as they’d locked with mine and penetrated straight into my soul.
A humming need pulsed deep in my core, and I snapped my eyes open.
I craved the man despite having him in my bed only hours ago. Despite knowing we had two weeks left if anything. He may be done with me. That may be the reason he’d bolted before I woke up this morning. Perhaps he’d gotten the taste of me out of his mouth—satisfied that craving that had built between us for a decade.
The thought had the ache between my thighs fighting an angry fight, begging me to say it wasn’t true, say last night wouldn’t be the only night with Jaime.
I sighed, hating that my body and heart raged a war my mind knew had already been lost. He would marry. He would choose a queen.
And it wouldn’t be me.
Because I wanted to choose. For myself. The freedom that had never been afforded our situation.
I stepped farther under the hot, rushing water, and reached down, gently testing the sore area.
Jaime’s.
I’d told him as much last night. Told him I was his. That all that I had, he owned. And damn if he didn’t take it, claim it.
I hissed, arching my head back as I slid my fingers between myself, needing to soothe the area that was sore in the most delicious way. Jaime’s beautiful body, the way he took such care with me as if I was something precious, flashed behind my closed lids. His eyes, the way his muscles flexed as he settled himself between my thighs and moved so slow I was sure I’d combust. The man had tortured me, and I’d been a willing participant, begging him to push us harder, further, longer.
The Throne Page 9
