by Hunter Kelly
She willed herself to relax and gained another inch that felt like a mile and lost her breath somewhere along the way. No more, surely, except he was less than halfway in and she was stuck. ‘I—help?’
He took control, hands that had been quietly stroking and coaxing, turning firm as he cupped her buttocks and slid her off him, not all the way but enough that she could breathe.
‘Circle your hips.’ Big hands guided her way and slickness returned and this time when she slid back down on him she ventured further. This time he helped by drawing back before she did, his palm coming to cover her belly and his thumb gently pressing down on her sensitive flesh. ‘Better?’
They were going to be here all night.
‘You’re thinking again,’ he rumbled.
‘Patience isn’t one of my gifts.’
His eyes warmed. ‘I have enough for both of us.’
He pulled out as he rolled her beneath him and slid down her body, proceeding to turn her into a mindless, writhing wreck again. This time when he rose back up and entered her it was easier. Slowly, inexorably, he worked his way in and somewhere along the way he stopped being so careful and she stopped worrying about pain versus pleasure, because the pleasure was back and it was constant.
She tilted her hips and he groaned and she thought he might have been seated to the hilt, but then he wrapped his hand beneath one of her knees and brought her leg up and thrust, and now he was all the way in and it was tight, and breathtakingly good.
For her, at any rate.
It was more intimate than anything she’d ever experienced with him. His previous lessons in sexual exploration had been fun, heady and all too often overwhelming. This was soul-stealing.
She would have more of it.
She drew him closer, sipped delicately at his lips and then licked within. He’d never been more beautiful to her than he was at this moment, his tightly controlled movements bound only by his will.
‘Please,’ she whispered, because surely he needed more than this. His focus had never wavered from his quest to make this good for her, not once. When did he get to let go and feel? ‘I’m really, really ready.’
His lips quirked above hers. ‘What would you have me do?’
‘Move.’
The man could follow direction when he wanted to. He raised himself to his knees, still inside her, one hand to her hip and the other to her nub, and he moved. Every stroke sent a tremor through her, every slide and every breath wound her tighter as he coaxed her to a rhythm she somehow already knew. Sensation piled in on her—it was too much, too good, and she wasn’t a quiet lover, she discovered, but neither was Theo. The flush on his cheekbones had spread down his neck and across his chest, a sheen of sweat made his skin glow, and there was nothing she wanted more than to see him come undone.
‘Tell me what you need.’ His voice was hoarse but his eyes spoke true. He meant it.
‘Give me all of you.’ They were thoughtless words but true. He stilled above her and then with a groan that choked out like a sob he let go of his restraint.
It took him less than half a dozen savage thrusts before she felt her body clamp around him. She tightened unbearably as the rest of her scattered to the four winds. There was no thought beyond this, and him, and when he followed moments later she could have sworn she could feel him spilling into her, claiming and being claimed in equal measure.
‘This. I need this, whatever this is,’ she whispered against his shoulder and his arms tightened around her. ‘Let me love you.’
CHAPTER TEN
MORIANA WAS SILENT in the aftermath, but it wasn’t the comfortable, sated silence a man could fall asleep in. This silence was prickly, tense, and for the first time in forever Theo wondered if he’d done wrong by a woman sexually. Had he been too reckless, too forceful, too greedy? Or all of those things? Because with Moriana involved all bets were off. Smoothness deserted him and neediness ruled.
Self-control fled when passion crept in.
He could barely believe she was his.
She’d curled into his side, her cheek to his shoulder and her hair a rampant tumble of curls. Her limbs were curled around his and the evidence of their joining lay wet between them both.
‘You okay?’ he asked gruffly, when what he wanted to ask was, Was I good enough for you? Do you still want me the way you did before? Have you changed your mind about all this?
He tightened his arm around her and ran his fingers over the knuckles of the hand she’d placed on his chest, which led him to the ring she wore, the one he’d chosen for his Queen. It was about time he admitted to himself that Moriana had always been there in the back of his mind. Practically perfect. Unobtainable. Already taken.
And claimed now, by him.
He turned, ever so slightly, and pressed a kiss into her hair. ‘Have I rendered you speechless?’
‘No, just sated. And thinking.’
‘Thinking what?’
‘That making love to you was more than I ever imagined. And I imagined a lot.’
He could stand to hear a little more. He brushed his fingers over her ring, loving that she’d chosen to wear it. ‘When did you decide?’
‘Oh.’ Her fingers curled into themselves a little but he wasn’t having it; he wanted their fingers entwined and now they were. ‘Well. Today some time, around about the time you delivered that foal, or a little bit before then. After letting me at the Crown Jewels but before the dinner. And then the petition to remove you because you weren’t married got resurrected and I figured—’
‘You figured what?’
‘I figured now would be a good time to tell you I was ready,’ she said.
He pulled away. Not hard but enough for him to see her face. Such a beautiful face. The one that now haunted his dreams.
‘You knew the petition had landed.’
‘I—’
He could see the truth in her eyes.
‘I knew,’ she said.
‘Get up.’ True rage had always settled on him cold rather than hot. ‘Get dressed. I don’t need you to marry me because it’s your royal duty to shore up my reign.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Get up! Get dressed. And get out. Do you think I want you to do this because duty compels you to? Moriana the perfect, Moriana the good. For God’s sake, for once in your life do what you want!’
‘I did! I am! And if you can’t see that you’re blind. I love you, Theo. Wholly and without caveats, but no. You can’t have that. I’d get too close.’ She picked up his trousers and threw them at him. ‘You get out. You’re the one who can’t stand being here with me like this. Give you a reason, any reason, to mistrust a person and you’re there, filling in the blanks. You did it with Benedict. You’re doing it with me. So get out and take your conspiracies with you and leave me alone.’
He got up. He put his trousers on and reached for his shirt. ‘Moriana—’
‘Get out! You don’t see what other people want you to see. You couldn’t accept love if someone laid it at your feet. Benedict loves you. I love you, but no. You can’t see past your own towering mistrust.’
‘Moriana, I—’
‘Please go.’ She picked up her dress. ‘I don’t want to talk to you right now. Just go. And in the morning I’ll go.’ He looked at her, just looked at her, and, to his utmost horror, got to see Moriana, perfect Princess of Arun, break wide open.
‘For heaven’s sake, Theo, get out,’ she screamed. ‘Can’t you see I’m giving you exactly what you want?’
He got out.
He went back to his rooms and sent Aury to her, and Sam to her, and food to her. Everything he could think of except himself.
And then he too held his head in his hands and broke.
* * *
She should have seen it coming. Moriana stood at a window in the Queen’s suite and looked out over the grounds below, bathed in soft morning light. She’d showered already this morning, and twice last night, but her body still ached
in places it had never ached before, and her feelings kept slipping to the surface, bringing hot tears she couldn’t afford to show. She had seen this coming—Theo’s inability to let her into his life and share his innermost thoughts and feelings. And then she’d gone and fallen deeply in love with him anyway.
She’s it for me.
That was the moment she’d lost all caution. But those words weren’t the same as I’ll fight my demons for you. They weren’t I’ll never hurt you. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Moriana stared down at the ring on her finger, tracing it with unsteady fingers, twisting it round and round. She’d take it off soon and leave it sitting on the dresser in its box. Engaged for less than twenty-four hours. A new record for Moriana of Arun. The illustrious members of the press were going to crucify her and she could barely raise the will to care.
Let them.
‘Milady, will you be breakfasting with the King this morning or shall I see to it that breakfast is served here?’ said a voice from the far corner of the room, and she turned and there stood Aury in the doorway, still sleepy and dressed in her nightgown. Aury, who’d come for Moriana last night and got her back to the Queen’s quarters with a minimum amount of fuss, and who’d then firmly shut everyone else out and earned Moriana’s undying gratitude.
And then Aury had left too, with a sympathetic smile and eyes sure with the knowledge that some things were best worked through alone.
Breakfast. Right. She’d never felt less hungry but it was the principle of the matter. Hearts got given and sometimes those holding them didn’t know how to keep them safe, and the sun still rose.
‘I’ll be having breakfast here, please, Aury. Just some fruit and coffee.’
‘No bacon?’ Aury shot her a pleading look. ‘Bacon on sourdough, with the heritage tomatoes and mushrooms from the gardens. Not that I’m mourning the impending loss of such bounty. At all.’
‘All right, that too. And the yoghurt and the passionfruit and the black sapote.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Aury. ‘And about that outfit you’re wearing... It’s perfect. Very sensual. Very confident.’
‘Good.’ Because she wasn’t inclined to take it off. The sundress was another from her never-worn-before collection, bright orange and red silks and chiffons, unapologetically fitted to make the most of her curves, and she’d pulled her hair into an untamed ponytail and secured it with a white silk scarf. ‘It’s the new me.’ Moriana liked being confident in her sensuality, a virgin no more. ‘I guess I have Theo to thank for that.’
‘Or we could call him an emotionally stunted imbecile and not thank him at all,’ offered Aury. ‘Just a thought.’
But Moriana shook her head and turned back to the view out of the window and the weak sun on her face. ‘Let’s not. Theo’s taught me a lot this week, and a lot of it was good.’ He’d encouraged her to think more of herself and she couldn’t regret that. He’d shown her how to embrace her sensuality and make a man fall apart in her arms and she’d never regret that. He’d stolen her heart, and that was unfortunate given that he didn’t seem to want it, but at least now she knew love in all its passionate, painful brightness.
And she refused to regret that.
Only the wearing of the ring had been a mistake, and that was easily fixed. All she had to do was take it off.
Word came with breakfast that Theo’s helicopter would be at her disposal from nine a.m. onwards. Aury received the message in silence and Moriana acknowledged it with a cool nod. Only when Moriana bade the guards to leave the room and shut the door behind them did her brittle façade drop. She’d been hoping Theo would come for her this morning, ask to see her, maybe even be contrite when it came to their harsh words spoken last night. She wanted him to fight for her love. He was a fighter, was he not? A master strategist who knew what everyone else at the table wanted?
She guessed not.
She took the ring off and set it on the table and Aury looked at it and sighed. ‘So that’s it?’
Moriana nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
‘You could talk to him,’ Aury suggested carefully.
‘I have talked.’ And loved, and given him her all and discovered herself stronger for it. ‘Marriages are built on trust and Theo trusts no one. I’m worth more than he’s offering and I don’t want to compromise.’
‘Good for you.’ But Aury looked as miserable and uncertain as Moriana felt. ‘His loss.’
A knock on the door drew their attention—and Moriana’s hope—but it was only the newspapers for the day and she sent them away unread.
‘I’ve grown,’ she told the uncharacteristically silent Aury.
‘I’ll say.’
‘For the better, I hope.’
‘Definitely for the better.’ Aury smiled and it was small but genuine. ‘So, this foreign palace for a week was adequate but ultimately unsatisfying.’ She waved her hand dismissively at the chandeliers and the light streaming in through gauze-curtained windows. ‘We can do far better than this. Perhaps somewhere with more sunshine and fewer kings.’
‘I think perhaps the south of France.’ Moriana could get behind that. ‘Sun, fun and healing.’
‘Please let there also be retail therapy,’ added Aury.
‘There can be. I’ll sell a painting.’
‘We could go there directly.’ Aury never complained of rapid changes in plans; she embraced them. ‘It would take one phone call to get the villa up and running.’
‘Do it.’ Maybe there could even be hedonism and debauchery and falling in love all over again with someone new.
Doubtful, but still... Better than thinking she was going there to mourn the loss of a future that would have been a perfect fit.
Had Theo loved her.
‘Pack light for us both and have Sam send the rest back to Arun.’ There was no point staying where she wasn’t wanted. ‘We leave at half nine.’ Long enough to pen thank you notes for the staff who had attended her so well during her stay. Long enough to draw up a plan for exhibiting those heritage gowns and to hand it over to Letitia, who might see it done.
‘Good plan,’ said Aury. ‘Consider it done. Would you like me to call Arun and let them know?’
‘Yes, but I don’t want to talk to anyone.’ She couldn’t deal with speaking to either Augustus or her father right now. She had no strength left for flippant defences or breezy reassurances. ‘If Augustus wants to talk, he can call Theo. Tell them I’m busy seducing the unwary and I’ll call once we get to France and I have a spare moment.’
‘You do realise your brother will have a fit when he learns the engagement is off?’ Aury warned.
‘His choice.’ Moriana tried to shrug off her guilt at disappointing her family and almost succeeded. ‘I tried to fit in here and didn’t succeed. I hurt, I bleed, I make mistakes and love unwisely. No one’s perfect and I’m through with trying to be. I’m me. And they can take me or leave me.’
* * *
Theo handed Moriana into the helicopter and tried not to let his terror show. This past week had been more intense than he ever could have imagined. Laughter and luxury, anguish and self-loathing, argument and unbearable intimacy—he’d been bombarded by emotion, and he still hadn’t told Moriana how much she meant to him.
Oh, he’d shown it in a thousand wordless ways but Moriana didn’t speak the language he’d perfected back when there was no one to talk to and no one he could trust and the only way to show favour was by deed. He could have trusted Benedict, had he known then what he knew now, but he hadn’t, and that was a stain on his conscience that was destined to spread. He trusted Moriana more than he’d ever trusted anyone, and he loved her beyond measure, but he couldn’t find the words, and here he was putting her into a helicopter similar to the one that had taken his family and all he could think was Never again. He couldn’t go through that again.
They’d travelled from palace to palace by helicopter to get here but that was different. He’d been going with her t
hen. He wasn’t the one on the ground about to look skyward.
‘Don’t go.’
She either hadn’t heard him above the noise of the rotor blades or she didn’t understand. He leaned closer, caught her arm and figured he must look like a madman. ‘Go by car, by train, by damn horse—anything but this. My family died like this and my uncle arranged it. Don’t leave in a helicopter. I can’t stand it. I can’t lose you too.’
He saw her eyes, dark and startled. And then she was out of the helicopter and tilting forward as she strode towards the castle, turning when within safe distance to draw a line across her throat for anyone watching. This flight wasn’t happening, cut the engine, stand down, at ease.
He’d never felt less at ease.
He strode from the courtyard, Moriana silent at his side, keeping pace with him but only just. They passed Sam, who stood at the doorway but she chose not to make eye contact and neither did any of his security detail. Good call. What could he tell them that they didn’t already know? The Princess wasn’t leaving as arranged.
He kept his silence as they walked to his rooms. Moriana kept her confusion to herself, faltering only when they were away from prying ears and eyes and he’d shut the door behind them.
When he turned back around she stood by the fireplace, hands clasped in front of her and her stance so regal and assured that he knew she was quailing inside.
‘What was that?’
That was him, trying to make things right with her, only it was entirely possible that he needed to do some more explaining. ‘I didn’t want you to go. Not like that.’
‘Your office organised that flight. You authorised it.’ Her voice held a hint of disbelief.
‘I know. I changed my mind. I had a flashback to the day my family died and... I may have lost faith in helicopter travel. A little.’
There was no objection from her there.
‘Your uncle did what?’ she asked tentatively.
Theo pocketed his hands and nodded. It was now or never, and never wasn’t an option with this woman. ‘The day my family died I was meant to be on that helicopter too. The trip had been planned as a family outing, but I was wilder then and not always inclined to obey my parents. Benedict had turned up and talked me into going to the races with him. Fortune had favoured me—that’s what they said. I had a bad case of survivor guilt—that’s what Benedict said. It wasn’t until years later that the information came to light that the helicopter had been tampered with and my uncle was behind it. He wanted the throne. He’d have kept it if not for me.’
