by Mia Carson
His whole body stiffened against her arm, and she expected him to climb to his feet and storm off. Instead, he exhaled loudly through his nose. “Are you sure you want to know about me, Daphne?”
“I know I may not like what I see.”
“No one else ever has,” he muttered darkly. “Is that really what you want to know? What about what your aunt said?”
Her hand reached across for his, and she marveled at how easily their hands fit together. “I want to know both. Can we do that? I am the princess, after all,” she added sarcastically. “Not that it means anything anymore.”
“It will if you believe it does,” he argued.
“Then tell me what’s going on in the city. Please, Matt, I have a right to know what everyone really thinks of me.”
His jaw clenched and he looked away, but he told her. With each word, Daphne’s anger rose. “You were six when Marietta was killed in that accident? Afterwards, the king and queen tucked you away behind the walls of the palace. You were hardly seen before, but after the accident, it was almost like you didn’t exist.”
“But I was still here. I saw people at festivals,” she insisted.
“Yes, and everyone saw your smiling face, but then you were tucked away again. Now that you’re older, rumors have started that you’re a shut-in, maybe even not right in the head,” he muttered, sounding as irritated as she felt. “Hell, I believed them before I met you.”
Daphne didn’t understand how it was possible. When her sister died, it hurt her, but she had moved past it. She had no choice. She was a princess, and there were duties to carry out. “The people… What do they think I do?”
He shrugged. “It varies. Some think you’re depressed all the time, hiding in your rooms. A few think you’re nothing more than a spoiled child who does nothing worthwhile.”
“And Aunt Agnes has been pushing for Dion to take over because the people believe I’m nothing more than a depressed shut-in?” She jumped to her feet, tottering towards the edge of the roof, but she caught herself and shoved Matt’s hands away as she stormed across the roof. “As if everything wasn’t already terrible, now they all think I’m useless! How am I supposed to prove anything to my people if they don’t even know what I’m already capable of?”
Matt cut off her pacing and gripped her shoulders. “You have to prove to them you’re worth following,” he said sternly. “You have to show them.”
“How? I can’t leave the damn palace walls!”
“When I was in the military, I commanded men,” he told her, each word sounding forced. “I had to prove to them I was a confident leader, that they could trust me to get them home alive.” He sucked in a shaky breath, and his hands twitched against her shoulders. “They had to know I would hit my targets without fail.”
Daphne’s hands reached up and covered his, holding them steady. “Targets. You were an assassin?”
His lips twitched, but he didn’t smile. He never smiled, at least not with his mouth. “Close enough. I was a sniper.” A ghost of guilt and pain crossed his face and he tried to move away, but Daphne didn’t let him. She gripped his hands tighter, pressing them against her shoulders to keep him there. “I killed people, Daphne. It was my job, and I did it without a second thought,” he whispered bitterly.
“Here I am, worried about what people might think of me, and you’re dealing with something so much worse,” she whispered and brushed her fingers gently across his furrowed brow. “Is that why you never smile? You’re carrying around all this guilt for doing what you had to do?”
His mouth fell open, but he didn’t speak. Daphne moved her hand down his face, tracing the harsh lines of his cheekbones and jaw. Slowly, his face relaxed until his hand reached up to catch hers.
“You never smile either,” he said roughly. “Not really.”
“Not much to smile about when you’re trapped, but I guess you’d know all about that.”
His face darkened as his eyes locked on hers. Daphne’s breath caught in her throat, and the next second, his arms wrapped around her body, pulling her up so his lips covered hers hotly. She sighed against his kiss as it deepened, his tongue demanding entrance, and all she could do was allow him in. His arms held her close until her breasts were pushed against his chest. She wanted him desperately, needed to feel his naked skin beneath her hands so she could chase away the ghost in his eyes.
“Matt,” she whispered when she came up for air, her whole body crying out for his touch.
“Yes, princess?” he growled, and that fierce gaze pierced hers as he glanced down. His eyes slid lower to her cleavage, and his erection pressed hard against her stomach.
She shivered when she felt him through the thin fabric of her clothes, and her hands dug into his back. The words wouldn’t come so she told him the best she could, with her eyes and her kiss, exactly what she wanted. When his lips claimed hers again, she knew he understood the message loud and clear.
“I’ll have to sneak you back into my room,” she whispered, moaning when his hands cupped her needy breasts. His lips kissed her neck, his tongue soothing each nip as he went until his beard scruff from the day rubbed against the mounds of her breasts. “Or we could just do it here. The roof is good.”
“No,” he growled and guided her to the trellis. “You will not have your first time with me on a roof.”
“First time ever, you mean,” she added breathily.
His eyes darkened more, and Daphne groaned when he crushed her to his body again, holding her so close she wasn’t sure where she ended and he began. “Are you sure about this? With me? I’m not a good man, Daphne.”
“You were, once upon a time,” she whispered as she ran her hands through his hair. “I can see him in there, and I want to bring him out of you again.”
“It might not be easy,” he warned as his hands tightened around her body.
“Nothing good ever is,” she replied, and with a grin she turned to climb down the trellis. “The problem is getting you to my room.” The climb down seemed to take forever before her feet finally hit the solid ground with Matt right behind her. “I don’t know if we’ll get there without being spotted,” she said and nodded to the security camera nearby.
Matt’s eyes glimmered with the smile that did not reach his lips. “Don’t worry. Someone’s watching out for you.”
Daphne wasn’t sure what he meant, but he took her hand and pulled her through the dark courtyard and back into the palace. They reached the main foyer, grateful it was empty, but Daphne knew it was the upper hall where there would be trouble. When they stepped off the grand staircase, a light nearby flickered once, and Matt held his finger over his lip. Daphne nodded and waited until the light flickered again. They hurried down the empty corridor. Her rooms were in sight, and by the time she threw the doors open and dragged Matt in behind her, Daphne thought her heart would pound right out of her chest.
He raised his hand slowly, and when his fingers trailed down her cheek, Daphne’s eyes closed on a sigh. She felt his body move closer as his hands shoved her cardigan down over her shoulders and tossed it aside somewhere. When his hands reached for the hem of her shirt, her breath caught and she lifted her arms with a grin.
“You should show people your real smile more,” he growled, quickly relieving her of her shirt. The air was chilly against her bare breasts, and Daphne opened her eyes to gaze up at him. The intensity in his eyes grew as he stared at her half naked body. “There aren’t enough hours in the night for what I want to do to you.”
The moment his hands cupped her bare breasts, rough palms against her sensitive nipples, Daphne’s head fell back on a moan until he swallowed it. He kissed her hard and deep while his tongue moved like a fire against hers. In a brief moment of clarity, she realized he needed this almost as much as she did. The release, an escape from the burden of their lives and their minds. And she would make sure he got exactly what he wanted.
His mouth released hers only to fall to her nipp
le and suck on it as she squirmed in his arms. Her hands drove through his hair, and Daphne knew then no man would ever touch her like this and set her body on fire so easily. Her back arched, and when his free hand slid beneath her sweats and lace panties, a cry escaped her lips. Matt’s palm was warm, but pressed against her soft, wet folds it felt even hotter. He cursed against her cleavage.
“Already wet for me,” he whispered raggedly against her.
“Been wet for you since the other night,” she replied, barely able to get the words out when his palm rubbed her clit without mercy. “Since I pictured you doing this and more to me.”
He groaned at her words, and his fingers spread her folds, gliding along their slickness, but didn’t enter. She bit her lip and shifted her hips, begging him to pierce her, but he didn’t, and for the first time ever, she heard him chuckle. The sound was deep, reverberating through his chest and into her body, sending more ripples of pleasure through her nerves.
Matt’s hand pressed against her, and when her knees weakened, his arm was her only support. “What did you do when you thought of me? Did you do this?” he asked and moved his hand hard and fast between her legs.
Daphne trembled against him as she nodded. “God, yes. Matthias!”
His fingers slipped inside her a second later, and her hands gripped his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin through his shirt, desperate to hold onto something, anything. Her eyes closed as his thumb pressed against her clit and his fingers moved within her, stretching her beautifully as she never had been before. His mouth found her nipple again and suckled at her chest while his hand built a steady rhythm, sliding in and out of her wetness as her inner muscles clenched, wanting to keep him there inside her. Each touch sent her closer to falling apart in his arms. His fingers thrust hard up into her, a preview of what was to come. Just the thought of having him—all of him—sent her tumbling over the edge into oblivion.
A cry tore from her throat, but he covered her mouth hurriedly with his. The orgasm spread through her limbs, stronger than any she’d had previously, and before she finished, Matt picked her up in his arms and stalked towards the bedroom. Her chest heaving, she slid down the front of his body, being sure to press herself against every inch of him, and smirked when he growled. His eyes darkened until her hands fumbled for his shirt.
“Wait,” he whispered roughly, stopping her.
“You’re not going to hide from me,” Daphne told him fiercely. “Not now, not after you forced the real me out.”
He frowned, but his face softened quickly and he nodded, letting go of her wrists. Her fingers fiddled with the hem of his shirt, and slowly, she pulled it up over his body. His hands twitched at his sides when her gaze roved over his chest, tensed in the moonlight pouring into her bedroom. Gently, her fingers moved across that skin, marveling at the dark sprinkling of hair trailing down to his jeans, and the tattoos which fascinated her. Daphne circled behind him and looked at the massive ink on his back.
“That’s some tattoo,” she whispered. She traced the flames surrounding the skull and frowned. “This is you, isn’t it? The skull.”
Matt’s hands twitched again, and he whipped around, picked her up in his arms, and tossed her lightly onto the bed. “We can talk about me later,” he muttered darkly, his lips twitching in a smirk. “Now, all I want is to hear you scream my name as I take you.”
He yanked her sweats down, and Daphne propped up on her elbows to watch as he stepped back and removed his jeans. When all of him was revealed, she licked her lips at his erection standing proudly before her. He didn’t move for a minute, letting her stare at his naked body. The sinews and hollows showed her just how much muscle he hid beneath his clothes and that he was as dangerous as his blacked-out military file claimed.
She didn’t care how dangerous he might be to everyone else. She trusted him with her life, and now, she trusted him to take her body, and maybe by the end, she would know for certain who this man was who drew her so ferociously to him.
Matt’s jaw clenched, and as his eyes caressed her body as they so often did, Daphne’s heart pounded and her mouth fell open with want. Her hands itched to touch him, touch herself, anything to ease the building lust burning in her lower half. When her hands moved to her breasts, Matt’s eyes narrowed on them and his hands curled into fists at his sides, but he made no move to get in bed with her, not yet.
“What are you waiting for?” she whispered as her fingers tugged at her nipples.
“I don’t want to lose control, not with you,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I trust you, Matthias,” she said.
“I don’t, not yet.”
She let her hands wander further down her body. Slowly, she spread her legs, and when his gaze landed between them, she struggled to maintain control. The damn man didn’t even have to touch her to make her explode with desire. No wonder the women loved him, but the look in his eyes as he stared told her tonight was different for him. She wasn’t sure how, but it was.
Unable to resist and curious about what he would do, she slipped her hand between her legs and pinched her clit. He shifted on his feet, and his lips parted. Daphne smirked and let her fingers trail over her soft folds, slick from his last touch and begging for more. The second her fingers moved to fill her, Matt cursed and reached forward. His hands closed around her hips and dragged her to the edge of the bed, and when his mouth closed around her clit, Daphne’s hips bucked hard. As her eyes crossed from the intense jolt of pleasure, his tongue slipped down and inside her, thrusting in and out quickly, his hands massaging her hips and thighs.
The palace disappeared—the entire kingdom—and all that remained was this moment with Daphne and Matthias. She clawed at the sheets and her body writhed against his mouth, needing to be closer and at the same time unable to handle the pressure building deep within her. Just when she was ready to let go, Matt pulled back, and she whimpered at the loss of his touch.
He scooted her back and climbed up onto the bed, positioning himself between her legs. His strong hands pulled her around until she straddled his lap, her legs stretching out behind him, and he held her, hovering over his throbbing length.
As the crown pressed against her swollen lips, she shivered and tried to force herself down faster, but he held her steady. “Careful, love,” he whispered roughly.
“I trust you, Matthias,” she replied. “Please, I need you.”
He gritted his teeth, and the second his slate-grey eyes met hers, he plunged deep within her. The pain was sharp but brief, and soon, he rested comfortably, buried deep within her wetness, and she was more than ready to accept his size. He cursed vividly and bucked his hips up.
“Daphne… Jesus,” he muttered and pressed their bodies closer together.
She couldn’t find words and moved her hips instead, loving the full feeling. As one, they moved against each other, and Daphne let her body shift and glide against his with a mind completely its own. The way he touched her, held her in the warmth of his arms, was far better than any dream she could possibly have.
Matt’s movements mirrored hers, and together, they set a fast pace, growing more frantic with each passing moment. He groaned against her neck and lowered his mouth to her breasts, pulling hard on one nipple followed quickly by the other. Her insides twisted until her body faltered, and suddenly, Matt pulled back and Daphne found herself on her back, him covering her with his massive build.
He plunged into her barely a second later. “Can’t… can’t hold back much longer,” he grunted. “Daphne.”
“Then don’t,” she breathed against his lips.
His eyes captured hers as he moved faster within her, going deeper with each thrust, until she couldn’t handle any more. His body tensed over hers, and when he shuddered within her depths, she cried out, her inner muscles clenching to hold him as they came together in a flurry of blinding heat and emotions Daphne couldn’t even begin to sort through. He remained in
side her and kissed her gently, nipping her lips and soothing them with a lick of his tongue, his arms quaking while her entire body went blissfully limp.
“I can’t move,” she whispered, laughing when he smiled, a true smile that made his whole face soften.
“Good,” he growled, and wrapping his arms tightly around her, rolled them over so she straddled him. “That’s how you know you were loved well.”
She raised her brow at his choice of words. “You don’t just consider me a good lay?” she asked curiously. Don’t get your hopes up! You still don’t know who he really is!
Matt tucked her hair behind her ears and cupped her face sweetly in his hands. “God no, not even close. All those women, all those nights… They left me feeling empty, worse than I felt before.”
“And with me?” she asked slowly.
His fingers intertwined with hers and he kissed the knuckles on both her hands before answering, a frown furrowing his brow. “Since the first second I laid eyes on you, I knew you were a rare beauty, but that night on the roof—seeing the real you beneath the fake smile—you do something to me, woman, and I’m not about to let you go that easily.”
Daphne’s heart skipped in her chest. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying there’s no way in hell this is a one night thing,” he muttered roughly. “I’m saying I’m going to hold onto you as long as I can and damn the consequences.”
He bucked his hips, and Daphne gasped when she felt his hardness inside her again. He hadn’t even pulled out yet. She rode him, slowly at first, wanting to simply feel how he swelled within her. Every inch was filled with Matt. The promise of his words was in his movements as his hands glided up her sides and hers gripped to his shoulders tightly. Whatever grew between them since Matt had come to the palace was not going to go away after one night.
No, this was so much more than a fling, so much more than the lust Daphne thought she’d sensed before. This was dangerous in the best and worst ways possible.
When her hips faltered and she moaned his name, Matt gripped her hips and held her steady, driving into her hard until they cried out together, their bodies shaking in each other’s arms as pleasure surrounded them in the darkness. His touch unmade her and released her from the worries of what tomorrow might bring. Her body collapsed onto his hard chest, and he held her securely in his grasp, whispering this would change their lives forever.
