Bride by Royal Decree

by Caitlin Crews

  He wondered if anything would ever be enough when it came to this woman. Even this.

  Right here, right now, he didn’t care.

  And then suddenly, it was too much. He felt his control go liquid, and it took everything he had to haul himself back from that edge even as he maintained his hard, deep pace.

  He reached between them and found the very center of her need. He rubbed her there, keeping his strokes deep and hard.

  “Come for me,” he growled against her neck.

  And she obeyed him. She clenched against him and she shuddered all around him, then cried out his name as she fell.

  And Reza followed her straight over the side of the world.

  * * *

  Outside the villa, the winter storm raged on through the night.

  But Maggy was far more interested in the one she was caught up in with Reza, inside, where it was dry but not quite safe. Not when there were so many things to discover about him. And so many things he could do to her.

  She wanted to do every single one of them.

  When she came back into herself, there on the floor of the study, she felt wrecked—but in a beautiful, glorious way. As if her skin could hardly hold all the things she felt inside.

  Reza lifted himself above her, his face dark. Unreadable.

  And for a moment it was hard to tell where the rain outside ended and he began.

  Then he lifted his hand and brought it to her face, stroking down her jaw. As if she was precious to him. As if he cared—

  Maggy knew that was foolish. That she was only going to hurt herself, thinking such things about a man like him, so ruthless and mighty above all else.

  She thought he would say something then. She thought he would go out of his way to remind her that he was a king and she was beneath him the way everyone else he encountered was beneath him. That he held all the power here, one way or another.

  But he didn’t say a word.

  After a long moment lost in his endless gray gaze, Reza pulled out of her and rolled away. She hardly had time to process the loss of his silken and steel length within her, his hard body against her, his heat all around her, because he was standing then. He rose from the floor to his feet in an unconscious show of all that forbidding grace that made him who he was. He hauled up his trousers and fastened them, then looked down at her where she still lay there, spread out on the thick rug on the floor of the salon.

  Boneless.

  Something moved over his face, too quick for her to read, and then he held out his hand.

  It reminded her of the coffee shop, and Maggy didn’t know how she felt about that. Only that it seemed to trigger something raw and unwieldy inside of her, swamping her where she lay. She sat up, trying to fight it off, tugging her dress back down to cover her legs.

  And Reza merely waited there, his hand extended, as if he could do so all night.

  The only reason you’re hesitating to take his hand is that you’re too eager and you don’t want him to know it, she told herself caustically.

  She decided that was stupid. She’d already proved her eagerness with her mouth. What was the point of pretending otherwise now? She’d already given herself away entirely. There was no going back.

  Maggy held out her hand and let him lift her to her feet. Then he hauled her against him. He kept tugging until she was off balance, and then he simply bent at the knees and swept her up into his arms.

  “Reza,” she began, high against his chest with that unsmiling mouth of his right there and his harshly compelling face so close—

  He didn’t so much as glance at her as he started to move.

  “Hush,” he murmured as he shouldered his way out of the study and started down the long hall toward their rooms. “Not tonight.”

  Maggy took that as gospel.

  He carried her through the dimly lit villa, and Maggy did nothing but wrap one arm around his neck and let him take her where he liked. She had only passing impressions of rooms with lights on and flickering candles in the sconces along the ancient walls. She saw the door to her own room as they passed it, and let a breath out then, resting her head against his strong shoulder.

  Inside his suite, Reza moved quickly through the private salon where he’d stood with her before that tilted mirror. He carried her down another hall that was more like a paneled foyer, past what looked like an office and another, even more private study. She lifted her head from his shoulder when he entered yet another room, then kicked the door closed behind him.

  There was a vast stone fireplace on one wall, taking over the whole of that side of the room with a fire dancing cheerfully in its grate. It was the only light in the bedchamber. She saw a few chairs and a sofa arranged before it, but then he was lifting her up and placing her on a vast, supremely kingly bed. Four stout, carved columns rose in each corner, but there was no canopy here to relieve the male stamp of it. Only acres of mattress and soft linens in dark, brooding colors.

  And Maggy didn’t care about any of that. She cared about the man who stood at the side of the wide, high bed, his glittering gaze fixed on her while the firelight played all over him and made him look more like a myth than a man.

  He didn’t speak.

  And that look on his face was so intent, so fierce, that Maggy followed suit.

  Reza undressed her carefully. His hard hands smoothed over her ankles and unbuckled the delicate straps of her shoes, then tugged them off. He found the fastening to her gown at its side and pulled the zipper down, then lifted her to sweep the dress away. His gaze glittered hot when he looked at her then, in nothing but the tiny panties she’d held to one side before, but he didn’t haul her to him. He only hooked his fingers in the lacy sides of the panties and slid them down, then off.

  When she was naked, he looked at her for a long, long while. He raked his fingers through her hair, almost as if he was arranging it to suit himself. Then he let his hands wander, testing her collarbone with one finger. Then finding her nipples with his thumbs while he lifted her breasts into his hard palms.

  He leaned in then, putting his lips over one nipple and sucking until it hardened against his tongue. By the time he made his lazy way to her other nipple, she was shivering again, that same fire lit again inside of her and burning bright.

  Reza stepped back then, and Maggy pushed herself up to her knees so she could watch him as he rid himself of his clothes with a certain ferocity that made that knot low in her belly pulse. Then glow.

  When he was naked, Maggy heard herself let out a reverent sort of sigh that she could no more keep inside than she could have stopped herself from getting on her knees earlier.

  He was beautiful. He was made of hard planes and delectable ridges, all lean muscle and corded, male power.

  Reza crawled onto the bed with her, one arm around her middle to shift her into the center of the mattress.

  “Reza...” she tried again, because the wild, raw hollow inside of her was growing, pushing everything else aside, caught in the storm of sensation. His thighs were a rough delight against hers. She could feel him again, hard and insistent, against the soft skin of her belly. And he was settled on his elbows above her, his fingers deep in her hair.

  “Quiet, Princess,” he murmured. “This is a time for action, not words.”

  And then he took her mouth with his, showing her exactly what he meant.

  He tasted her everywhere. He spread fire and need everywhere he went. He explored her body, inch by inch, tasting her and touching her, then flipping her over so he could do the same to her other side. His mouth moved down the length of her spine, torturously slow, and she felt his hard mouth curve against her skin when he made her shudder.

  By the time he turned her over again she was making no attempt to hide her moans, her pleading. His face was dark as he came over her, his eyes nearly black with passion.

  And when he slid into her, she burst apart, sensation shattering her into a thousand pieces.

  “Beautiful
,” he murmured as she shook and shook, her fingers pressed deep into his back. “You are so beautiful, my Magdalena.”

  Then he began to move.

  Slow. Lazy.

  Unbearably hot.

  He rode her, sweet and easy, through her shattering, then kept on going, tossing her from one peak straight into a brand-new fire.

  He played with her mouth, her breasts. He acted as if he had all the time in the world. And when she started to lift her hips to meet him again, when that tension wound around and around inside of her and made her cling to him and arch into his thrusts, he let himself go.

  Reza gathered her close and pounded into her, every drag of his hips throwing her closer and closer and closer still, until she broke again, flying apart into scraps of fire and need and something far greater than either.

  And she held him tight as he followed her, shouting out her name.

  It took a long, long time for him to stir, and when he did, his gaze came to hers in the flickering light. Maggy had to bite her lip to keep back the things that threatened to spill over then. The truths she hadn’t wanted to face but could hardly avoid now, naked with him like this.

  She didn’t know what he saw on her face. But he still didn’t speak. He rolled them over again, and this time, he carried her to his bathroom. He set her down in a huge, glassed-in enclosure, and then he washed her, his expression serious.

  When they were both squeaky clean, he took her back to that great big bed and climbed into it with her, arranging her so she was draped over his body, and Maggy thought it was the perfect time to say the things that sat there so heavy on her tongue.

  But the rain still drummed against the windows and the silence seemed sweet.

  Instead, she fell asleep, curled up on Reza’s chest with the fire dancing all over them both.

  They came together in the night, too many times to count. She would roll, or he would shift, and it was as if the barest slide of skin against skin was too much. The first time they slid against each other he spread her out beneath him and kissed his way down her belly before settling between her legs and licking her into sobbing bliss. Another time she woke with his heat all along her back and his thigh thrust between hers. She couldn’t help herself. She’d arched against all that hard, muscled heat until he’d shifted her, thrusting into her as he held her in place.

  She lost track of how many times they woke and found each other in the dark. She couldn’t count the number of times she fell apart, only for him to catch her there when they both fell back to earth.

  The last time they woke together it was gray outside, with a hint of light across the sea. The rain had finally stopped. Reza lifted her over him and settled her on his lap, thrusting into her once again as he sat up, gathering her astride him.

  It was her turn to set the pace and she took it slow, every last part of her body so tuned to him now it was as if they were one.

  One body. One mind.

  One heart, she thought, though she knew she shouldn’t.

  And the higher she climbed, the brighter that flame between them, the more she knew. What that raw thing was that took up more and more of her every time they touched. What was eating her alive from the inside out.

  “One more time,” Reza urged her as the sweet tension pulled tight, as she worked herself against him, hard and deep within her with his mouth against her neck. “Just one more.”

  And this time they broke apart together, soft and shattering.

  She slumped in his lap, her forehead pressed to his, and tried to catch her breath while inside her everything was too raw. Too big, too unwieldy, too much.

  Maggy might not have felt any of these things before. But it was like the salt in the air outside that had meant the sea was near. She knew what it was.

  “Are you with me?” Reza asked, his voice low and gruff and, somehow, the sweetest thing she’d ever heard, as his hands moved gently up and down her spine as if he was bringing her back to earth with the slide of his hands over her skin.

  Maggy couldn’t move. She couldn’t open her eyes. And she couldn’t care less.

  “I’m with you,” she said, her mouth close to his, her head tipped into his. As close to him as it was possible to get. “I love you.”

  It took her another breath, long and still shuddery, to realize what she’d said.

  And still one more to feel that Reza had turned to stone beneath her.

  She pushed back so she could look at his face, and her heart broke. She felt it crack apart and splinter, there and then. Because he looked like a statue. Remote and inaccessible and more forbidding than she’d ever seen him before.

  “Reza,” she whispered. “Forget I said that. Let’s just pretend—”

  “No.” He sounded something far darker than merely rough then. Much darker and much, much worse. He lifted her off of him, setting her to the side as if she was terribly fragile and required care, but then he moved out of reach. Fast. When his gaze met hers, Maggy saw nothing but blank, hard slate. “No. You cannot. That is impossible. And unacceptable besides.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “YOU DO NOT love me,” Reza thundered at her, as if that could erase what she’d said. As if that could rewind this night. Shove it back in the bottle where he should have left it to begin with. “That is unacceptable on every level.”

  But there was an aching thing in his chest and he felt as if it might crack wide-open. And his body was as wrecked as if he’d gone out on a bender like a normal man might. Not that Reza needed drugs or alcohol when there was Maggy. She was infinitely more potent.

  And he should never have let this happen. He knew exactly where it led. He’d been cleaning up the mess of it his whole adult life.

  Maggy was still sitting in the middle of the vast bed where they’d hardly slept all night. Even now, he still wanted her. He stalked to his dressing room and threw on a pair of exercise trousers, letting them ride low on his hips. When he returned to the bedroom, she was standing by the side of the bed, buttoning herself into his shirt.

  He didn’t want to see how small and slender she was in his shirt. How long her legs were, naked and tempting, beneath the hem. When she was done buttoning it up, she lifted her chin and faced him, and he hated that she clearly needed to brace herself. Worse, she hugged herself around the middle as she studied him, too many things he didn’t want to recognize clouding her pretty eyes and making him feel like the lowest bastard who had ever drawn breath.

  Reza knew he was exactly that. But even so, he couldn’t seem to ignore the part of him that urged him to go to her. To take her in his arms again. To make this right somehow, and no matter that she’d made a bad situation worse with the words she should never have said—but he couldn’t do that.

  “I didn’t mean to say that,” Maggy said, her voice quiet, though it seemed to punch into him all the same. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

  “It cannot be true.” He folded his arms over his chest and forced himself to stop admiring the way she looked in his damn shirt, as if he had as little control over himself as he’d exhibited this whole, long night. “This should never have happened.” He jerked his chin at the bed between them. “Any of this.”

  He could see the instant she stopped feeling vulnerable—or decided to stop showing it, anyway. The exact moment that temper of hers kicked in. First there was that flash in her eyes. Then she frowned at him the way she hadn’t done in some time, too busy smiling and folding her hands in her lap and learning how to exude good breeding with every breath.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her voice was even. Cool. “This is where all of this has been leading, surely. You didn’t storm into my coffee shop in Vermont so we could end up polite and distant pen pals.”

  “I need a queen, not a lover,” he threw her, and he did nothing to make the hit of that any less harsh than it sounded. Standing there at the foot of the bed where he’d shown her exactly the opposite all night long. He co
uldn’t even tell who he was more furious with—her or himself. “I have no time to dally, and certainly not with you.”

  For a moment, he thought he might have broken her, and a sea of self-loathing washed over him, nearly taking him from his feet.

  But this was his Maggy. His tough survivor. She’d made it through twenty years of dire circumstances. She’d sailed through the past weeks. What was an unpleasant conversation at dawn? He’d seen her mouth tremble, he was sure of it, but she only pressed her lips into a firm line and kept her chin high.

  Reza had the dark, uneasy notion that he was the only one at risk of falling apart here. Something that seemed far more imminent when she moved toward him, skirting the bed and coming closer than she should.

  Close enough that he could smell her again. Vanilla and coconut and, beneath that, her. His Maggy. He knew her now. Her scent, her taste. He’d had his mouth and his hands on every last inch of her body. His body stirred anew, which should have been impossible after the night they’d had. But nothing was impossible when it came to Maggy. Nothing at all.

  He was in so much trouble. He was far past trouble and into a full-blown crisis.

  “You’re going to have to explain to me why the fact we had sex is a problem,” she said, still in that quiet way of hers, suggesting she was under control. But he could see that sheen in her eyes, telling him otherwise. It made him feel worse. And more resolute at the same time. “Or why you freak out every time something happens between us. Shouldn’t you want this?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Why can’t you have a queen and a lover?”

  “This cannot happen,” he bit out, his voice frigid, because the cold eating him from the inside out was the only thing he had. It was the only way he knew how to keep himself in one piece. “I am a king. I cannot allow anything to divert my attention from my responsibilities.”

  She shook her head, looking helpless for the first time in as long as he’d known her. “What are you talking about?”