She had no intention of settling and wasn’t about to calm. Instead, she bucked wildly and kicked her feet. When that didn’t work, she dug her nails into his thigh.
“Fine. But remember I warned you.”
Darios raked her gown upward and didn’t stop until he had the sodden material gathered at her lower back. Cooler air on her damp heated skin snapped some sense into her. While she found it titillating to be bared to his gaze with his fingers tracing her curves, she wasn’t an unruly child for him to punish.
Her hand flew back. “Wait.”
He caught it and pinned it atop her bunched-up dress with his much bigger one. “No waiting. You’ve been rude and unruly, and a lesson is due.”
“Can’t we discuss this face-to-face like two rational adults?”
“We could. Except your recent behavior leaves us one rational adult short.”
She grunted in indignation and would have told him what she thought, but his open hand came down sharply on her unprotected cheek.
“Ooo,” she squealed, outraged he would dare handle her so, and also because it stung a lot more without the dress.
“Name-calling, insults, accusing me of nefarious plots when I have been concerned only for your safety, running from me, cursing, and wreaking havoc on my home.” As he listed her numerous misdeeds he layered one open-palmed swat after another on her quickly heating behind. She couldn’t keep from kicking her feet and squirming trying to ease the burn.
“Darios, please.”
He spoke over her as he delivered four more, two on the same spot on her now blistering-hot behind. She couldn’t keep from kicking her feet and squirming to ease the burn.
“Be still,” he ordered while tightening his hold on her waist. His hand fell twice in rapid succession on each quivering cheek. “You have earned this, Aurelia.
“I’m sorry, Darios, but please, no more, it stings really bad.”
“As it’s meant to,” he answered the rate and rhythm of the smacks unchanging although he moved lower to lay down more on the bottommost curve just above each thigh. “But that’s fifteen, and all I intended, unless you’d like to keep arguing and fighting with me to earn yourself more.”
“No!”
“I thought not,” he murmured, as his hand glided over her cheeks, soothing the burn he’d ignited.
Limp with relief, she slumped over his thighs and didn’t protest his ministrations. It felt nice, his now-gentle touch assuaging the sting, but if he continued, moving down to her thighs as he was doing, she’d become aroused.
Suddenly on her feet, his hands gripped her waist to steady her as he rose too.
Tossing her hair back with a hand, chest heaving because she was out of breath and shaking, she glared up at him only to have his brown eyes, crackling with golden fire aimed back at her.
The next moment, a tear overflowed her cheek then another.
“I behaved abysmally, it’s true, but Darios, you must understand, my world is coming apart.”
His hands came up and bracketed her face, his thumbs whisking away the tears as they fell. “I know, little one, but what you don’t seem to understand is that I’m on your side. You and three Voltarrean women were the victims of this devious plot, but turning on one another will not get us the answers we seek.”
“You spanked me,” she accused with a sniffle.
“Yes, I did.”
“Is that being on my side?”
“When you’re out of control? I think it is.”
She sniffed again. “Your rug was beautiful. I ruined it and probably many other things in your hall.”
“Rugs and other things can be replaced.”
She nodded. “Still, I feel bad.”
“As you should.”
This time, her sniffle came out more like a grunt. The man didn’t give an inch.
“Want to know what I find beautiful?”
She shrugged as if she didn’t, but she did.
“You. Always. But when you’re angry, you have fire. And, princess, that’s the most magnificent sight these eyes have ever seen.”
Her chin came up, and she met his gaze, warm brown again, and still glowing, but with something other than anger.
Moving simultaneously, they were in one another’s arms the next moment, mouths open, tongues entwined. Aurelia barely registered when he lifted her, but she didn’t miss when her back hit the wall or how he pushed closer, until there wasn’t a speck of space between them.
The passion burning inside her threatened to engulf her when his hands slid beneath her butt and squeezed.
“How can you make me mad enough to spank you one moment, but still want to fuck you the next?”
“Do it,” she urged, grinding her aching center against the hard ridge of his erection.
“Not here, not this way.”
“No one’s up here,” she insisted, as her arms tightened. “I walked forever before I found you this morning and didn’t see a soul. I’m burning with need for you, Darios. Please...”
With a ravenous growl, he turned with her in his arms and started walking. Without breaking the connection of their lips, or ending their embrace, he carried her to an open room not far away. Once they were inside, the door slammed and her back met the wall, yet again.
Her dress was already bunched at her waist. He only had to pull his breechcloth aside. Then, in one hard upward thrust, he filled her and robbed her of breath and thought. The anger had long since passed, replaced by an all-consuming need to be claimed by her powerful, maddening warlord.
She moaned, adding well-endowed to the list of descriptors as he drove deeply into her.
“You make me lose control,” he whispered hoarsely into her mouth.
Aurelia slid her hands beneath his heavy red cape and down the smooth skin of his back. Her body tingled, not only from the intimate contact, or having his incredible hardness filling her, but that she could glide her fingers over him everywhere, and really feel him—without fear, anguish, rage, and despair overcoming her—to revel in the connection she had with the one meant for her. A familiar warmth swept through her, stemming not from his emotions but hers. She sighed into his mouth, not wanting this to end.
“Get enough yet?” his deep voice rumbled in question.
Her eyes opened, seeing him and nothing else. She became aware that his pace had slowed, from a frenzied powerful possession, to a steady, deep, wonderful stroking. He’d paused to let her get her fill, to savor the long slow sweeps of her hands up and down his smooth back and shoulders.
He hadn’t finished, pressed this close with his big body vibrating with desire, she’d have known. But he delayed his pleasure to give her what she needed. “Never, Darios. Not in another millennium will I get enough of you.”
“One thousand annums is a long time, sweetness. Good thing I feel the same way.”
Tilting his head, he sealed his mouth over hers while moving deeply inside her. He freed within her a burst of sensations that flooded not only her body, but her heart and her soul with an uncontrollable joy, and a peace, she never knew existed.
Aurelia held him through the quaking of her body and the tensing and subsequent shudder claiming his own. As they leaned against one another, well, mostly she was wedged between his body and the wall at her back, she smiled though she didn’t understand how any of this was possible.
She decided to share her confusion.
“Tell me how, in the course of only a few days, I could have fallen for a man who makes my heart stop at the sight of him, charms me with a devastating grin, but the next moment tramples over my wishes like a boar does a field of grass, and then turns me over his knee and paddles my backside?”
“Because you are becoming one with me, Aurelia, feeding off my passion for life, which is more attuned to your nature than being cold and aloof.”
“Do you think that’s it?”
“I know so, because I feel our connection. I stir at the sight of your beauty, my heart
leaps at the sound of your voice, and I get as hard as calisanite whenever you are near. My body recognized who you were before my head, although it wasn’t far behind.” He bent and took her lips in a gentle but steamy kiss before continuing. “You inspire emotions so profound I’m not in the least surprised I want to paddle your backside for disobeying me one moment and have your back to the wall with my cock deep inside you the next.
Her head fell back. “This connection between us, does it always burn so bright and happen this quickly?”
“When you find the one meant for you, and only you? Yes. At least here on my world it does. You are the bride of my heart.” He caught her hand in his and laid it flat over his chest. “I feel it here. Do you feel the same?”
To speak and feel so passionately wasn’t the way of her world. Her people were much more staid, orderly, and reserved, and, now that she’d seen the comparison firsthand, she admitted, dispassionate. She preferred Darios’ passion wholeheartedly.
The sentiment behind his words stirred her deeply. With him surrounding and filling her, she raised her hand to his cheek and whispered, “Yes, Darios. I do. Even more, I’ve fallen in love with you.”
His mouth came down on hers, firm and demanding. After spending inside her only moments ago, his lengthening shaft affirmed his desire for her more clearly than words ever could.
ARM IN ARM, THEY WALKED back to his suite.
Unlike earlier that morning, she was grateful for the vastness of his citadel because they didn’t pass anyone on the way. And thank goodness because she knew she must look like a water-logged, not to mention well used by the warlord. Her cheeks were abraded by the scruff of his beard where he hadn’t shaved yet today, and her hair was a knotted mess. Granted, she couldn’t see it, but her fingers found a multitude of snarls and tangles when she tried to run them through it.
There were other, more intimate signs that passersby would never suspect, like the stickiness of her inner thighs and the soreness of her body, especially between her legs where he had made himself at home.
But the surefire giveaway, which would tell everyone what they’d been up to, was her satisfied smile.
When they arrived in his private chambers, he brought her straight to the tub and, this time, he joined her in it.
Darios’ thickly muscled legs bracketed hers as he settled her back against his chest. In consideration of the heat, they soaked in soothing tepid water, enjoying the quiet and their closeness for several long moments before he turned to the task of bathing her.
He started by washing her hair, his fingers massaging her scalp expertly after he worked the lather through the long strands. Once done, he used the handheld hose to ensure all the suds were rinsed out. Gentle and attentive, he took his time and did a more thorough job than she ever would.
That’s why it took her by surprise when he gave her a sponge and told her to wash herself.
“If I do it, I’ll take you again, and you were already slow and stiff on the walk back here, earlier.”
She blushed, unable to argue his point.
Although he was firm in his resolve not to touch, he watched. She didn’t need special powers to see the yearning in his eyes and the disappointment, as they followed her movements, that a sponge rather than his hands laved the soap over her body.
Once they were both clean, Aurelia stood to get out, but he grabbed her hand.
“What’s your hurry?” he inquired, as he pulled her back down.
“I can’t believe I’m saying these words on Voltarre of all places, but the water has cooled, and I’m a bit chilled.”
“Easily fixed,” he grunted, and, with a swirl of his hand, reheated the water.
She laughed softly while snuggling into his side, her head resting on his chest. “That is so much handier than what I can do.”
Fascinated with the muscles on his chest as well as the images and symbols of his military career adorning his skin, she traced them with her wet fingertips. Slowly, she relaxed, at least her body did. Her mind couldn’t let go of what the Ophig had said about Axton.
“I just can’t believe my brother would do this, Darios. It makes no sense.”
“Sometimes jealousy, avarice, resentment, and other destructive emotions are not based in reason. Can you read him?”
“No, most twins cannot read one another.”
“He could be hiding his resentment from you. Does your father favor you over him perhaps? Or do you have influence over another, perhaps someone he doesn’t like or is threatened by?”
She snorted. “You realize I’m a female, right? What power do any of us hold over men?”
His gaze ran over her body, lingering on a soft breast plumped up against the hard plane of his chest, and the rounded hip that jutted out of the water. When his gaze returned to hers, his brow quirked in disbelief at her naiveté.
“He is my brother,” she gasped, appalled.
“Perhaps he is jealous of one of your suitors?” he suggested.
“I didn’t have any suitors. Besides, they would all be men.”
He stared back at her, this time pointedly with one dark brow raised.
Her face flooded with heat as she took his meaning. “No! Axton is not... He doesn’t like... He’s married, for heaven’s sake.”
“I’ve seen men who have a wife and a multitude of offspring but prefer men sexually. One is not mutually exclusive of the other.”
She raised her chin, dismissing this intimation for being as ridiculous as it sounded. “As I said, I don’t have any suitors.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t see the point,” she replied with a shrug. “I’m not the royal heir and not required to reproduce.”
“And children are the only reason for suitors?”
“What other reason would there be for taking one?”
“Companionship, love, sex.”
She scoffed at this idea as well. “I’ve never been interested in any of that.”
His arms tightened around her as he chuckled. “If that were true, I strongly doubt we’d be together like this now.”
“I meant at home. Things are different with you, as you must know.”
“Yes, your people are known to be aloof, and cold like your planet.”
“We have to be or become overwhelmed in the emotional turmoil we feel from others. Voltarreans are said to be the opposite. You run hot like your planet, and can be emotionally volatile and passionate. From what I’ve seen so far, you can’t deny those stories are true.”
“I won’t deny it, as you say, what would be the point? Although we have more control than is rumored.”
She flipped over, propped a fist on his chest, and rested her chin on it so she could watch him during their discussion. “Is that why you have a flooded corridor?”
His hand slid down to curl around a cheek that surprisingly wasn’t tender at all despite receiving fifteen hearty swats not so long ago.
“You’re bold to tease so soon after. I hope that means you are growing to trust me.” He frowned then and slid her up his slick body until they were eye to eye. “You screamed, Aurelia. Tell me you didn’t think I would actually harm you with my power.”
She hesitated, recalling the split-second when she thought she’d be grilled, roasted, and toasted alive.
“My nerves were on edge, and I’d never seen a wall of fire roaring at me.”
“I’d never hurt you, princess. No matter how angry I get.”
“I believe you, my lord.”
The tension eased from the hard body beneath her. “Good. You’re small and delicate. I want to cherish and protect you.”
“Which of the two is bending me over your knee?”
His hand came down with incredible speed, delivered a smarting smack then went back to cupping it familiarly.
“Impertinence probably isn’t wise when I’ve got my hand on your bare backside.”
“Yeah, I figured that out after I said it.”
Ch
uckling softly, he relaxed. Closing his eyes, he let her slide back to her previous position on his chest.
“Do you intend to do that often?”
“Hmm,” was his reply as his fingers began moving in little teasing circles over her skin. “I don’t know. Do you intend to encase my home in ice again, or run from me, or call me names or imply that I am a liar?”
“Forget I asked.”
“No. Now, I want an answer.”
Mimicking his slow, teasing movements, she traced one of the designs on his chest. “Since I’ve never done any of those things before, I can’t say for sure. But you must shoulder the blame for part of this anyway.”
His head came up, both eyes opening wide in surprise. “How can I be at fault for your behavior?”
“Until I met you, I’ve never acted in such a way. I must be feeding off your passion for life.”
He dropped his head back on the rim of the tub with an exaggerated groan. “Condemned by my own words.”
She grinned. When he wasn’t being arrogant or bossy or denying her what she wanted, he was funny.
“At least you know what to expect now. Which makes whether you get spanked and how often, up to you. But you’ll deal with it fine.” With the hand still cupping her cheek, he gave it a light, appreciative pat. “You’re nicely equipped to do so.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He tipped smoldering brown eyes down to her as his lips tipped up in a devastating grin. “I like your round bottom; it’s my favorite kind.”
She frowned at him. “Spanking your women isn’t going to help your reputation as brutes, you know.”
He shrugged. “That’s been a long time in the making. It comes from our size and appearance, what we wear, or more so what we don’t, rather than the matter of a man taking his woman over his knee. You’ve been sheltered, but in my travels I’ve found domestic discipline is widespread across the galaxy.”
“Are you saying this is still a man’s universe?”
Claimed by the Warlord Page 15
