“You rogue.”Said in the tone ofYou wonderful man.He grinned against her skin, and her lashes fluttered.“But your point is very intriguing.Yet wrong at the same time.I am proof that transcendent talent is not born but poured from one person into another upon death.It is why Princess Victoria will likely be passed over for her cousin when King William dies.He needs a body to pour his talent into, and that cannot… be… a— Oh.Damn.It can be a woman, can’t it?”
“Hmm.”He kissed the pulse of her throat.“It must be a literal tale.Before I met you, I would have called all of it nonsense.But now…” He shrugged, tugged her earlobe between his teeth.“Sometimes divine is the only word that comes close to describing you.”
“Temple,” she sighed, “what nonsense.”Butfinallyher hands were on him.“But I do not seem to care.”She slipped her arms behind his neck and leaned into him.When he wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted, she held on tighter.He set her on the table and stepped between her legs, bunching her skirts and petticoats around her hips.She found his lips and finished what he’d been working toward.She kissed him.
All bloody day.That’s how long he could do this.Kiss her softly and kiss her soundly.Kiss her until their lips were chapped and their stomachs grumbled for food.Then he’d feed her and fix her and take her upstairs.Or not.The worktable was a perfectly respectable location for a tryst.
“Not a tryst with a wife,” he mumbled against her lips.
“Nonsense.”But she laughed between hot breaths, fast breaths.She tore at his shirt, seeking skin.Her other hand wandered lower, rubbing against his cock.“Already at attention, I see.”
“Painfully.”He gasped, breaking the kiss.“Put me out of my misery.”
Her eyes flashed gold.“Poor dear.I suppose I shall have to.”Fingertips and skin, just above the waist of his trousers, delving lower, seeking.
Finding.Sweet little fingers wrapped around him, dragged up and down.She might as well drag his sanity along with her.Gone.All of it.
He slipped his hand beneath her skirts and up her inner thigh.Soft and warm.Higher.Softer, warmer.Wet.“I’m going to take you right here.”
“Your work, the tools?—”
“Be damned.”
“Temple!”But she didn’t seem to mind.She removed his shirt.She stroked his muscle.She clawed her hands down his abdomen to seek what she’d abandoned.
He didn’t want her hand around his cock, though.He wanted her whole blessed body.He brushed her hand aside and rucked up her skirts, stroked the hottest path up her thigh and tested her center.Wet and ready.
So was he.She drove him to the very edge with her lips, her hands everywhere.
He couldn’t wait.She was a fever ravaging his body with need.He positioned himself between her legs and?—
“Temple,” she gasped.
“Almost, sweetheart.”
“No.I mean, yes, but… the stone is glowing.”She cupped his cheek with one hand, the other pointed to the small gray stone on the table beside her.“Do not scowl at me like that.Scowl at the king.You’re being summoned.”
“When your lips are on mine, woman, you’d better notice nothing but that.”He swiped his cock against her core, groaning.“And I most definitely amnotbeing summoned.”
“My skirts were burning where they brushed against it.How hot does it get?”She picked it up, hissed, and dropped it.“Quite hot, I see.Ouch.Mine only ever got pleasantly warm.”She sucked the tip of one finger.
The more it glowed, the more heat the metal kept in it.The more urgent the other person needed you, the hotter it would burn, too.
Burning heat meant urgent need.But answering that call meant danger to Diana.
He brushed the stone off the table, and its glow extinguished when it hit the floor.He took her burned finger out of her mouth and inspected it.A red welt was already rising.“I said be careful, Diana.”
“I simply do not want you to be in trouble with the king.You take care of me every day, and I should be allowed to take care of you.I—oh.”
He slipped her finger into his mouth, sucked it, ran his tongue along the length of it.She watched him, mesmerized, her chest frozen.Not a single breath drawn until he released her hand.
“Where were we?”he said.
She grasped his hand and placed it between her legs.“Right here, I believe.”Each word breathy, impatient.
He pulled her to the very edge of the table and thrust inside.She threw her head back with a cry, raking her nails down his chest.
“I can’t go slow,” he ground out.
