He made another low, deep sound—this one of approval or perhaps thwarted need. She couldn’t say which, nor did she have the chance to further examine it or care. Because in the next moment, the king lowered his head, and his lips sealed over hers.
CHAPTER 7
Lady Tansy’s lips were all he had dreamt they would be beneath his and more. Full and warm and lush.
And, ye gods,sweet. So fucking sweet. She tasted like whisky and woman and mysteries and determination and the forbidden. Everything he couldn’t get enough of. Everything he had ever desired without fully knowing it.
Maxim wanted to consume her. He wanted to kiss her until he hadn’t breath left in his lungs. Wanted to strip her bare and take her soft, feminine body beneath his. To sink inside her, to claim her, to make her his. A fierce sense of possession swept through him, mingling with the desire that had been building to feverish heights from the moment he had first entered this room days ago.
To the devil with anyone else who had touched her before. No one would ever lay a finger on her again. Not in his court. Nor in his kingdom. All Varros would know that she belonged to him. Hell, who was he fooling? His tiny nation wasn’t enough. No one would ever kiss her or touch her or bed her for as long as he lived. Not in this damned world.
He parted her lips and gave her his tongue. She made a husky, sensual sound, welcoming him. The hand on his cheekslid to thread through his hair, and her other hand found purchase on his cravat. He despised the fashionable linen neckcloths so unanimously adored in England, but he wore them in an effort to keep from looking as if he were a brutal barbarian from a foreign land, even if that was precisely what he was. Maxim had always been more at home on the battlefield than in the throne room.
Yet when Lady Tansy’s fingers curled in the snowy-white cravat and tugged him closer, he vowed he would wear the constricting piece of fabric every day if it meant she would pull him nearer and return his kiss as if her life depended upon it. He would have his man tie it into a hundred knots just for the chance to have her clinging to him thus again. For the ripe press of her breasts into his chest, the heat and the softness of her.
Because Lady Tansy’s mouth, her lips, her silken sigh, her surrender, her seductive curves molding to him, her scent invading his senses better than any marauding infantry ever could…
It was heaven. Pure, unadulterated heaven.
He had never known a kiss like this one, for the way it changed him. Lady Tansy’s kiss made him forget. Reminded him he was a man of blood and bone, of desire and need and so much pent-up longing, instead of the regal king and battlefield warrior fashioned of ice. He had kissed other women before her. And yet, it was the frustrated capitulation and undeniable desire of the woman in his arms that unraveled him more than any of those experiences combined.
It made no sense, the effect this small lady-in-waiting had upon him.
But she was meant to be his. He felt it to his soul.
And suddenly, he had to have her closer. Her lips were insufficient.
His hands settled on her waist in a possessive hold, and he lifted her, their mouths still feasting on each other. She made a noise of surprise, clutching him tighter, wrapping her legs around him as if he were a tree. He wished for the absence of the barriers of her petticoats and gown and his trousers. Wished he could slide into her then and there, without regard for consequence.
His need for her was raging out of control.
His cock was harder than marble.
He wanted so much more than he could have. So much more than these four cursed walls would allow, the guards just beyond, the princess about to return. Thinking of the woman he would make his queen served to quell some of his hunger.
But then Lady Tansy nipped his lip, and he forgot everything but her.
Her sharp teeth on him were exquisite. A wildness lurked beneath her refined elegance, and here was proof. How he loved the dichotomy, the restrained, perfectly poised lady-in-waiting whobithim.
His prick surged against her, seeking, thwarted by all the damnable layers keeping them apart. He pulled back just enough to catch the fullness of her lower lip in his teeth and return the tug with a little bite of his own. She moaned, her fingers gliding through his hair, nails raking over his scalp.
Maxim was overwhelmed by the raw, unrestrained urge to fuck.
Not just to fuck.
To fuckher.
To fill her with his cock and then with his seed.
His feet traveled with a mind of their own, unerringly seeking the bed across the chamber. He didn’t even need to tear his lips from hers or raise his head to see where he was going. His bodyknew.
He reached the bed, its coverlets tossed aside from his earlier revelation, and deposited her in the heaps of pillows. She lay there, mouth kiss-stung, dark hair in stark contrast to the bed linens, the most tempting sight he’d ever beheld. Her breaths were ragged, her breasts rising and falling with each inhalation, her eyes slumberous from passion, pupils dilated. He settled himself into the invitation of her parted legs, pushing hems up silken calves and thighs until they were bunched at her waist and his cockstand was notched against her hot, beckoning sex.
And then he took her mouth again, kissing her ravenously, showing her without words just how badly he wanted her. Telling her with his tongue that she was his to claim, that from this moment onward, she would only ever belong to him.
With a needy sound, she clung to him, feeding on his kisses as if he were her life source. And he kissed her in the same fashion, because that was what it felt like. He didn’t want air in his lungs or the sun shining down on him or a beat in his heart. All he wanted was her beneath him, her tongue dueling with his and her body supple and pliant and threatening to burn him to ash with the fire she brought to life inside him.
How he needed her, more desperately by the second.
