Coming hard, clenching on his cock, moaning into his kiss, scraping her nails over his shoulders. Coming apart. Filled with him. Claimed by him.Devouredby him. She was trembling and quaking, the force of her spend rocking her body.
She would never be the same.
This was different from the lovemaking that had come before it.
This was all-consuming.
Only then did he increase his pace, hips flexing as he pounded into her with harder, faster strokes until he tore his mouth from hers.
“Tansy,” he breathed against her lips, his body tensing. “My sweet Tansy. You’re mine forever now.”
A deep thrust, a strangled moan from him, and then there was the hot rush of his seed filling her. And she didn’t bother to correct him as he collapsed against her, his pounding heart keeping time to hers. Because shewashis forever, regardless of what happened in the future.
Because even if he married another, King Maximilian would always own her heart.
CHAPTER 16
“Maxim.”
A gentle, beloved voice was at his ear. Lips grazing.
Tansy’s voice. Tansy’s lips.
God, he loved her.
The realization settled over him as lucidity returned.
His eyes flew open to find her face hovering above his, her dark hair streaming around her shoulders in disarray, her lips dark and swollen from his kisses. She looked as if she’d been thoroughly fucked. She looked beautiful.
And he was in love with her.
Strangely, the knowledge didn’t fill him with dread. Instead, a calm acceptance swelled deep within him. A sense of rightness he hadn’t known since…
No, he wouldn’t think it. For everything with Tansy was different.Hewas different.
He reached for her, wonder filling him, and sifted his fingers through the tendrils of her silken hair. “You’re beautiful.”
“You need to dress for the betrothal feast,” she said.
Not the words he wanted to hear.
The reminder of the obligations awaiting him this evening was unwanted. Anyone who wasn’t Tansy was unwanted. Any task that didn’t involve lying here naked with her and fucking her witless was definitely unwanted.
She had the counterpane pulled over her for modesty.
He tugged it so that it slipped free of her hold, revealing her gorgeous breasts. “I don’t want to attend it. I want to stay here with you.”
Her nipples were hard, jutting toward him in an invitation he couldn’t help but accept. He cupped one breast, rubbing his thumb over the rosy peak.
“ButImust attend it,” she protested, even as she arched into his touch.
“Why must you?” Maxim lowered his head and took the tip of her other breast into his mouth, giving her a long, lusty suck.
His cock was rigid. Ready.
To hell with the feast. To hell with dressing or ever wearing garments again. He could rule from this bed with his woman at his side. Beneath him. Atop him. On all fours for him…
“Mmm,” she hummed her appreciation, fingers dancing softly through his hair. “Because my absence will be noted.”
