He slipped his other hand beneath the coverlets shielding her lower body, finding her sex with ease. She was slick and warm, and she shuddered when he found her pearl and teased the plump bud.
“Who gives a damn?” he growled, kissing the curve of her breast and then giving in to some manner of ancient incivility that boiled in his veins and bestowing a gentle nip on her. “Let them note what they wish. I am the king.”
“Maxim.”
A primness seeped into her voice that he didn’t like. He was going to have to do better to distract her. He flicked her bud back and forth, gratified when she gasped out a breath.
“Spitfire.” He dragged his lips over her collarbone, anointing it with adoring kisses, the warmth inside him spreading as if it were rays of the sun itself, shining into the darkest depths of his soul where all the despair had once dwelled.
Happiness.
That was what this mysterious feeling was, this lightness in his heart, in his chest.
Tansy made him happy.
And he was going to reward her by making her come. He worked her nub some more, kissing up her neck before slipping a finger deep inside her wet heat. She tightened on him instantly, making his cock twitch with need.
“Again?” she asked breathlessly, moving restlessly, her legs parting wider.
Despite her protests, she was not as unaffected as she would have him think. Excellent. He had no interest in leaving this bed.
Maxim raised his head and met her gaze. “Darling, my appetite for you is insatiable.”
To emphasize his point, he withdrew his finger and rolled her onto her back, settling atop her, his cock rising rigid and demanding between them. He rolled his hips, letting her feel his hardness, his desire for her. Tansy’s lashes lowered, her pupils dilating wide.
“We shouldn’t.”
“To the contrary,” he murmured, taking in the picture she made, flushed and lovely in his rumpled bed. “There is nothing we should do more.”
“We haven’t time.”
He moved his hips again, the friction against her slick flesh nothing short of torture. “Will you deny me, then? Will you deny us both what we want?”
He kissed her before she could answer, claiming her lips with his. Kissed her long and slow and deep, just as he had made loveto her. Showing her without words how much he desired her. Her arms twined around his neck, holding him to her, and she arched into him.
When he was satisfied that he had proven his point, he raised his head, strumming over her bud as her breath quickened.
“Your answer, madam. Do you want to dress for the feast, or do you want me inside you again?”
He teased her with greater pressure, then aligned his cock with her entrance, awaiting her answer.
Her lips parted, and he could plainly see her waging an inner struggle between desire and duty. “You know what I want.”
He couldn’t hide his smile. “Say it.”
“You.”
He dragged his cock up and down her seam, coating himself in her dew. She was almost obscenely wet. He fucking loved it.
He lovedher. He should tell her. But in the proper way. Not when he was about to bed her. Later, he decided.
“How?” he demanded instead. “How do you want me?”
Dark lashes lowered over mysterious gray eyes. “Inside me.”
Those two words.
He was lost.
