Maxim thrust into her to the hilt, gliding in her slick channel with ease, the constriction of her cunny wrapped around him, fitting him like a glove. Here was where he belonged. Not even on a throne. Just here, deep inside Tansy, making her his.
He groaned at the rightness of it, the feel of her, the perfection.
His lips settled on hers, and she kissed him voraciously, as if she could not have enough of him. This time, he had already lost his tight grip on his control. He could not control his motions. He slammed in and out of her, taking her in harsh thrusts as he sought his next release. She sucked on his tongue, wrapped her legs around him, met him thrust for thrust. He fucked heracross the bed and into his headboard, using a pillow barrier for protection. Maxim caught her hips in his hands and angled her against him so that he could penetrate her even deeper. As deep as he could go.
He was so close to exploding, pleasure licking up his spine like flames.
Maxim broke the kiss, staring down at Tansy. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, and she was lost in the throes of her own passion. He’d never seen her look more maddeningly lovely, the rose of a flush blossoming on her cheekbones, her breasts moving with the force of his every thrust. His, all his.
Hislove.
With the feeling came a sudden rush of need, dark and potent. He wrapped her hair around his fist, leveraging himself on the pillow as he pumped into her again and again.
He tugged gently. “Open your eyes, spitfire. Look at me while I’m deep inside your cunny. You’re mine.”
Her lashes fluttered, then lifted, and he fell into the depths of her eyes. “Yes.”
He hadn’t expected the acknowledgment to fall so readily from her lips. That it did made the beast within him roar with pride.
“Come on my cock,” he ordered, his hips pumping faster as she tightened on him.
“Maxim, please.”
Her breathy begging nearly undid him. She was close. He could feel it. He shifted again, his cock slipping from her wetness. And then he slid a pillow under her bottom, inside her in the next second, the angle achieving new penetration.
Ah, fuck. Yes. That was good. So good.
He found her pearl and stroked.
She cried out, her cunny convulsing, milking his cock deliciously, a rush of wetness bathing him, dripping down hisshaft to his ballocks. One more slam of his hips, and he lost control entirely. He spilled inside her, body bowing beneath the intensity of his orgasm.
When she had drained him of the last drop, he slipped free of her body, rolling to his back at her side. He should tell her now, he thought stupidly as his heart thundered in his chest. He should tell her that he loved her.
She dropped a kiss on his chest and rose from the bed. “We should dress now for the betrothal feast.”
The damned feast. His looming wedding. His duty to his people. She was right. He was obliged to attend. He had been thinking with a lust-addled mind earlier. But now that the poison had been cast out of him, he could think again.
Disappointment came crashing down on him, and he kept the words to himself. Later. He would tell her that he loved her later, he thought as he watched the sway of her hips and felt his cock impossibly stir once more.
He would tell her tonight, after the betrothal feast.
The hour waslate and the night was cold, but Tansy couldn’t bear to remain another minute in the grand hall where the betrothal feast was being held. Pulling her wrap more tightly around her to ward off the chill, she ventured deeper into the walled palace courtyard. A fountain tinkled merrily somewhere in the distance, and torches had been placed strategically along the path, but shadows and darkness blanketed the quiet grounds, rendering it difficult to see. The night was almost starless on account of silvery clouds that had been hanging over the capital since that afternoon when she’d left Maxim’s apartments, what now seemed a lifetime ago.
Toasts had been made to the king and his future queen. Maxim and Princess Anastasia had been seated together on a dais at the center of the hall so that it had been impossible not to see them. Neither had appeared particularly happy despite the high spirits of the revelers, who were drinking wine and ale and celebrating with merry delight the impending nuptials.
Tansy had been seated at the far end of the long, intricately carved table where the most prominent lords and ladies of Maxim’s court had gathered to dine on a sumptuous meal of so many courses she had quite lost count. And although the food had been elegant and enticing, she had scarcely eaten a bite, sick to her stomach at the vivid picture of her life before her.
A woman on the periphery, watching from afar as the man she loved stood with his wife at his side.
After the frenzied tenderness of their earlier lovemaking and Maxim’s revelations to her, watching him with Princess Anastasia,celebratingtheir looming marriage, had been akin to a slap in the face. Tears stung at her eyes even now, far from the glittering assemblage, the ladies with their elegant gowns, encrusted in jewels. The lords with their formal court dress. The laughter, the titters, the lack of familiar faces.
How hopeless her position was here.
Had she imagined that she would be able to remain in Varros after Maxim married the princess, even for a moment? That seeing him with another woman would one day cease to bring her unspeakable agony?
If she had, her mind had been addled. She hadn’t been thinking clearly. Or at all.
Loving him and not being able to be with him—truly, in every way—was an anguish she wasn’t prepared to bear. She was going to have to leave Varros. To end her service to Princess Anastasia. To carry on was not fair to either of them.
