He had thought that fixing his gaze upon a mission would keep his pride intact.
His pride could be damned.
It was nothing. It meant nothing.
“My princess,” he said, kneeling before her, an expression of fealty, but so much more. He gripped her hips and pressed his face to that patch of curls between her legs, swept her underwear to the side and began to taste her, lick her. For she was as addictive as any sweet ever could be, and he would never get enough.
She gasped, gripping hold of the back of his head, using it to steady herself. He looked up and saw that her expression was filled with wonder, shock.
Was it love?
In the end, he would make her call out his name, and his alone.
Tonight that might have to be enough.
She came hard, her desire flooding his mouth, and then he kissed his way up her thigh, her hip, her stomach, and kissed her, letting her taste herself on his lips.
When he pulled away, she looked nearly drunk on her own desire.
He knew what had to happen next.
He walked her across the room, brought her to the vanity and bent her over, a repetition of what had happened that night in Alabria.
That night when he had decided to embrace his selfishness.
Affront. That’s what it had been. He had been undone by his love for her. Brought to the brink by it. And it was so much easier, so much more comfortable for him to say that he was like his father. Selfish through and through. Because admitting that he loved her, that unmanned him.
And so unmanned was what he would have to be. He wanted her to see this differently. He gripped her chin, forced her to look straight ahead. “Look at us,” he said, his voice tender. He held her throat, softly, letting her feel the care. The strength restrained.
Her breathing was rapid, her pulse fluttering at the base of her throat. He curved his head around and pressed his mouth over it. Kissed her.
And then he unhooked her bra, let her breasts spill free, into his hands, pinched her nipples between his fingers before moving his hands down her hips and tugging her panties down as best he could around the garter belt.
He bent her over, his hand not forceful, but firm. He wanted her to feel the way that he cared about her. The way that he held her.
He wanted her to feel the shift, the promise.
“Look at us,” he whispered.
He wrapped her hair around his hand and breathed in deeply, the scent of lilacs and summertime. Of Emerald.
He freed himself from his briefs, and pushed deep inside her. He held them both there, like that, an expression of awe and wonder on her face, one that was matched on his own. “I love you,” he growled.
He thrust forward, claiming her, over and over again, driving them both to the brink. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you.”
He said it with each thrust. Like a prayer, like a promise. He said it from the very depths of himself. Because it was true, whether she ever said it to him or not. Because that was what it had always been. And yes, he had loved her with the promise of never having her in return, and there was something about that that had comforted him. Because he had been a boy, scared, of his own memories, of himself, but he wasn’t afraid anymore. He had thought that this was being unmanned. That wasn’t true.
His father was not a man. Because he had never truly been able to love those around him more than he loved his own pride, his own comfort, himself.
But Andrei loved her. More than anything.
He lost his control then, on a shout, pouring himself into her as she lost her own control, gripping the edge of the vanity, trembling and shaking.
“Andrei,” she whispered, his name a sob, and when she looked back up at him in the mirror, their body still joined, there were tears on her face.
He withdrew from her, turning her to face him and cupping her. “Did I hurt you?”
