I laughed, clinging to him as he carried me out of the room and up the stairs.
I faced him as he set me down at the threshold of my bedchamber. Our breath mingled, quickening.
As soon as the turn of the knob creaked, I pulled the front of his tunic hard, catching his lower lip between my teeth.
He groaned into my mouth and lifted the hem of my shirt, tugging it over my head as we stumbled into my room. I swallowed the decadence of his desire; it fed me everything I’d longed to find in a lover for so long. What bloomed between us had not been rooted in a tryst or petty seduction—it felt more solidly planted, more intimate.
We broke only to catch our breath, but the freedom to touch one another was too new to avoid barreling ahead, and my fingers found the buttons of his breeches as he pulled his tunic off.
I’d savor him later.
I pushed his bare, chiseled chest until the backs of his knees buckled against my bedframe. Half undressed, with his forearmsflexed, his palms splayed down on my sheets, and his hair a mess, he looked too divine for my own good.
My nipples pebbled through the thin silk of my brasier. He noticed and bit his lower lip before he said, “Why were you so insistent on me taking other women to bed when all I want is this?”
His abdomen curled up, and he wrapped calloused hands around the small of my waist before placing a kiss between my breasts. His touch outmatched my expectations.
“I thought it would be easier if I saw you with another on your arm,” I admitted. “Easier to move on.”
He hummed as his stubble scratched down my stomach; it sent goose bumps along my spine. “Was it? And have you?” he asked, digging his fingers into my hips the way I’d daydreamed about since that first morning. He pulled me closer to him between his open knees.
“No, I hated every moment of it,” I admitted.
“Are you still planning an escape route, Elsedora? Still wanting to push me to another?” The smoldering stare that met mine through his dark lashes made my core tighten.
“I’m afraid you had your chance for others, my King. You’re mine now, and I plan to ruin you for anyone else.”
With a smile, he tugged my hips, toppling me forward. As I fell to straddle him, his hands found the clasp of my brasier, quickly discarding it.
“I’ve wanted to hear that for so fucking long. Wanted you just like this so many times.” His palm cupped my breast.
My skirt bunched as I rocked my hips, eliciting a delicious, unsatiated groan from him as he searched my expression.
If I could bottle the way he looked at me, I would. With his mouth ajar, he peeredintome—not at or through. That gaze of adoration nearly undid me, and we’d barely begun.
“Are you certain this is what you want?” I asked. “There is no going back.”
Once we crossed this line, there would be no more coy flirtation, no more skirting the inevitable. I’d fallen so far; I couldn’t bear losing him.
He swallowed hard. “I’ve been certain, Elsedora.”
That damned adoring look.
He’d ruin me right back.
“Good. Then, pants off,” I demanded.
He graced me with another groan of appreciation before he flung his belt aside. I began working on the buttons of my skirt, but he reached down and tore them apart, stripping the fabric away.
I gasped out a laugh. “I liked that skirt!” No undergarments lay beneath it, and his throat rumbled.
“I like this awholelot better. I’ll replace whatever else I break,” he promised.
He wouldn’t break anything irreplaceable—like the thinning walls of my heart which raced only for him.
I claimed his lips. Maybe I’d regret bedding him—maybe he should be with the pretty florist, or a younger immortal, or someone who didn’t have so many dark memories to work through.
Selflessness evaded me as I pushed the waistband of his breeches down and freed him, taking his length into my hand. He hissed through his teeth, breaking our kiss.
