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Needed it.
‘Please,’ he begged, and she kissed him again, giving him everything, convulsing around him and he in turn held nothing back. Not the yearning, the regret or the cruel whip of hunger still riding him.
New plan. We’re getting married, he thought.
Gathering her close, and knowing full well that she was still too far gone for speech, he carried her to his bed.
* * *
Ana woke with the dawn, aching and pliant. The bed beneath her was unfamiliar but the man beside her wasn’t. She knew his touch and the scent of him. The warmth of his skin beneath her cheek and the hills and valleys of his chest. He had a broad chest narrowing to a trim waist and a perfectly curved bottom. He was plentifully endowed, long and thick, and knew exactly how to use that which he’d been given. Last night he’d revealed exactly how well he remembered her lovemaking preferences.
Only man who’d ever been able to make her scream. She’d been so lost in him.
Forget all her scruples and the complications arising.
She’d only seen him.
They’d exhausted what their bodies were capable of last night, not surrendering to sleep until the early hours of the morning. Still naked, both. Still craving the connection of skin on skin, as if determined to let nothing come between them.
In the darkness of the night, here in this secluded fortress, it had worked for them.
And now morning was stealing in.
Ana closed her eyes, the better to shut it out, her lips to his chest and her tongue slipping past her lips to taste him. The salt on his skin, the hardening nub of his nipple, oh, she liked that. Enough to fit her lips to the circle of dusky flesh and suck gently.
He woke with a shuddering breath and wound his fingers in her hair. ‘More,’ he said in a voice still thick with sleep, so she dragged her lips across to his other nipple.
The man had a monarchy to serve and a father to bury. Once dawn broke he would belong to them and not to her and maybe he’d break her heart all over again.
But it wasn’t dawn yet.
CHAPTER FIVE
CASIMIR WOKE IN a bed that had seen enough hard use that the bottom sheet had come free of its corners. The top sheet rode low on his back; any other coverings had long since left the vicinity. The bed was a wreck and Casimir was draped across the middle of it, on his stomach.
With Rudolpho and a loaded breakfast tray staring impassively at him.
‘What time is it?’ he muttered.
‘Eleven.’
Eleven? He’d had a meeting with Augustus—King Augustus of Arun—and his sister, Moriana at ten in the city. And last night he’d forgotten to tell Rudolpho he wanted to cancel it. ‘My meeting—’
‘Rescheduled.’
‘To when?’
‘Two p.m. I took the liberty of deciding you needed to sleep. I am not without eyes or ears, Your Majesty. Or experience when it comes to what people need but won’t ask for.’
‘You presume a lot, old man.’ Even if he was right. Cursing, Casimir rolled out of bed and strode towards the bathroom as Rudolpho set the tray down on the table by the window and opened the curtains to let daylight in. ‘Does the press have my tribute to my father?’
‘It’s been playing all morning. They want more.’
They always did. ‘Set up a press conference for Monday at noon. I’ll give them everything they never wanted and more. I’m giving Claudia’s duchy to Sophia.’
He’d reached the bathroom and the older man had not followed him. The silence was not encouraging. Grabbing a towel, he slung it around his hips and turned back, eyebrow raised as he sought Rudolpho’s opinion.
‘That’s…one way of incorporating her,’ Rudolpho said finally, still fiddling with the curtains.
‘And I’m marrying Anastasia Douglas.’
Rudolpho stopped dead.
‘If you have something to say, say it,’ Casimir said.
The older man cleared his throat. ‘When?’
‘When do I want you to say something?’
‘When do you intend to marry this woman no one knows?’
‘After the burial. After the coronation. After I claim Sophia as mine. It’s the next logical step.’
‘Logic,’ Rudolpho echoed, and side-eyed the bed. ‘Does logic have anything to do with this?’
