First, she tasted him with her tongue, then her lips, then her teeth. When she lightly bit down, he groaned, squeezing her tight against him. “Easy, Caroline, or I’ll take you right here in this busy corridor.”
As if to emphasize his point, two attendants passed by them in a flurry, giggling. Breicher entered the stairway leading up to her rooms in the spire, putting his warrior’s body to use, taking her up the stairs two at a time like the climb was nothing. He kicked the door open and charged through, letting it snap closed behind them.
The moment he’d set her down, he drew her into him, threading his fingers into her hair, and kissing his way down her soiled neck. When he pulled away, a pink smear was across his lips. He leaned forward to kiss her, but she pulled away. Gods, she was aching for him.
“Caroline,” he growled, pawing at her, touching, and squeezing every part of her he got his hands on. “I need you.”
The desperation in his voice almost melted her. “I’m so ready for you, Breicher, but I’m not going to be covered in blood the first time we’re together. I’ll be a few moments.” She had to clamp her thighs together to ease the ache.
Breicher grabbed her hand, dragging her into the bathing chamber. He positioned her in front of the mirror on the vanity and tugged her hips back so he’d have access to her front. A second later, he had the laces on her trousers undone. Matching intensity glowed in their eyes as he said, “I need to feel you.”
The muscles rippled and flexed in his exposed forearms as he snaked one up her chest to cup her jaw. The other pressed beneath her underwear, rough fingers dipping into the silken heat that pooled there. She didn’t know which one of them gasped as he pressed a finger inside, then another. Her boneless body wanted to collapse forward with pleasure, but he held her firm to him, grinding his erection into her backside.
“Please, Caroline, don’t make me wait.”
Dead gods, she really didn’t want to. “I want your mouth to trail over every inch of my skin, and that can’t happen when I’m covered in gore.” He was going to protest, but she cut him off. “You can wait five minutes.”
He grimaced as if it hurt to pull his fingers from inside her. “Hurry up,” he said in a low, guttural voice. “I’ll be right outside.”
The water was freezing, but she hardly felt it. She’d never cleaned herself so fast in her life. Four minutes and she was wrapped in a towel and sauntering out for him. Her heart started when she found him on the edge of her bed with his head in his hands. Had he changed his mind?
“That was the hardest four minutes of my life,” he said, lifting his head to display a hungry grin.
Blessed angels, Caroline thought, and dropped the towel, trying not to look too eager as she paced over to him. Greedy hands latched on her hips, pulling her into his lap. He was as ready as he’d been five minutes before. “Why aren’t you undressed?” she asked, voice breathy.
He chuckled as he took a firm pink nipple into his mouth, causing her to toss her hair back, moaning. “You requested my mouth over every inch of your flesh, so I’m keeping my clothes on long enough to do that.” He found her other breast, giving it equal attention, and she pressed down on him. “So I don’t accidentally slip and impale you before I’ve accomplished my task.”
Her mind was swirling and a haze of lust and some other chest squeezing emotion. “Kiss me,” she demanded.
Obediently, Breicher’s hands reached for her face to pull her mouth to his. But before they crossed that chasm, bells rang out across the castle, and Breicher froze. “Fuck,” he yelled.
Urgently, she smoothed his mussed hair. “What is it?”
The gong strikes were deafening, each chime clapping unfettered through the open windows of the tower room. “An emergency. The sequence—three long bells is a call to convene in the war room.”
His future wife’s lower lip trembled and those watery silver eyes—she was about to burst into tears. Breicher had never seen her look so… fragile. Pulling her forward, he gave her a chaste kiss, which sparked with static charge, before he eased her off his lap. He ran his thumb across her full lower lip. “I know you’ve been through a lot today. Let’s go see what it is, then we can come back here, and I’ll spend all night making you feel good. Okay?”
His entire body screamed in protest as he wrenched himself off the bed.
Caroline paced over to the wardrobe and reeled back and punched it, splitting the wood with a crack.
“Don’t do that,” he rushed over to her, unable to resist running his hands down her still naked hips.
“Why not?” she breathed, leaning back into him.
“Because I’ll bend you over and fuck you right here against this wardrobe while the world is burning down around us,” he snarled into her ear, placing a trail of wet kisses down her neck. The bell rang three more times, as if everyone in the surrounding towns didn’t hear it the first time.
The Queen of the Joined Kingdoms whimpered when he pulled away, and he could only laugh to himself. He may be damned, but what a sweet hell.
The queen’s face was still deliciously flushed when they arrived at the war room. His brother, Angus, and Jaden were already there.
Hollis glared between them. “What were you two doing that took you so long to get down here?”Traitorwas the word he didn’t need to say.
“None of your business,” Breicher said, placing his hand on the small of the queen’s back, ushering her past his brother so she wouldn’t pounce on him with that pent up frustration. He pulled out a chair, and she took a seat. He took the one next to her, only now realizing the shift in his reluctance. Something about seeing all the blood on her had changed something in him, the worry that it had been hers punched through his gut had struck him silent. He really looked at her then and it occurred to him that if this was his life, it wouldn’t be so bad. He could be king.
With that thought, he said, “So what is so urgent that you had to call us away from far more entertaining activities? We don’t seem to be under siege. No new blood unless I’m missing something?”
The command in Breicher’s voice gave Caroline a thrill. And he wasn’t trying to hide what had happened between them. Warmth flooded into her awareness, and like Breicher sensed it, he draped his arm across the back of her chair.
