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Unconsciously she rocked against his lap, the hard ridge of his arousal at her core making her slick with need as much as the groan that fell from Theo’s lips.
‘You’re killing me here,’ he said, the words half huffed out on a laugh.
He pulled back, looking at her, his gaze taking its fill of her. He reached behind her, and began to unbuckle her sandals, first one, then the other. He took her foot in one hand and firmly pressed the entire length of the arch of each foot, sending delight and pleasure through her. He caressed her ankles beneath the wet linen of her trousers, encased her calf in powerful, calloused hands, rough against smooth, sensations overwhelming her. She moaned out loud and he cursed, wrapping one strong arm around her as he twisted them in an embrace and turned her back to the seat.
Her fingers fought against his to undo the button of her trousers, and, once done, he peeled them from her, slowly, languorously as if enjoying the unveiling as much as anything else. She couldn’t find the words to describe him. He was glorious. Shirtless, his chest was magnificent, and she watched with the same delight as he kicked off his shoes and removed his trousers without taking his eyes from hers once. She almost shook her head against the impossibility of seeing him standing there naked, proud, and every inch her fantasy. She began to tremble again, not with cold, not from the elements, but from the sheer virility that was Theo, the magnetism, just him.
* * *
Theo stood naked before the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. There she was, laid out before him like the last meal he’d ever taste, and he hovered on the brink of something indefinable, as if he didn’t know where to start.
He wrapped a hand around her ankle and gently pulled her so that she almost lay flat. He lifted her foot, pressed kisses against the delicate arch, the inside of her ankle, he made his way slowly, languorously along her calf, spreading her slightly to allow the space for his own body, as he trailed open-mouthed kisses over her thigh and upwards to the hollow at her hip. Her body quivered beneath his lips, and he dusted the gentle swell of her stomach with his tongue. He kissed over her ribcage, and bit back a smile as she twisted and bucked as if as overwrought by the pleasure they built between them as he was. He kissed between her perfect breasts as he moulded them with his hands, each kiss driving him closer to the brink of need and desperation. This wasn’t the angry coupling from the other night, this was honour, and respect, and desire building pathways to his heart that he’d never imagined.
He wanted to give her the greatest pleasure, as if he could make up for the ills he had thought her guilty of, the ills he had almost wreaked upon her. Because he realised now that he could not go through with his plan...he could no longer leave her at the altar humiliated and abandoned. Because beneath the ache and sting of what he had felt for Sofia was something deeper, darker and something he did not yet want to face.
She reached for him, as if pulling him back to the present, pulling him back to her, and he was more than willing to take the comfort she offered, even as he realised that it should have been the other way round. After what she had told him, it should be him soothing her hurts.
Leaning on his forearm, he looked down at her, the damp golden ropes of her hair framing her face, the exquisite perfection of it, and the way her head cocked to one side elongated her neck made him yearn to devour her there, the pulse point, the connection to life, the flutter there speaking of her need for him.
Wide, round, azure-blue eyes stared up at him in complete trust, and part of him wanted to shy away from that gaze, from the hope and innocence within it. Instead he followed the trail of his hands with his eyes as his fingers traced the outline of her ribcage, the pad of his thumb dipping into the hollow at her hip, his hand delving beneath her, curving around her backside to pull her against him, their centres flush, their cores both throbbing with need, and he released her only to sweep his hand low across the gentle swell of her abdomen and between her legs to find the place that drove her wild with ecstasy.
His thumb caressed and played with her clitoris, the sounds of her need rising higher than the pounding of the rain against the wooden roof of the gazebo, ringing vibrations over his skin through to his very soul. This time he would not tease her, keeping her at the brink of an orgasm. No, he would drench her in as much pleasure as she could take, and then more.
He thrust into her with his fingers, feeling the walls of her body clench around them, again and again, all the while his body aching with need, an ache he felt he deserved to bear even though it was Sofia that cried out, Sofia’s body that trembled beneath him, incomprehensible words begging and pleading falling from her perfect lips. He wanted to kiss them, to consume them with his own mouth, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t, stop watching how beautiful she was when she came apart in his arms.
* * *
It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. Sofia’s body, still vibrating with the power of the orgasm Theo had pulled from her very soul, still wanted more. It wanted him and wouldn’t be denied. Her hands reached for him, drawing him down upon her, and finally, as if they were puzzle pieces fitting together, she felt some kind of completion as he placed the tip of himself at her core, and as he thrust into her deeply she felt stripped bare, vulnerable and powerful at the same time, as if she had stolen something from him to bolster her own sense of self.
The thickness of him filled her completely, the smooth hardness within her she was afraid she was already addicted to. He reached beneath her, bringing their bodies to a place where he could drive into her with more power, more delicious friction, just more... And she gasped, the air almost lodging in her throat, her heart as they became joined at the deepest, closest part of themselves. Was this what she had turned away from all those years ago? This impossible to describe sense of rightness, sense of wholeness? It was the last thought she had as he drove her closer and closer to a second orgasm—and with no need for silence or discretion, with no need for secrecy she cried out her release into his mouth as his lips came down on hers with the same desperation, the same craving that she could no longer resist.
* * *
Walking back through the vineyards as the sun hung low in the sky, slashes of pink against the cornflower-blue creating a stunning sight, Sofia wondered at the warmth and safety she felt as Theo wound his arm around her waist, holding her to his side. Their clothes still damp from the rain storm that had caught them by surprise, she almost welcomed the rough feeling, knowing what pleasures it had led to. She knew that they would have to return to Iondorra tomorrow for the charity gala, which—even though only a week before their wedding—she wouldn’t have cancelled for the world. Her role as patron for Gardes des Enfants d’Iondorra—a charity that supported child carers—had given her the first glimpse she’d had that her royal status could be a positive thing—could help and support something both wider and yet smaller and more immediate than anything her ‘duties’ could effect.
But for the first time she was torn. Torn between her duty and wanting to stay here in this magica
l bubble where the outside world didn’t exist and where she and Theo were finally feeling as one, feeling right, as if this was how it should have been all along.
She laughed out loud, then, when she felt the gentle vibrations at her side from the phone in Theo’s pocket—both at the feeling, and the contradiction of her thoughts of it just being the two of them cut off from the rest of the world. But when Theo joined in her breath caught—she had forgotten what he had looked like when he smiled, when they laughed together, and the sight was...incredible, full of hope for the future and the pull of nostalgia from the past.
‘Nai?’ he said, still laughing as he answered the phone.
Trying not to feel a little stab of hurt when he pulled away from her to speak into his phone, she forced herself to tune out the conversation and turned her mind to tomorrow...to the future. With him? Married to Theo Tersi? After all that had happened to them years ago, and since?
Unconsciously she had walked forward, tracing her steps back towards the stunning hotel hidden amongst the rows and rows of grapevines that stretched as far as she could see. The little narrow lanes created between them were barely enough for one person to step along.
She felt Theo behind her, the heat of him, the awareness...
‘That was my mother,’ he announced, disconnecting the phone.
‘Oh?’ She’d hoped her word sounded nonchalant rather than...what, worried? Intrigued? How much did his mother know about what had happened between them? What on earth must she think of her?
‘She has invited us for dinner this evening. If that’s okay?’
Sofia pulled every one of her concerns beneath the well-worn mask she used almost daily for her royal duties. ‘Of course that’s okay. I would love to meet her,’ she said genuinely, all the while hoping that Theo’s mother didn’t hate her quite as much as she hated herself for what she had done to Theo all those years ago.
* * *
