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“I’d like them better off me.”
“Really?” He leaned forward and swiped his tongue over her swollen bare lips. “I think they look pretty right where they are.”
Her fingers dug into his scalp, tugging his face closer to heaven’s door.
Normally, he would have pulled back at that, refused to cede control, but with Elle nothing seemed to go as expected. She not only surprised him, she made him surprise himself. Without hesitation, he buried his face between her shaking thighs, cupping her ass to tilt her hips and give him a better angle. Licking and lapping against her folds and the silk between them, he explored her—claimed her—with his tongue. Their wetness mingled, soaking the slip of material covering her entrance and adding an extra layer of friction that would take her higher, faster, which was exactly what he wanted, a quick explosion followed by a torturous, blissfully slow burn that would melt them both. He sneaked a finger under her damp panties, then another, and slid them home inside her warmth. Stroking and stretching her entrance, he plunged inside again and again, being sure to rub against her swollen and sensitive G-spot. The sounds she made, moans of ecstasy punctuated by unintelligible words in their native tongue, spurred him on until she encompassed the entirety of his world.
Pushing her center to him, she undulated against his mouth, using him with the desperate need of those on the edge of coming apart. “Dom,” she screamed and rewarded him with the flood of her orgasm against his tongue.
Not giving her time to slide into satisfied oblivion, he swept her up and turned toward the hidden door to her room. She was so light in his arms, the perfect fit as she laid her head on his shoulder, her long, silky hair mussed and ticking his neck.
“Where are you taking me? I wasn’t done with you yet.” She sighed, and her eyelids drooped.
“Believe me, I’m far from through with you.” Not by a long shot. He had one night, and he wasn’t going to waste a moment. “We’re going to the bedroom so I can spread you out on that giant bed and really take my time.”
Her eyes snapped open. “No.”
“Why?” He paused, his hand halfway to the copy of Huck Finn that would send the bookcase swinging open.
“That’s my space.” She pushed out of his arms, landing on her feet, and then backed up a few paces. “It makes all of this personal.”
“It is personal.” How could it not be, with her taste still on his tongue?
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s not. Sex never is.”
Her words were like lightning hitting dry brush, setting off a wildfire of unexplainable anger through him. Happily ever afters weren’t in the cards for people like him, whose lives were devoted to a cause greater than themselves, and especially not with a princess who was soon to be his queen. One-night stands were part of his repertoire, but they’d never been impersonal or anonymous. His stomach tightened. “Then you have no fucking clue about great sex.”
“I never would have taken Mr. I Give the Orders as a romantic.” Rolling her eyes, she snorted. “Look, we get each other off, we scratch an itch. None of it matters. It’s just sex with better orgasms than if I was left to my own devices.”
It shouldn’t have mattered. He was a man with a hard dick and a willing, beautiful woman. The situation was one a million men would give their left nut to be in, but it pissed him off. “I’ve got no interest in being a breathing dildo for you to get off on.”
“Too bad, because I don’t do emotional connections.” She jerked Huck Finn from the shelf, releasing the door. “Good night.”
She hit the corresponding mechanism on the other side of the wall and closed the hidden door, shutting him out without even the briefest look back.
The princess was a bitch, and he was, no doubt, a total asshole. The whole situation was fucked, and he still had to persuade her to fight for her crown.
…
Elle held it together until the bookshelf swung closed before sinking to her knees, her whole body shaking and blackness threatening her vision. Forcing in a slow, deep breath, she closed her eyes and pictured a green field under a perfect blue sky. She exhaled, draining all of the air from her lungs and then inhaling through her nose until her chest expanded as far as it would go, the whole time hearing the sound of the salt-scented Elskovian
breeze rushing up from the fjords and out over the long grass. That field north of the capital was her happy place, not the castle where she’d grown up, with its thick gray stone walls and ornate wrought-iron decorations. She’d played in it as a girl, the golden tufts atop the grass tickling her calves as she chased the fluffy white sheep that roamed there. Opening her eyes, she came back to the here and now. Another ragged in and out, and the black dots dancing on the edges of her vision faded away, her heart stopped trying to tear out of her chest, and the all-too-familiar panic sheathed its claws.
That had been a close one. Another minute with Dom and she would have let him into her bed, the first man to have ever been there. All of the others had been fast fucks in borrowed spaces followed by a quick good-bye. It was the best way to make sure they only saw the her she wanted them to see, not the woman she really was. Keeping it impersonal kept her safe, kept her alive, and kept her sane.
But Dom already knew who she was, so there was no danger of a stray word spoken in her sleep or a nightmare that curled around her throat, squeezing it tight, until she jackknifed awake, ready for battle with the dreamland ghosts she couldn’t touch. For some reason that scared her more. She hadn’t openly been herself for a decade and didn’t know if she could. She’d been born a princess, but that didn’t mean she knew how to be a queen.
She shivered, chilly in her underwear and silk thigh highs without Dom’s face-of-the-sun heat nearby. Hoping for a T-shirt or sweats left behind from a previous guest, she opened the heavy, wood dresser drawer. She gasped. It was filled with her underwear. She pulled open another drawer…her shirts…another…her workout clothes. Leaving the dresser with its drawers open like they’d been ransacked, she sprinted across the plush carpet to the mirrored closet doors and flung them wide, only to find the walk-in closet filled with her own dresses hung according to color and shoes displayed by heel height, just like she did at home.
The bastards. They weren’t going to let her leave until she said yes. Her feet sank into the plush cream carpet as she paced in a wide arc from the French doors leading out to a private balcony, around the sturdy walnut four-poster bed and across to the eggshell-white chaise lounge decorated with small silver faux fur pillows. That’s where, earlier in the evening, she’d slept off the mixture of akvavit and whatever Dom had used to drug her prior to hauling her here.
Her options were limited. She knew where she was, thanks to Google Maps and the GPS in her phone. However, calling for help wasn’t an option, because who the hell was she going to call? The cops? The story of the lost princess would be front-page news in Harbor City before she even finished giving her statement. The Fjende would have a sniper on her as she walked out of the police station. She could hit the road on her own, but she didn’t have money or a car. Relying on the kindness of strangers had never worked out for her before, and she sure as shit didn’t expect it to now. Stealing Dom’s car wasn’t an option. She’d seen the cameras peppered throughout the compound. Until she knew enough about the security layout to avoid them completely—or got the anonymous all-seeing eyes to trust her enough to look away occasionally—she didn’t have a hope of getting near the compound’s garage without company.
That’s it.
She needed to get Dom to trust her. He’d said they had almost a week before the Kronig. That gave her more than enough time to placate him, get him to believe she was on board with his crazy take-back-the-throne plan. She glanced back at the closed hidden door leading to the library. Too bad she’d royally fucked up the perfect opportunity to do just that.
Chapter Seven
