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She would marry him—after all, it wasn’t exactly a life sentence. There would be considerable compensations.
His blazing stare narrowed. ‘What? Just like that?’
‘Yes.’ She smiled at his suspicious expression. ‘Just like that.’
He searched her face, though what he was looking for she had no idea. ‘Why?’ he demanded.
‘Why?’ Her finger brushed over his cheekbone again, loving the feel of his skin against hers. ‘Because you’re right, I have to think of our child and what’s best for them, and I think being your wife will make things easier for all of us in the long run, especially when it comes to the press. And because I can’t leave you to take sole responsibility for what happened.’ She met his gaze squarely. ‘I know I said I wanted to be chosen for myself, but that’s making it all about me and I can’t do that. Not when you’ll suffer repercussions, too.’
The look in his eyes was full of something ferocious that she didn’t understand, but it made her breath catch.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked roughly.
Lia stroked her finger across his cheekbone again, relishing the feel of him. Already she could feel that terrible, nagging ache inside her quieting, settling.
It was the right decision. She knew it in her bones.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sure.’
He said nothing, still staring at her intently, but she was starting to get distracted by the burnished bronze of his olive skin glowing in the firelight between the open halves of his shift and by the pulse at the base of his throat, the scattering of crisp black hair across his chest.
Oh, she wanted to see more. She wanted to see all of him. This wasn’t enough to do him justice.
His body was pressing against hers, the weight of him reminding her of the intensity of the pleasure they’d just shared. She could feel the pulse of it still echoing inside her, could still feelhiminside her.
Then suddenly Rafael bent and his mouth covered hers in a possessive, intense kiss, and there was nothing she could do but answer it. Kissing him back, desperate all at once to taste him, to drown their mutual hunger in passion.
There was nothing more to talk about now anyway. She’d agreed to be his wife and she was happy with her decision. Especially if would meant getting more of him, just like this.
She pushed at his chest so that they rolled over again, him on his back, her on top.
The flames from the fire were hot, illuminating his face. The ice had disappeared, there was nothing but that liquid mercury left and it swallowed her whole.
Fierce desire and a blazing satisfaction flooded through her, because finally he was hers. A man so full of intensity and heat that his soul must be a bonfire and he was, truly, all hers.
She hadn’t realised how badly she’d wanted that until now.
Lia kissed him hungrily and then rained a trail of hot kisses over his hard jaw and the strong arch of his neck. She pressed her mouth against the beating pulse at the base of his throat, tasting the salty, musky flavour of his skin.
He didn’t stop her, letting her follow the trail down over his chest and further, tracing the lines of his abs to the open zip of his trousers. She pushed her hand down inside and found him, smooth and hot and hard, pressing against her palm. She squeezed him and he made a harsh, masculine growling sound that excited her.
She had no experience of any of this, but that didn’t bother her. She wanted to explore him, look at him in the firelight, discover all the power contained in his hard, muscular body. Unleash the passion she knew burned beneath his icy, controlled surface.
She didn’t have to hold back any more and neither did he.
Trailing her lips further down over the hard lines of his abs, she went lower, gripping him, licking the hard length of his sex, then taking him into her mouth.
He growled again, his hips arching, and then he said her name in a hoarse, desperate voice.
It thrilled her, made her feel powerful. For so long she’d been nothing but a vessel for her parents’ dreams. For Matias’s vision of a perfect queen. For the expectations of an entire nation.
She was never herself, never had any power of her own.
But she did now. Here before the fire with Rafael beneath her, she was strong. She could make the infamously hard, cool Prince Regent of Santa Castelia lose his mind.
So, she did, giving him as much pleasure as she could with her mouth, her teeth and her tongue, relishing the rich, exotic flavour of him. Until he pulled her away with desperate hands, tugging her on top of him, guiding her until she was sitting astride his hips.
He was still half dressed, his shirt open, his skin like warm satin against hers, and he was magnificent. A god. She ran her fingers across the hard expanse of his chest, unable to get enough of him, but he cursed roughly in Spanish under his breath and abruptly sat up.
