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She had to know. She had to understand.
‘I can’t give you what you want, Henna.’
‘Who are you to tell me what I want?’
‘Your King,’ he growled.
‘You’re the boy who found me in the maze. To me, you will always be that first.’ Rather than tearing a strip off him for his arrogance, her tone was simple, sincere and it cut him off at the knees.
‘You’re trying to avoid the issue,’ he warned, even though it was he who was hiding.
‘I don’t think I am,’ she said, sitting up straighter against the sofa. ‘We started something in your office and...’ despite the blush of discomfort painting her cheeks a rosy pink, she pressed on ‘...and I want you to finish it.’
Aleksander cursed. He almost shook from the need to cross the distance between them, lay her on her back and feast on her as she wished, indulge her every delight and lavish her in pleasure. He fisted his hand to stop himself from reaching for her. She deserved more than that.
‘You would be happy with that? One night?’ He watched as her pupils bled out into the thinnest of amber rings. ‘You would let me into your body,’ he asked, his stomach tightening around the words, the images it conjured, thefeelings, ‘knowing that I would then go on to marry another?’
At that her skin blanched. He had been right. She might want him, she might even have the same wild need that cried and lashed in her chest as it did in his, but she wasn’t ready for what she wanted. She wasn’t prepared for the consequences of what she wanted. Yet neither could he leave her like that—poised on the same precipice, hurting and wanting and needing.
‘But,’ he said, damning himself to hell, ‘if you want, I can finish what I started.’
Her head jerked up, her eyes burning with the reflection of flames from the wood burner, heat from the whisky and need from the deepest part of her—he recognised that it matched his own. And in that second he realised that he needed this as much as she did. He needed it more than his next breath.
He put down the glass in his hand, knowing it wasn’t the alcohol that would satiate his thirst. ‘Let me taste you,’ he asked, watching the colour flood her cheeks. ‘Let me drink from you,’ he all but begged. ‘Let me bring you pleasure.’
His words turned a key to a locked box she’d not known was in her mind. It unleashed images that cascaded like an erotic kaleidoscope across her mind’s eye, all the while unable to tear her gaze away from the promise in Aleksander’s eyes.
‘Yes.’ The word poured from her lips like the whisky they were drinking, heady, intoxicating, powerful. But she wasn’t mindless with it. She knew what he was offering—and, more importantly, what he wasn’t. She knew that things would change between them, but hadn’t they already? She was leaving her job with his family. She would be leaving the country too. They were already past the point of no return, but what that meant beyond what he was offering her tonight she would consider later. For now, she wanted to indulge in everything he had asked.
Aleksander heaved in a breath as if he were surprised that she’d agreed to his request. With one leg stretched out before him and the other bent, supporting the arm crooked on his knee, he looked more like a rake than a king. His eyes had become ferocious with intent and he looked as if he were battling an internal war.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked, his eyes blazing.
‘Absolutely,’ she replied with soul deep conviction.
Her heart pounded in her chest as he unfurled from where he leaned against the chair opposite and prowled to where she sat, hands fisting in the thick sheepskin rug, holding herself back and utterly destroyed by the intent in his gaze.
He leaned over her, dominating her not with aggression but the force of his passion.
‘You can never wear this skirt in front of me again.’
‘Wh-wh-what?’ she asked, the word stuttering through the shakes that had returned to her body.
His hand swept up her thigh and slipped between the gap in the wrap-over skirt, his skin against hers a delicious friction, her body instinctively unwinding and pressing closer to his, bringing her chest closer to his. Aleksander’s eyes had never left her face, as if he were fascinated with her every expression, every reaction to his touch. Her head drifted backwards as her lips opened on a gasp beneath his, he inhaled as if trying to capture her exhale.
One hand had bunched the skirt at her thigh, while his other slipped to the damp heat between her legs. He closed his eyes and cursed, before conquering her mouth with his, the shocking thrust of his tongue the most that he would give her, filling her in the way he had refused to, but still sending her higher than Henna had ever been before.
All too soon the kiss ended, as Aleksander tore his mouth from hers. For a moment she felt such an acute loss she couldn’t breathe, until he leaned back, gently spreading her legs, her skirt falling either side of her thighs. Instinctively she tried to press them closed.
‘There is no need to hide from me,’ he said gently. ‘Unless you would like me to stop?’
‘No. No, don’t stop...don’t...’ She didn’t need to finish her sentence. All of his considerable focus was on removing her panties, all the while staring at her as if he had never seen anything more beautiful. He made her feel that.
He bent down, his palm snaking around her ankle, sweeping up over her calf, sending goosebumps across her skin—her legs, her stomach, her breasts—and she felt them like little electric shocks across her heart, making her breathless as she forced oxygen around the starbursts.
Her eyes drifted closed as he placed kisses on the inside of her thighs, painting fireworks on the backs of her eyes. The first delicious sweep of his tongue curved her body, her hips raising beneath his palms and his mouth, her back arching as she felt the gentle growl of his own delight through his tongue to her body.
Oh, God.
