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He lifted her in his arms, the squeak of surprise drawing a curve to his determined lips, delight unfurling within him as her legs instinctively wrapped around his waist and hooking at the ankles behind him. Finally, her lips were level with his and he took full advantage. He plundered her mouth for treasure, his tongue dancing with hers, teasing her, filling her, foretelling exactly what he wanted to do with her. She met him stroke for stroke, touch for touch, but when she pressed herself against his arousal he forced his grip to soften when everything in him wanted to hold tighter, to draw her to him and never let her go. But, like the phoenix she reminded him of so much, he wouldhaveto let her go. She had risen, changed, become the woman she was always meant to be, so tomorrow she would fly.
The thought momentarily rocked him, until she placed the softest of bites on his bottom lip. Arousal flared within him and he took her mouth in a kiss that was a sensual punishment for them both. She gasped into his mouth and it went straight to his erection, hardening him to near pain. Need became an almost feral thing, and he palmed the underside of her thighs, bringing her even closer against his body. The suite below deck felt as if it were miles away, but she deserved more than the rough comfort of cushions on wood.
As if sensing the internal debate within him, ‘Here,’ she pronounced and shifted in his hold, sliding luxuriously down the length of his body and tearing at his shirt, uncaring of the buttons that went flying across the deck. Her hands were hot and fast against his skin and just as desperate as his own that pulled at her top, drawing it swiftly over her head. Impatient, he flicked the clasp of her bra, drawing the straps from her shoulders and throwing it aside. Nipples pebbled, he palmed her breasts, drawing cries of pleasure from Marit. Pressing into his touch, her head fell back, exposing the long length of her neck to his open-mouth kisses. He luxuriated in the taste of her skin, traces of salt from the earlier sea spray, urging him on, the flicker of her pulse against his tongue driving him wild.
She pulled at his hips, her fingers finding the fastening on his trousers, his hands reaching for the same on hers. Frantically they pulled and pushed at clothes, laughing in their desperation until they were naked beneath the soft blue sky, the sun’s rays on their skin nothing compared to the heat that drew them together in a kiss so passionate, so powerful Lykos was branded to the depths of his very soul. She had imprinted herself on him and he would never be the same again. He knew it then as deeply as he knew that he loved her. When she left she would take a part of his soul with her and he would never be whole again. The thought curled within him, folding in on itself, and he tucked it away, knowing he could never reveal that to her, knowing that to do so would cause her even more harm.
So, instead, he touched her, covering her with his palms, learning every single inch of her body, her chest, the swell of her abdomen, the dip of her hip and the curve of her backside, her skin hot and smooth and, between her legs, wet with need that only he could sate.
Lykos dropped to his knees before her, gently parting her legs and folds and, before she could say anything, swept his tongue across her clitoris, drawing a pleasure from her so pure she would have fallen had he not been holding her in place against his mouth.
The decadence of it stole her breath. Naked to the world, being pleasured by a man who knelt at her feet. He made her feel like a queen. The sweep of his tongue had her trembling, hot and needy. She felt both powerful and utterly weak at the same time as he hurled her towards an orgasm that nearly scared her with its intensity. One palm on the curve of her ass, the other on the inside of her thigh, she felt possessed, owned and branded by him.
She felt every single sweep of his tongue, every single full-blooded heartbeat pulsing through her veins, every single spark that exploded in her heart. She luxuriated in an arousal that became something almost threateningly powerful, but it was a power she wielded. It was as if she were at the bow of a great ship, hurtling into mountainous waves knowing they could not hurt her. Knowing that she was protected by him and his love. As if that knowledge, that awareness, was all she had needed to push her over the edge of her orgasm, Marit shattered into a thousand pieces, assured that Lykos would catch every single one of them and hold her together until she could do it for herself.
When Marit came back to herself she was lying against the breadth of Lykos’s chest, anchored by his legs and gazing lazily over the yacht’s rails, his hands brushing over her arms. His chin was resting against the top of her head and she wanted so much to stay there it hurt.
They were on the cushioned seat and there were plates of delicious-looking food and a metal bucket containing a bottle of champagne dripping cool condensation onto the wooden deck beside them.
There were so many things she wanted to say in that moment. That she was sorry she couldn’t be the person he deserved, heneeded. That she would be yet another person to walk away from his love—it hurt her, changed her on a fundamental level. There were many ways that Lykos had impacted on who she was, but this was the most devastating.
She couldn’t imagine him walking through life alone. She wanted more for him even if she couldn’t have it for herself.
‘So, who will you kidnap next?’ she asked, forcing herself to have a conversation that made her stomach burn and her tongue ache.
He stilled beneath her, his fingers halfway between her shoulder and elbow, and she forced her body to relax, instead summoning the teasing tone she’d once relished so much between them. She twisted and looked up at him, having to shade her eyes from the sun, but his eyes burned just as bright and fierce and she steeled herself.
‘That is not funny,ángele mou.’
‘I know,’ she said sadly, apology in her eyes. ‘But—’
‘Stop.’
‘Lykos—’
‘No. Marit, you made your decision. I cannot stand it, but Iunderstandit and I respect it. You should do the same.’
Marit felt the sob rising in her chest, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t cry any more. They didn’t have enough time.
‘You deserve love, Lykos.’
‘So do you.’ His words were harsh, almost a bark. To anyone else they would be accusatory. To her, they were a stubborn declaration that his future was her future, even if they weren’t together.
She climbed up his body, her lips needing his, her heart needing his touch and his love, even if just for these last few hours. As the sun rose and fell over the Aegean, the yacht swaying as gently as possible on the rise and fall of the waves, they talked, soothed, ate, drank and made love again and again until a dawn so beautiful it was talked about across the whole of Greece rose over the sea, heralding Marit’s return to Svardia.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THEJOURNEYFROMGreece to Svardia on Lykos’s private jet was too short, as if time had sped up as the last grains of sand slipped through Marit’s fingers. The wide arc of the sky as the small plane banked to land was as familiar to Marit as the turn in the winding drive leading to the palace front door, but it still felt strange. As if it was happening to someone else—a dream—and that her time in Europe had been the reality.
How, she wondered, was it possible that she had only been gone for five days? It felt more like five years. She twisted her hands in her lap, a nervous gesture she hadn’t performed since Lykos had swept her up on the morning of her supposed wedding, thrown her over his shoulder and walked out of the hotel with her.
Looking back on it, it was a miracle that there had been no press to witness it. But, thinking it through logically, knowing Lykos the way she did now, she wouldn’t have put it past him to make sure they were otherwise occupied at that exact moment. The cabin crew member announced their imminent arrival and Marit looked away, not seeing the beautiful sculptured gardens of the palace, the maze where she had once got lost, the large trees she had hidden in as a child.
Instead, she saw the sun glinting off a rippling sea, she felt the heat of its rays on her skin, turning it pink through the day and slightly bronze as the sun set. She’d caught her reflection in the plane’s bathroom mirror and wondered how it was that she appeared to look so healthy just as her heart shattered into a million pieces.
She’d not been able to look at Lykos the entire flight. She’d felt his gaze occasionally on her, but he’d not tried to break her silence, as if he’d known she needed it. Because if she opened her mouth, how could shenottell him to turn the plane around? Beg him to take her back to his yacht. To give her one more day, week, month, year. To give her for ever.
She’d meant what she’d said to him on the yacht. And even in the bar in the hotel in Milan. She would have always come back. And yes, there was a part of her that feared—as Lykos had accused—that she was trying too hard to prove herself, to her parents, to her siblings, toherselfeven, by doing what her family and country needed her to do. But for her sister, to whom she owed so much, her brother, who would be an excellent king, and her people, who were kind and generous, proud and determined... She could never let them down the way her parents had let her down. They deserved this from her and she would do it with all the broken pieces of her heart.
