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She decided to take that as a sign. A portent, even.

“That will never happen again,” she told him, raising her gaze to meet his in the mirror.

He moved to stand directly behind her, and her body knew him. It ached for him. She felt herself soften, everywhere, and had no idea what to do about it. As if he knew it simply by looking at her, Cairo smiled. He slid his hand around to hold her there before him, stretching his palm against the tight waist of her gown.

She felt the heat of it everywhere, like a promise. She wanted to lean into it, into him. She would never know how she kept herself from doing it. How she kept her spine straight and her knees locked.

“You are going to marry me in approximately five minutes,” Cairo told her, and she couldn’t help but remember the way he’d said “I am a king,”as if he’d never said such a thing out loud before. She could hear the echo of it again now, and more, feel it deep inside her. Like a command from on high. “You are going to remember what happened here with every step you take down that aisle. I have no intention of a carrying on a sexless marriage, Brittany. Certainly not with a woman who wants me as badly as you do. Almost as badly as I want you.”

“I...”

But she didn’t know what she meant to say. What she could say, when every last cell in her body wanted nothing more than to throw herself back onto that bed again. To tear off her clothes and all of his and actually explore him this time. Then lose herself in all that marvelous shattering all over again. Right here, right now, and who cared how many noble personages waited for them below?

“I was always planning to seduce you, Brittany,” Cairo told her as he pulled his arm from around her body. He righted her when she started to slump over because her knees really weren’t working, and she flushed at his touch all over again. His firm lips moved into that small curve that set off explosions all through her. “Now I will simply take comfort in the fact that inevitably, I will ruin you for all other men. I likely already have. What a great pity.”

“That’s a lovely sentiment,” she managed to say, trying desperately to sound as composed and as dry as she wished she was. “I’m signing up to be your wife for a little while, not become your...”

She faltered, not knowing what word to use. What this was, what she was.

Or, worse, what she wanted to be. With him. For him.

Much less for herself.

Cairo smiled at her then, and this time, it reached his eyes. And it was as lethal to her as the way he’d touched her, as the way he’d moved inside her, as the way he’d made her feel. It was almost too much to bear, too bright and too perfect, like the impossible Italian summer on the other side of the window.

He was her ruin made real and today she’d ensured it. She felt something inside her crack wide open and she was terribly afraid it would suck her in and destroy her right then and there, whatever it was. It felt that brutal and that permanent.

The trouble was, some part of her wanted to see what would happen. Some part of her imagined the wreck of it—of this—would be worth it, no matter what came after.

“Don’t worry,” Cairo told her, as if he felt it, too, that great, wide, open thing that was already changing everything. As if he knew exactly what it was and what it meant. As if this was as real as it felt—as real as that silly, fairy-tale-headed fool inside of her wanted it to be. “You will be both. My wife, yes. My countryless queen in all your glory. But most of all, Brittany, you will be mine. Do you not understand? You already are.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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