AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He had only this heat. This need.
And the mad longing that roared through him, obliterating everything else.
He kissed her and he kissed her, shoving his hands into the intricate design they’d made of her hair tonight. He pushed her back against the rail, feasting on her lips and pressing himself against her, then groaned out his appreciation when she pushed right back.
Not to push him away, but to push herself closer.
And there was no question of pretending, then. There were no questions at all.
There was only this. Her. The two of them and the glory that swept through them, burning them both down where they stood.
Paris Apollo remembered, only vaguely, that they were standing outside. And that he had more to think about these days than his own pleasure. But that was the last thought he had as he wrenched his mouth from hers and stepped back to spear her with a dark glare that came from the very depths of him.
Because he was not certain that he could speak.
Her lips were parted, and, at last, he saw the way her chest moved, as if she were running a marathon. Better yet, there was that pink flush again, everywhere.
And Madelyn did not look as if she had the slightest inclination to stop running.
He did not ask himself why it mattered so much to him that she should be as transported in this moment as he was. That she should be as lost. As wrecked.
Paris Apollo bent and lifted her into his arms. Then, gazing down at her as if he’d never seen her before when he knew too well she was burned inside of him, he carried her into the palace. He shouldered his way into his rooms, striding with her to the bedroom that claimed pride of place far to the back and the bed that took over the better part of one wall.
He couldn’t have said why it felt as if this was his true coronation. This moment as he carried the mother of his son to the bed where so many kings of Ilonia had lain in their time. He only knew that he had never felt like more of a king than he did as he laid her out before him on the grand mattress, then followed her down.
And he remembered everything.
The way he always had.
He remembered those Cambridge nights, the blazing fire between them, and the way she would sob in his arms. How time had lost its meaning, so deep inside her was he, as if they were one.
They had been one. He still believed that, no matter how it had ended.
She had made him insatiable, truly. He felt the same way again now, but more intensely, as if he’d been sober all these years and the taste of her tonight had swept him straight off the side of that wagon.
The only saving grace was that Madelyn looked as lost in this as he was.
He stripped that lovely dress off her body, not caring if it ripped. He shrugged out of his own clothes, kicking them aside.
Because every moment they were in each other’s presence without being naked together, without skin touching skin, was a tragedy.
And there was too much time lost already.
Too many tragedies to name.
On the bed at last, he stretched out beside her and took a moment to look his fill. To revel in her before him like this once more.
“I can’t bear this,” she threw at him, though her voice was little more than a whisper. “I can’tbear this, Paris Apollo.”
She launched herself at him, the way she often had. For he had taught her what she knew, taking the innocence she’d given him, that tender gift. And she had never learned the jadedness that had marked so many of his encounters before her.
Nor had she learned it since, he found to his delight. She was eager, clumsy. Perfect.
And bright with this passion between them that made him feel as untutored and un-jaded as she was.
Madelyn crawled on top of him, and then her mouth was everywhere. Her hair fell down around him and he was lost in the warm scent that was only her, honey and a hint of salt. And in the slide of her lips across his cheekbone, his jaw.
He lay back as if he was sacrificing himself on an altar as she explored her way down the length of his body, making those low, greedy noises that had always driven him wild. He was torn between all the memories he’d held at bay that flooded him now and the glorious present, her mouth gliding where it liked and reducing him to little more than clay in her hands.
