Page 33 of His Hidden Royal Heirs

But her hand was on his. Her body so close. That lush mouth of hers tilted up, just within reach. A taste... What was a little taste? It would just keep her thinking love was an option.

Perhaps she would even mistake it for love. He could kiss her and maintain control. Because if she loved him, that would be all the control he needed.

Warning bells sounded in his head. The kind he listened to in his work. Those gut feelings he never took for granted. Because so often they told him where he was making a misstep, warned him he was going down a wrong path.

Today, he ignored them and pressed his mouth to hers. Just another small taste. Not for him, but to fool her.Her.

She met his kiss, pressed her palms to his cheeks as she lifted to her toes to get a better angle. Sweet and lovely, with enough bite to send a jolt through his system.

Control. I am in control.

He was sure of it.

“The doctor said it was safe,” she whispered against his mouth. He looked down at her, and those siren-green eyes, a myriad of colors he was drowning in.

Because it was a simple sentence, but her expression showed a variety of complexity behind that it.

Safe. Not just safe, but here Zia stood giving him the go-ahead. When it was notsafefor either of them. It was just like that first and only night. A loss of control. No doubt full of consequences that would echo through them forever.

He knew what consequences did. He knew what happened when he gave up his control.

He kissed her anyway. Deep and hard, pouring months and months of frustration into her. Because how he haddreamedof her against his will. How he hadwantedher and been unable to want anyone or anything else.

She had ruined him somehow, and this felt like control. Like reclaiming...something. So he claimedher mouth. He lifted her shirt off her and let it fall to the ground, claiming her breasts, the stomach where she carried their children.

So perfect, lush and vibrant. He remembered with a ferocity it didn’t do to dwell on every inch of her, but she had changed. Become fuller, softer. So he cataloged this new version of her, laying her out on the bed, naked and perfect just for him. He studied her, with his hands, with his mouth. Until she was all but sobbing out his name, writhing there on this large bed.

His.His.Because together they created something bigger than themselves. Not just the result of their night together, but this all-encompassing thing that stripped him of his control, his certainty. Stripped him of everything he was.

Because in this moment all he could be washers.

He stripped himself of his own clothes, slid his palms along her inner thighs, opening her for him. He slid into her in one long, slow stroke, the wave of pleasure andrightsweeping through him like an eruption. As if things had not been right since she’d left his bed that morning, and now they finally could be again.

She cried out, shuddering around him almost immediately. So responsive, always, like they had been designed to bring out a pleasure in each other that no one else could even begin to know.

So he moved, slow and steady, drawing her up that heady peak once more. Watching as the pleasure chased over her gorgeous features. He watched her mouth form his name, and he felt her lose herself once more around him.

He roared out his own release as she held on to him, strong and sure. But it left him feeling none of those things. Fear sneaked in under all the swirling pleasure as she rolled into him, as he pulled her close.

He held her too tight, he knew. This was out of his control. Beyond his rules. He had crossed all his own lines, and he had to get them back into place. The only way to take hold of thissituation was to make certain everything happened the way he saw fit.

“You will marry me, Zia.”

He shouldn’t have said it. He didn’t know what had come over him. Just a need to have everything right and in place and her to be...

Mine.

But not that. Not inthatway. Just in the way that...that they would... That would allow him to make everything right. Make theworldright.

For his children. That was all.

Zia was amazed that someone could ruin something so thoroughly and so quickly. For a moment, the pleasure and joy of finding what they had had their first night had completely taken her over. There’d been some sliver of hope that something...good and right could come out of all of this.

Then he’d crushed it. While the orgasm still pulsed through her. She wriggled away from his too-tight grip, from that fervent, nearly wild gaze.

Maybe later she could consider what that lack of control on his face meant. Maybe later she could give him some benefit of the doubt. But in the here and now? The only way to protect herself was to lash out.

“So, that’s not a question,” she said, searching the floor for her clothes. When she couldn’t find them, she jerked a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her.

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