Page 12 of Untouchable Queen
Rather than putting on my dirty panties, I reluctantly choose to go commando and head downstairs.
I hear voices coming from a hallway at the bottom of the sweeping stairs, and I follow them, hoping they’ll lead me toward a source of food. As soon as I step into the rustically decorated dining room, I find Lucian sitting at the head of the breakfast table.
He looks up from talking to the guest beside him, and as his hazel eyes find mine, a charming smile breaks across his face. “Ah, there’s my sleeping beauty.Cara mia, join us for breakfast.”
I stiffen, frustrated to be pretending we’re some kind of happy couple in front of five unfamiliar faces. Only, when I look closer, I realize they’re several of our wedding guests from yesterday. They must have overindulged in the festivities and chosen to spend the night in the guest rooms of the estate. Guardedly, I lower myself into the open chair beside him.
“Would you care for some quiche?” he offers, gesturing to the dish in front of us. “Or I can have the kitchen make you something specific if you would prefer.”
“Quiche is fine,” I state cooly, reaching for the spatula and slicing a section to put on my plate.
“How did you sleep?” Lucian asks after I’ve taken several bites of the offensively delicious spinach-ham-and-egg-filled pastry.
I’m not about to admit that I might have had the best sleep of my life after being so physically and mentally exhausted and falling onto such a luxury mattress that even the recurring nightmares of my father’s bloody death couldn’t find me. “Rather poorly, considering you snore,” I state haughtily before taking another bite.
Saying something like that in front of all these guests is more than a little uncouth, and I don’t doubt it will piss Lucian off, but I want to get under his skin like he’s gotten under mine. To my astonishment, though Lucian is known for being brutal and malicious in the public eye, he seems to take my goading with good-natured humor.
Warm laughter bursts from his lips, the corners of his eyes crinkling with mirth as he tilts his head back. “Oh man,” he says as he pulls himself back together. “You’re the first woman who’s ever told me that. I like your honesty. Not many women would be so bold.”
“Oh? And what number am I in this long line of women you’ve slept with, if you’ve never been told you snore?” I mock.
“I don’t kiss and tell,” Lucian murmurs playfully, leaning closer on one elbow as if to whisper conspiratorially with me.
A shocking jolt of jealousy lances through me at the thought that he could have slept with plenty of other women before me. I know he’s considerably older than I am—maybe thirty-seven or thirty-eight, while I’m just twenty-four. But the lack of irritation my comment seems to draw out in him, combined with his inclination to keep his lovers private, unleashes a strange conflict inside me.
Don Lucian Agosti is not at all what I expected. While he takes control and knows how to show me exactly what he wants and when he wants it, he’s also strangely…respectful—a bit like an old-fashioned gentleman. I hate the hint of genuine interest that’s rising inside of me when it comes to my new husband.
“You know what?” I snap, tossing my napkin down on my plate and standing in a huff. “I don’t have time for your mind games today.”
Frustrated once more by Lucian’s ability to get under my skin, I whirl and storm toward the door.
5
LUCIAN
The quiet that settles over the room as my new bride departs is loaded, and my lingering guests cast tentative glances in my direction, curious to see how I might react to her sudden exit.
Tatiana’s going to be a handful.
More so than I had anticipated, but I love it.
That fire in her is what drew me to her in the first place. I could see it smoldering beneath her prim, proper facade—a persona I assume her father forced her to maintain in the hopes of crushing her fire, eventually.
I want nothing more than to unleash it.
Slowly, the discussions resume, the wedding guests settling back in once they’re certain I won’t decide to make an example out of Tatiana in some way.
And after giving my Russian spitfire a few minutes’ head start, I rise, excusing myself to follow her back to our bedroom. Because even if I didn’t want to challenge her in public, I can’t just let her be. When Tatiana pushes back, she just makes me want her more, and now—even after a very full night of passionate sex—I’m rock-hard for her.
The green dress I asked Gabriella to wash yesterday so Tatiana would have something of her own to wear lies casually across the corner of the bed as I enter our room. I can hear the shower running in the bathroom.
My cock twitches to life at the thought of my wife, naked and wet beneath the water without me. Shrugging out of my dress shirt, I toss it onto the bed beside her clothes, then my pants and boxers before I head into the bathroom to join her.
Her back is turned to me, her face tipped up and her eyes closed as she lets the steamy water cascade down her head and back. The rich auburn of her hair looks black when it’s wet and clinging to her skin. She looks like some beautiful water nymph with her hair draping down her back to the dimples at the base of her spine. Her full, pert breasts are on display through the shower’s glass, so lush and kissable.
Without announcing my presence, I step into the shower and wrap my arm around her waist. Tatiana’s eyes fly open, her lips partings on a gasp, and I lean in to steal a kiss.
“What are you doing?” she huffs, her palms finding my chest. “I have to get ready and go speak to my men.” Her tone is impatient, bordering on irritation as she tries to push me back, but her eyes dilate in the most basic, instinctual expression of arousal.
