Page 35 of Vows to a King
He nodded.
“And about these ramblings of the King that I overheard this morning and how they—”
Adonis cut her off with a hand over her mouth, not all surprised at her smooth segue. The woman was as cunning as she was generous. “The last thing I want to discuss at the end of this bloody long day is my father, wife. How about we get back to the topic of you offering me something in return for me giving up an essential part of my life?”
Her shoulders straightened, her spine arced. Pushing her luscious breasts up into his chest, she looked like a princess of the tribe her ancestors were from, readying herself for battle. She took his hand, cast a glance over her shoulder at her sleeping brother, and tugged him from the suite.
Anticipation and excitement and such naked desire fueled Adonis’s limbs that he didn’t remember the adrenaline that had coursed through him as he had made the vertical leap through the sky just that morning.
And he wondered, if maybe, this day was the beginning of something new, something good in his cursed life.
* * *
They had barely reached his cavernous room when the overhead chandeliers, three of them, flicked on and Adonis’s gravelly command filled the room. “On your knees then, Princess.”
Challenge rippled through the room, hitting Jemima in waves that threatened to bring her under. Behind her, the large bed with its dark navy sheets loomed.
Standing at the foot of it, she could smell the earthy, cedar scent of him that made her want to strip every piece of clothing from her flesh and roll around in it.
Liquid yearning gave her the courage to want more though. And why roll around in sheets scented with his musk rather than taste it on her tongue?
This was her life now, abundant with a man, a bloody king, who made it clear that he wanted her.
She’d long been curious about every kind of sexual act, but nothing more than this one he was suggesting.
The power dynamic in the act had always made her tingly with pleasure when she’d read erotic novels. But nothing, not even the most salacious tome, could come close to experiencing it live with this man.
All her adolescent longings and naive wishes morphed into something else when it came to her new husband. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to bring this man to his knees, this man who had known every high and chased every challenge, with her mouth?
Keeping her gaze twined with his, she sank to her knees in what was hopefully a smooth gesture. She shrugged off the wrapper she had on and instantly her nipples peaked against her silky negligee, goose bumps rising on every inch of her skin. Though it had nothing to do with the fact that her husband apparently liked his room quite cold.
It stuck her then that the man lived like an ascetic, a monk, even. Constantly testing his willpower and his self-control, and flooding himself in adrenaline only when he dictated it.
A new thirst formed in her, of building a future where he did not have to conduct himself with such iron-clad control, where she could be his landing place, his place of comfort.
For now, she would begin with being the one who made him lose a fraction of that control.
“If you do not want to do this, wife,” he said, coming close enough that she could lean her forehead against his muscled thigh, “you could just say so. I could make this easier on both of us. I could simply spread your thighs and plunge into you without any of this drama or foreplay or challenge. Especially since you’ve already claimed that your inexperience bothers you and makes this uneven between us.”
She looked up at him, at the flaring nostrils, the dark pupils pushing out the gleaming blue. A savage satisfaction filled her.
He was desperate for this, not that he would ever betray it. She licked her lips, her mouth as dry as the desert. “I am the Devil Prince’s wife. I do not back down from a challenge. The world might call this relationship whatever it pleases, but between you and me, this will be a relationship of equals, my king. So enough of distracting me and give me that majestic weapon you keep under those pants.”
He threw his head back and laughed. The open V of his shirt made the corded tendons in his neck something to watch. Before her courage left her, Jemima busied her hands with his trousers.
Instant tension tightened his muscles as she unzipped his trousers, loosening them around his tapered hips, and his hard, throbbing length fell into her hands. Her hungry core clenched and spasmed as she traced one thick vein on the underside. When she gave him a firm stroke, pre-cum beaded at the tip.
Mouth falling open, he grunted when she gave him a couple more squeezes and then bent and licked the drop. He hissed and cursed and sank his fingers into her hair. “Take me deeper, wife. I need to brand your throat.”
Jemima’s fascination for him increased a thousandfold at the rough need in his voice. He’d been right when he said he would not coddle her for anything in the world.
As he talked her through, in deep, rumbling tones, how to keep breathing, while his shaft slowly inched deeper and deeper, hitting the back of her throat, Jemima thought she might love him just a little for that.
On and on, she sucked him and his own commands increased in both need and intensity. His fingers tightened in her hair while her nails dug into the hair-roughened columns of his thighs. And he used her mouth the way he wanted. The way she wanted him to, to fuel his ravaging need.
She braced herself for whatever he would give her when abruptly, he pulled himself out of her mouth. The world barely made sense until she was on her back in the large bed and lavishly frescoed ceilings with dancing cherubs greeted her gaze.
“What are you doing?” Jemima whispered, the sheets cool against her heated skin. Every inch of her tingled, as if she were the capital city on Christmas Eve.
