Page 39 of From London, With Love
She pressed her forehead to his. What she would not give to be able to look the council in the eye and tell them she had made her choice.
But what would the cost be?
A human queen with a human consort? And not only human, but one of the progressives, pushing for more rights for those of his species. The very thing that made her love him was the thing that separated them. Malloryn would have no truck with it. The Echelon would be furious. She’d only barely managed to pull London back together after Lord Balfour’s reign of terror, and the last thing she needed was the blue blooded aristocrats rising up in force again.
There would be riots. There would be blood in the streets.
If she married Gideon, then more of her people would die.
“You have never made me resent my country so much,” she whispered.
He had no reply to that.
Only the knowledge in his dark eyes that echoed hers. This was all they could have. Stolen moments. Stolen kisses. Secret confessions.
And she’d wasted enough of their short time together as it was.
Tilting her face to his, she closed her eyes and surrendered to the kiss he promised. Their lips met. A gentle brush. Alexandra clasped his face between her hands, leaning into the embrace. He kissed her softly, reverently. He kissed her as if their days weren’t numbered, long and lazy and slow, until she was barely breathing.
The fire crackled behind her.
Gideon pushed up onto his knees, tumbling her back onto the divan. Pressing one knee between her thighs, he crawled over her, resting on his knuckles.
“Does my queen wish to be taken?” he whispered, brushing the edge of her gown off her shoulder.
Good lord. The barest touch and it set her on edge as nothing else might. “Your queen wishes for you to stop bloody talking and use that mouth for good cause.”
Another smile. Curse him.
“Does she?” He leaned down, turning his face into her ear as he brushed the backs of his fingers across her bare shoulder. “But my hands do marvelous things too.”
The words whispered across the sensitive skin of her throat as he brushed his face against her cheek. The rasp of his stubble earned a gasp from her. Gideon was kind and thoughtful in all matters, but she hadn’t expected to gain such pleasure from his slow, gentle restraint. It felt like an exquisite sort of torture.
“Lie back,” she ordered.
He surrendered to her request, reclining against the daybed. Every inch of him was ruffled, from his hair to his shirt to his trousers. But there was still some mysterious sense of command he never truly seemed to lose.
She plucked at his buttons, baring inch by erotic inch of him and looking her fill. The sight of all that hair shocked her. His skin was almost olive in comparison to her husband’s, and a thick thatch of hair decorated the heavy slab of his chest and the smooth barrel of his abdomen. In all her imaginings of him, she’d never quite pictured this.
She didn’t know where to put her hands.
She didn’t know what to do next.
“Why stop there?” he purred.
“Because—” Shyness consumed her.
Reaching up, he tugged a lock of hair free from her chignon, sliding it over and around his fingers.
Gideon reached down and flipped open the placket of his trousers. His cock surged erect behind it, though he left the fabric tented over the suggestion of him. “I ache for you. It aches for you.” Taking himself in hand, he slowly pumped his fist up and down the full length of himself. “Don’t make me beg.”
“What do you want of me?”
“Touch me.”
And so she did.
At first it was a gentle exploration. More curiosity than anything else. But the soft sounds he made drew her into the act, and she found herself watching his face. Gideon always seemed so in control of himself, but she could sense the fine tremors beneath his skin as he tried to hold himself back.
