Courted: Gowns & Crowns, Book 1 (22 page)

“Apparently, being a prince has its privileges.” Still, Kristos hesitated, looking impossibly gorgeous as he stood at her bedside, with his white shirt open at the neck, his fine trousers creased and rumpled. Her wide-eyed perusal of him brought a frown to his face. “I’ve startled you too much. I’ll go. I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t.” Em felt her cheeks flame, but she pushed the blankets down and shifted farther over in the bed, her invitation for Kristos to join her clear. “Can you stay long?”

“Not long,” he said. But he was already shucking his shirt, throwing it to the chair beside the bed. His pants and briefs followed immediately after, the action so swift it had Em blinking. Her own nightgown was barely there—a fine white cotton tank-top-style sheath embroidered at the neck and sleeves that she’d found folded neatly on the bed with a note about how it was handcrafted in Garronia. Now it seemed scarcely any barrier at all to the man climbing into her bed, his body making the mattress dip, his hands reaching for her.

“I thought I wouldn’t see you again—like this,” Em said, surprised at how her voice wobbled.

“I know.” Kristos pulled her close to him, brushing his lips against hers. “I decided I couldn’t stand the idea of that, and technically, tomorrow is not yet here.” He tightened his hold briefly. “Besides, there is still one nagging concern that I cannot put aside.”

“A concern.” Em managed to keep her hold on semicoherency as Kristos’s head dipped into the curve of her neck. He followed the trail of her pulse down to where it throbbed at the base of her throat, then lingered there, breathing her in as his hands slid beneath her shift and along her body until they closed over her breasts. She sucked in a deep breath as she arched beneath him, and he growled in response before dropping to nuzzle her breasts through the thin fabric with his mouth, his tongue. The touch of him with the barrier between them seemed almost more erotic than if she’d been naked, and heat flooded through her, the ache in her core almost a living thing. “Kristos,” she gasped.

He shifted down to place a kiss on her belly, and his fingers curled around the edge of her panties. Em groaned as his touch trailed down to cup her intimately, his fingers exploring the soft dampness.

“That is becoming my favorite sound,” he said, and his breath against her sensitive skin mesmerized her as he leaned down to kiss the base of her belly, the inside of her thigh. “There is nothing about you I do not wish to know, Emmaline, nothing I do not wish to taste or touch. My concern is over everything I may have missed.”

“Oh,” Em breathed out shallowly, her heart pounding, as Kristos pulled her panties down her legs and spread her legs farther to allow him to position himself more completely. She felt exposed, vulnerable, but when he kissed her again on the inside of her knee, she also couldn’t stop her body from arching up, subconsciously trying to guide him to where she most needed him to be. “Oh dear God.” Em jolted as she felt the slow slide of Kristos’s tongue, the sensation at once foreign and somehow taboo and so,
so
—

“Good?” Kristos breathed against her, turning her inside out with his mouth, his tongue, seeming to know exactly when she was about to break and deliberately shifting away before she could reach her release, then moving back to torment her before she could regain her breath. Every time he did so, her need surged higher, her climax closer, and she found herself lost in a sea of sensation that she’d always suspected was possible but had never allowed herself to try. When Kristos murmured something in Garronois against her, she cried out, only to bring her fist to her mouth, stifling her own cries.

“The walls are thick,” he said, or she suspected he said it. She couldn’t think, could barely breathe as he pressed forward again, and this time it was not only his tongue but the sensation of pressure inside her that caught her up short, his fingers dipping into her in such a shockingly intimate intrusion that the combination of sensations seemed to crystallize in one long, impossible moment—then sent her catapulting over the edge again faster and harder than she would ever have thought possible.

“Kristos!” She hissed as her body fairly vibrated off the bed, and then he was sliding up her body, pausing only long enough to sheathe himself with a condom before his mouth was on her shoulder, her neck, at her ear, whispering more unfamiliar words, the pressure of his shaft inside her sending her into another rat-a-tat-ing stream of mini orgasms as he filled her completely. She breathed in deeply, reveling in the feel of him, and he loomed above her, timing his strokes in perfect counterpoint to her body’s clenching reaction. She moaned, almost dazed, until she was pulled into the steady rhythm of his thrusts, her body moving unconsciously, her hands gripping his forearms, and a heady, bone-deep relaxation swept over her, unlike anything she’d ever felt before.

The intense look of satisfaction on Emmaline’s face was
definitely
not helping Kristos to control himself. He stared down at her, cataloging her every change of expression, her slightest reaction, reveling in how changeable her face, her eyes, even her lips were.

“You’re beautiful,” he said to her in Garronois. Though she couldn’t know the content of the words, she sensed their meaning, and her cheeks flushed with the lightest rush of pink. She stared up at him and shifted her body, lifting her legs to take him inside her more deeply.

“You feel—really, really amazing,” she said, her lids drifting closed as she concentrated on him. “I think you’ve maybe ruined me for any other man.”

Good.
Though he suspected her comment was somewhat in jest, Kristos’s response was immediate and visceral. He was glad he wasn’t holding her, as his hands clenched into fists and twisted in the sheets, but he drove into her with yet more force, causing her to sink back into the pillows, her head thrown back. She was clearly savoring this experience as much as he was.

“Emmaline,” he murmured and she opened her eyes again. Her gaze found his almost drunkenly, her expression loose and unfocused, more swept up in emotion than any woman he’d ever seen. Was this how she looked when she played music? He wondered suddenly. Transported to some other place?

“Look at me,” he commanded, and her gaze firmed on him. “I want to watch you while you come again.” Right along with him, he knew, as Emmaline flushed scarlet at his stark demand.

“I’m not anywhere—oh—” Her eyes widened in surprise as he pressed up and into her, his knowledge of her body becoming more detailed with their every interaction. They moved together in a rhythm that was already familiar and welcome, and he filled her in such a way that her already-triggered nerve endings responded with swift and sudden force. Her mouth tightened as her fingers clamped on his arms more fiercely, her eyes wild as she convulsed against him as he let himself go as well, the thundering tide of their shared release pounding over and through him, sweeping him away into one of Em’s fantasies—if only for a brief, perfect moment.

He collapsed on top of her and rolled off, ridding himself of the condom as he stood. He strode to the bathroom and discarded the thing, then was back at Emmaline’s side before she’d scrambled to a fully seated position. He knelt upon the bed, not trusting himself to recline again, as exhaustion and the powerful urge to
stay
with this woman threatened to finally catch up with him.

She understood immediately, her eyes shifting to the clock. “You have to go,” she said, but there were no tears in her voice at least. That would be more than he could manage at this moment.

He caught her face in his hands, kissing her brows, her cheeks, and finally her lips. “I have to go. I would not wish to cause you any distress, and there will be much distress if you are not safely alone and under the care of the guards when my mother sends staff to check on you. Which will be any moment now, unless I miss my guess.”

She clasped his forearms and sighed, though her smile never wavered. “I will see you again, though, won’t I? There’s that dance you have in a few days?”

The Accession Ball. He nodded, trying not to scowl. “You’ll see me then. And at meals, I suspect, though I have no idea what my schedule will be until I complete all the paperwork that’s on my desk.”

That did make her brows lift. “Paperwork? It takes paperwork to become a crown prince? I thought your dad would, I don’t know, lay the tip of a sword on your shoulders and pronounce you the future king of Garronia.”

He grimaced. “Sadly, it is not so easy anymore. The kingdom needs its assurances, and those are bound by contracts that stretch back for generations.”

She nodded, the softness of her gaze washing through him. Then her face took on a serious, thin-lipped severity. “I assume you have a noncompete clause, right?” she said sternly. “I mean, if you ever quit being prince here, we can’t have you going to a competing kingdom to become
their
prince.”

Despite himself, Kristos laughed, feeling another knot of tension unravel within him at Emmaline’s answering grin. “I haven’t checked that requirement specifically, but given all the places I’m supposed to sign, it would not surprise me.”

“And an NDA too, right?” she continued in her light tone, obviously trying to cheer him up. Surprisingly enough, it was working. “To make sure you won’t give out state secrets while you’re out fraternizing with the international elite.” She tilted her head, her face a mask of mock seriousness. “You haven’t told
me
any state secrets, have you? Other than the way to trespass out of Theo’s property?”

Kristos glowered at her in his own attempt at severity. “That is knowledge you’ll need to take to your grave, I’m afraid. You’ll also need to keep our shower in the soldiers’ barracks under tight silence,” he ordered. “If the men find out that their private domain was breached by a female, we’ll never be able to maintain control.”

“Noted. And as far as this little visit… It never happened.”

“I see you are beginning to understand the complexities of being prince.” Still, even as they shared a last, quiet laugh, Kristos knew the truth.

No, Emmaline, there you are wrong. This
definitely
happened. And I wouldn’t change it for the world.

With a final kiss, he rolled away from her. “Stay,” he ordered when she would have stood. “I would rather think of you this way, and if you slip out of that bed, it would become my number one priority to get you back into it, with me included.”

She shook her head as if he’d made another joke. He let her believe that as he dressed, turning back only for the briefest kiss before heading for the door.

A kiss that turned out to be not so brief.

He knew he would regret it if he lingered, but for this last, precious moment, he was content with the sensation of her body welcoming his once more, her arms wrapping around him, pulling him close. The sensation of being entirely surrounded by her grace, her caring, her unique ability to give herself completely to every moment, to make him feel like he was the center of her being.

The way she was becoming the center of his.

“Yes,” she whispered brokenly though he’d said nothing more, and he brought his mouth to hers a final time, tasting hello and good-bye and a lifetime in between, all in a single kiss.

Once again, Dimitri was waiting for him outside, touching his earpiece and giving orders as the two of them walked up the long corridor. As Kristos strode ahead of him, Dimitri looked back. He nodded, watching the returning guards for a short moment before glancing to Kristos. They continued in silence until they turned the corner, but he could feel the bodyguard’s assessing gaze on him.

“A long day ahead of you,” Dimitri finally said, and Kristos glanced to him, grateful that his friend also had his focus where it needed to be. On the future.

“When do you return to the field?”

“Not soon enough. Your mother has insisted that we keep a full contingent of men at the castle until the ball, then, assuming the Americans leave without issue and the media lie low, I can escape to see what destruction has occurred in my absence.”

“You’ll keep me posted? I know you can manage it very well on your own—”