The Perfect Prince (5 page)
Read The Perfect Prince Online
Authors: Michelle M. Pillow
The third corner, behind the bed, was harder to see at her angle so she ignored it.
Feeling rather than hearing Olek coming up behind her, she panicked. Swirling on him, she held up her arms and backed away.
Merriment poured from his eyes and she blushed profusely to see it. He held back, standing tall as Nadja’s eyes moved to study him. Before she realized it, her gaze was traveling a seductive journey of discovery over his taut chest. Already his small nipples were hard buds of desire. His flesh dipped in all the right places only to raise and swell with each of his shallow breaths. There was no fat on his chiseled form. She bit her lips, absently chewing at it as she looked.
His broad shoulders carried his thick arms with ease. They were arms that could crush her if he so choose. The metal band on his bicep would have fit on top of her head like a crown. Looking closer, she saw that it was the shape of a dragon that wound around his arm.Blinking, she looked at his covered face. He did indeed appear bold and strong like a dragon.
“Are you pleased?” he asked unflinchingly when she didn’t move. Again, his smile was elegant and light. This was a man who laughed often.
Nadja blinked. To his delight, she colored even more. He took a step forward, moving as if to touch her. Her words stopped him.
“No,” she shot, her eyes narrowing in fright. Her breath deepened, as she ordered anxiously, “Just stay back a moment.”
His head cocked to the side, waiting for her command.
Nadja took a deep breath, trying to control her undisciplined heartbeat.
“I don’t think there is a need to do any of….” She gulped looking around to the bath and then to the bed. Shivering, she took hold of her thoughts. She tried to lift her hand and grew frustrated by the binding straps. With a frown, she began tugging the belt off her arms. “I mean to say, I know the tradition of this night is to prove yourself a worthy mate by a display of your….”
His brow lifted, she saw it shifting beneath his mask. He watched her free herself from the arm ties, liking the way her breasts bounced with her jerking movements. She left the ties to hang at her waist.
Swallowing over her embarrassment, she croaked, “.…prowess.” A grin spread wide over his amazingly firm lips. Those lips weren’t fair. No man should look that delectably tasty. Nadja made a small sound of distress before continuing.
“I am telling you, there is no need for that. I am not concerned with….” Nadja felt like kicking herself. Her words sounded weak and trembly. Her voice was coming out in hot, breathless pants. What was he doing to her? She felt on fire, like she needed to take off her clothes. Her skin was flushed, starting to sweat. Absently, she fanned her face, trying to concentrate.
Olek watched his lovely bride carefully, enjoying the way her lips sucked in between her teeth, as she tried to get out whatever it was she was trying to say. Her eyes kept dipping to his fur loincloth, as if trying to see through it. Yet, her fingers threaded in front of her, as if ready to strike him if he were to try and pounce on her.
Forgetting where she had left off, she repeated, “I am not concerned with your prowess … ah!”
Olek whipped his loincloth boldly from his hips and dropped it to the fur-lined floor. He stood naked and proud before her. His feet parted. His arms fell to the side as he held still, inviting her to look her fill of him.
Nadja’s lungs inhaled a chestful of air, cutting off her words. Her blue eyes rounded into large spheres.
Nadja couldn’t look away. Her face paled to see that the size of his mild erection was very much in proportion to the rest of his oversized anatomy. Her fingers stretched, insanely eager to touch it, to have it touch her. The center of all her aching and wonder began to throb, getting scorchingly hot at the idea. She’d dreamt of such things, on those lonely nights far away from any spaceport.
To her mortification, an extremely playful grin spread over his mouth when she didn’t turn away. His hand found hold on his naked hips, his fingers tapping lightly against his flesh.
Nadja gasped, panted, gasped again. His hand lifted and she thought he would touch himself. She waited to see what would happen when he did. She had read once that men could harden themselves at will. She was disappointed for he only scratched his stomach and lowered his fingers back to his hip to wait.
Olek couldn’t help himself. He let loose a very arrogant, low masculine chuckle.
Her round blue eyes were staring at him as if he were a striking serpent coming for her.
He didn’t move, letting her eyes look their fill. And she was looking. In fact, she was doing nothing else. If he wasn’t careful, this flushing innocent in front of him would faint dead away. Already he could see she had stopped breathing altogether.
Nadja stared. The muscles moved up his hair-roughened legs to form rock hard thighs and hips. Nestled beneath a treasure trail of hair, which climbed down from his flat navel, his blatant arousal began to slowly grow in size and strength.
“Are you pleased?” Olek asked, a deep growl forming in the tone. The words held much more meaning than before. They were a testament to his mounting desire. If she kept looking at him so intently, sucking at her bottom lip with such concentration, he would defy all the Gods and take her right here and now.
Nadja snapped her mouth shut and spun away. Her body swam in dizzying waves and she had to catch herself to keep from falling. Olek looked nothing like the men on her father’s operating table. They had been floppy. He was solid, massive … oh. Keeping her rounded eyes from looking at him again, she flung her hand frantically behind her.
Feebly, she commanded, “Get dressed. I told you I don’t have any interest in … that …thing.”
“You are not pleased?” he said.
Nadja didn’t see his spreading grin and didn’t know that he was teasing her. A sound of distress left her throat and she had to close her eyes to keep her world from spinning. Hugging her arms to her chest, she bit her fist.
“Do I not please you?” he insisted when she didn’t answer right away.
Thinking she had hurt her future husband’s feelings somehow and knowing it wasn’t a great way to start off their possible life together, she said, “No, you’re built fine
… ah, finely built, Olek, really you are. It’s just … I don’t put much stock in these things. I think we have more important … oh!”
Olek couldn’t stop himself. He moved to nuzzle her delectably slender throat with his parted lips, licked at her sensitive flesh, and tried to nibble her ear. He was determined to prove her shy words wrong.
She shivered to feel him. Olek grinned along her neck. The little ornery devil inside him made him do it. When she fluttered so nervously, he couldn’t resist teasing her. With her body so close, he couldn’t stop from touching her. Many grand and wicked ideas filled his head.
Nadja belatedly jumped away, rubbing her neck to try and remove the feel of his moist kiss. It didn’t work. He knew it. She tried to deny it.
“Stop that, you one-track barbarian,” she fumed. Her harsh words masked her anxiety.That stopped him short.
Nadja glanced back at him, unable to help taking another peek. Forcing her eyes to roll in her head, her words were stunted, as she ordered, “Get dressed.”
“Choose,” Olek said instead. The one word was hard.
“I … I can’t choose, Olek,” Nadja answered, knowing he wanted her to choose him for her husband. It wasn’t fair. He couldn’t really speak until she granted him permission. The only way to grant him permission was to accept him as a husband. “Not yet.”
Nadja backed further away from him when he moved. Olek stepped with her, not bothering to cover himself from view. His naked body flexed as he stalked forward, powerful like a beast.
Nadja backed into near the side of the tent. She couldn’t escape. To her surprise, Olek didn’t jump her, but instead lifted his hand to gently stroke the backs of his fingers over her cheek and neck. His touch paused below her ear, near her racing pulse.
Continuing to caress her, he soothed tenderly, “Your name.” Nadja blinked. The feel of him was too much. What was her name anyway? She couldn’t remember.
Leaning over, he lightly kissed the corner of her lips. Nadja stiffened, not returning the embrace. Her wide eyes stared out at him. His dark green eyes closed to her as he smoothly brushed his dry lips over the length of her mouth in a tender probing. The pulse leapt beneath his gauging fingers. Olek could smell the beginnings of longing in the intoxicating perfume of her body. His arousal lurched, dying to answer the call of her loins. The heat from her breasts beckoned his hand lower to them.
The backs of his fingers moved to slowly trail over her collarbone, dancing along her quivering flesh. He felt her shiver and pant. Nadja slowly lowered her gaze, her lids suddenly too hard to hold up. Olek drew his fingers over her porcelain flesh, dipping over one breast, deep into the valley, and then over the second. He didn’t grab or caress, letting her get used to his closeness. She shivered anew, goose bumps rising along her skin.
He trailed his fingers over her skin another time, passing over one mound and then the other. When her breathing deepened and he could hear the heart hammering in her chest as if it was his own, he grew bolder. His finger slipped between her flesh and the silk of her gown. Starting at the side, he drew along the edge, dipping deeper with each passing second. As he reached the center, her nipple was already half erect, awaiting him. Olek took a deep, agonizing breath as he curled his finger around the nub and pulled it up to set over the top edge of the gown. Then, continuing on, he did the same with the other side.
Nadja’s eyes flitted up to him as his finger continued to curl in an aimless pattern, not touching the liberated centers again. When he had her eyes steadily caught in his, he deliberately looked down, letting her see that he watched her body’s reaction to him. His mouth parted, blowing hot breath onto her skin. Goosebumps rose on her flesh, her nipples budded to hard erection.
Gasping, Nadja pulled her head back from him to break the torturous contact, and closed her eyes. She knew that he would expect her to be a wife in all ways--especially in these ways--but she wasn’t ready. She had to have some questions answered first. She wouldn’t be choosing him blindly, not when the outcome was the rest of her life.
“Choose,” he urged her. To his disappointment, she hid the round gems of her nipples from his view, pulling her gown up with a fidgety jerk.
Nadja firmly put a hand to his chest, all too aware that he was still completely naked. He had kept distance between their bodies when he touched her, but she had a feeling that if she asked him he would close the space, giving her what every screaming nerve in her body seemed to want from him. It was as if her body recognized him completely and wanted him to fulfill it in every way.
“Put your clothes on first,” she whispered, her throat working in nervousness.
“Please.”
Olek smiled softly at her, seeing the seriousness to her eyes. He slowly nodded.
Nadja saw two braids were wound into his hair from temples to ends. The silken locks dipped to his shoulders, brushing back when he moved.
Nadja stood next to the tent wall and allowed herself one peek of his naked backside as he bent over, before forcing her gaze away. Her whole being shivered with the remnants of his fiery touch, heated to a level she had never thought capable. She held rigid, her eyes trying to focus on anything but him.
Gasping in astonishment, her gaze found the third corner. Nadja closed her eyes in trepidation. It was a low chair, much like an examination table, with stirrups for the feet and straps to hold them into place. A pillow sat on the floor, as if for kneeling. An open trunk of feathers and oils was behind it. She couldn’t see much else within the trunk but those two things were enough.
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