Courted: Gowns & Crowns, Book 1 (14 page)

In that moment, even through the haze of her own desire, Em died a thousand deaths under Kristos’s gaze, her overactive brain going completely rogue in a litany of neuroses.
Am I too thin? Too flabby?
She’d never had a hard body like Nicki’s, or Lauren’s sleek, languid grace. She too often forgot to eat and get out into the daylight, and now her skin was tinged pink from sun exposure despite trying to remember the sunblock at every turn. She squirmed, embarrassment flooding her, and Kristos’s gaze lifted to meet hers. Something almost tender warred with the heat she found there.

“You are beautiful,
koukla mou
.” He leaned down to kiss her, his lips soft with promise. “But you are still overdressed.”

Kristos fought to keep his own desire checked as he rolled off Emmaline long enough to pull his shirt over his head.

Then her gasp shot through him, burning off his need with a cold jolt of reality. He froze, unable to speak for a moment.
Ah, no.

She was clearly shocked at the picture he’d just boldly presented her. Of course she would be shocked. Probably even horrified. Why had he not
warned
her? How could he have forgotten?

“My God, Kristos.” Emmaline had scrambled off the bed, and he felt her cool hands on his back, where the worst of the scarring caught the moonlight. But her voice didn’t hold the revulsion or even the fear he’d heard in so many women’s voices. It didn’t hold the prurient excitement he’d heard either, or the weird fascination at so much damage on skin that had been expected to be perfect. “How could you have stood so much pain?”

His voice was still stuck in his throat as she turned him around to see his chest, her breath catching again as she pressed her hand to his right abdomen. The scars here were neater, but there were more of them. She placed her hands over them like a benediction, leaning forward to sear his chest with the brush of her lips. “How long ago?”

“Two years.” His words were spoken in a strange rasp, and he closed his eyes against the rush of emotion he never expected to stop feeling. He could still see the images vividly, the battle that had taken too many of his own men. The orders he had approved when he should have withdrawn. They’d held their position in the blazing hot trench, sand and smoke clogging the air, but the price had been high. Too high. He’d learned more in that one afternoon than in ten years of training drills. Learned enough to know the cost of guessing wrong. Learned enough to know he would spend the rest of his life at war, honoring the lives of those who had trusted him even to their deaths.

Now he turned his gaze down to Emmaline, catching up her hands against his chest. “I should have warned you,” he gritted out. “I didn’t mean to shock you.”

Her gaze met his, but he couldn’t read the emotion in her eyes. She lifted one brow. “These are nothing. You haven’t seen the nasty scrape on my ankle from my new sandals. I’m pretty sure you’ll faint.”

Before he could respond, she leaned up and touched her lips to his, silencing any further apology. “But I think I need to see the rest of you naked now,” she murmured, and her hands were at his trousers, unhooking them and sliding them down his legs. She sank down along with them, her mouth trailing over the long, brutal slash that marred his right thigh, the thick ridge of scarring on his calf. “You don’t do such a good job of staying out of trouble, do you?” She rocked back on her heels, looking up at him. Now her eyes did speak with clear emotion. There was understanding there. And certainty. “And I do get it. There are some things you can’t give up. Not even to be prince.”

“No.” Something raw shifted in Kristos. He reached for her, pulling her up against him even as he stepped out of his trousers. He laid her back on the bed, following her down into its softness. This was something else he didn’t plan on giving up either. Not anytime soon. Emmaline was so impossibly perfect, so delicate beneath his hands that he thought he might break her, but he knew better in the short time he’d had her in his arms. Her fire seemed to emanate from a place deep within her, a fire completely at odds with her sweet nature and gentle temperament.

A fire he wanted to watch burn a little higher, a little stronger.

He reached down and unhooked Emmaline’s bra, watching the flare of heat that wasn’t entirely desire flush her cheeks. After all she’d seen of him, how could she be embarrassed? Her small, soft body was absolutely flawless, her breasts fitting into his hands as he covered her mouth again, kissing her so she didn’t see him closing his eyes as he reveled in the pure physical sensation of her skin against his. Her legs fell apart as he shifted, her lips softening on a groan, and he could feel her body react to the press of him into the vee of her thighs. Despite the fact that he was still wearing his boxer briefs, there was no chance she could miss that he was as hard as a pole. That more than anything should tell her that she had nothing to be embarrassed about.

Just then, he felt her cool fingers on the waist of his boxers, and sucked in a deep breath as she snagged edge, pulling them partway down. “Emmaline,” he warned raggedly, though what he was warning her about, he couldn’t say. When her fingers brushed against his shaft, he shuddered, dropping to his side on the overstuffed bed.

Her cheeks were still flushed red, and he frowned. “Have I made you uncomfortable?”

“Oh,
God
, no. Not even remotely.” Still, she pressed her lips together as if to keep herself from saying anything more. When he simply watched her, however, letting the moment play out, it was as if the need to speak grew unbearable for her, as if silence in this moment was simply not something she could endure. “Sorry—I… Sorry.” She flopped her other hand helplessly. “This is so stupid. I’m not a virgin or anything, but—”

His brows shot up. Of all the things she could have said, that was not one he expected. But really, what did he know of her? “There would be no shame in that.”

“No. Really, I’m not. It’s just that it’s, um—it’s been a while. And I don’t know why I’m so freaking
awkward
.”

Kristos blinked at her, unable to stop the laugh from rumbling in his chest, even knowing that it drove the flames of embarrassment higher in her cheeks. “Then I’ll have to do my best to put you at ease.”

Without hesitating, he leaned forward and kissed her mouth. Softly, sensually. Her lips parted beneath his, and she sighed against him, relaxing a little bit. He fought down the surge of triumph. Emmaline Andrews wasn’t a conquest to be won. She was a puzzle to be opened, bit by subtle bit. Starting now.

He dropped down her neck, nuzzling the hollow of her collarbone, relishing the way Emmaline’s deep, ragged sigh seemed ripped out of her, one of her hands on his shoulder, the other fisted in the soft sheets. She whimpered but didn’t tense when he moved over the gentle curve of her breast, taking it into his mouth and drifting his tongue over it once, twice. The force of her beating heart sounded thunderously loud in his ears, and her heat rose around him, her breath catching sharply as his left hand closed around her right breast, rolling the nipple gently between his fingers.

He lifted his head to look at her again. She was no longer watching him with wide-eyed anxiety. Instead, her lids had dropped to half-mast, and her mouth was slightly open. “Better?” he asked, and she managed a smile, one that faltered as he shifted his body farther down hers.

Once again, the embarrassment flared in Emmaline’s cheeks, but Kristos didn’t give her time to process his actions. He dipped down to nuzzle her softly curved belly, edging over her smooth skin. Everywhere he touched seemed supersensitized, and he forestalled a chuckle as she jumped when he pressed his lips hard against her hipbone. The top edge of her panties lay perilously close to his mouth, and Emmaline’s breathing had gone shallow.

Good.
Her response fired through him, and he drew his tongue along that silken edge. She shifted beneath him, but she didn’t ask him to stop. Didn’t drop her hand on his shoulder or his head. Still, when he replaced his mouth with his fingers, she almost visibly relaxed beneath his body, her head falling back and her muscles loosening.

He trailed his fingers lightly along, not tugging, not pulling, but stroking down to where the material was already damp. He kissed the top of Emmaline’s thigh, pressing his fingers against her heat, and her half sigh turned into a moan, her body angling back, her thighs moving as if she was desperate to sink into the moment and no longer think, no longer process.

He heartily approved of that idea.

“Kristos,” she murmured, the words almost a groan. “I want you inside me.”

She didn’t have to ask him twice. He slipped off her panties with a quick, decisive movement, rolling atop her to cover her nakedness. She sighed beneath the weight of his body, her body shifting naturally to accommodate him, to take him in. But he couldn’t do that—not yet anyway.

“A moment,
koukla mou
,” he growled, moving up her body and away until he could fumble at the bedside table, where he’d tossed his pants. Beside and beneath him, Emmaline leaned forward, and Kristos’s jaw tightened as her lips touched the head of his shaft. Years of military training was the only thing that kept him locked in place as she tentatively pressed her lips against him, taking him into her mouth. When she practically purred, her shoulders dropping, he knew this, at least, was not something she was nervous about. A fact that was not helping him maintain his control, frankly. He snagged the condom, tearing the package open as he edged his shaft from her mouth.

She blinked up at him, clearly expecting him to let her play for a while longer. But he was too close for that, barely holding it together as he sheathed himself. Then he reached for her, the desire to bury himself inside her suddenly stronger than he would have thought possible. “Now where were we?” he murmured. “Still feeling awkward?”

Her answering laugh as she stretched beneath him all the response he needed. Tonight was for exploration of the simplest kind.

There would be time to play later.

He’d make sure of it.

Chapter 10

Em felt the clash of excitement and desire as Kristos’s weight sank again onto her body. Her nerves had settled down at last, and as she wrapped her arms around him, feeling the sinewy muscles that corded his back and dipped down to his narrow waist, she finally, fully relaxed.

He clearly realized that as well. He nudged against her, and she looked up to meet his gaze. “Don’t look so worried. I’m fine, ah…”

“Worry is no longer my chief concern,
koukla mou
.”

Then he was easing into her, inch by careful inch, as she shifted beneath him, her body adjusting naturally to take him more deeply. It felt impossibly tight and impossibly amazing at the same time.

Lord
, she’d forgotten exactly how good this felt. Not just the pressure of Kristos’s shaft swelling inside her, but the entire tactile experience of their bodies tangled together. The weight of his legs on hers, his arms caging her body, biceps flexed, forearms braced. The intensity of a face wrapped in tight concentration, eyes tracking her every expression, her every sigh. Her hands flattened on Kristos’s skin, and she felt his warmth and vitality filling her up—and realized for the first time in she didn’t remember how long that
Dammit, I really like sex.

Kristos quirked a smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”

Em’s eyes refocused. She hadn’t realized she was speaking out loud, but she didn’t have time to explain as Kristos leaned down and reclaimed her mouth, kissing her deeply as she drank him in. With each thrust, he seemed to be shattering through the months and even years of solitude that had built up a barrier between herself and her emotions, her sensations, and—

“Ohhh, that’s really good,” she whispered.

“Please, you need to stop sounding so surprised.”

“Mmm.” Em lifted her legs and wrapped her ankles around Kristos’s hips, the action causing him to hiss.

“Emmaline,” he gritted out, but she felt a new pressure, an unexpected sensation against her body where Kristos’s body connected with hers. She didn’t know if it was his position, braced as he was above her, the way he was shaped, how he was moving—she didn’t know, but it had the effect of a flint strike. Her eyes popped wide, and she locked her feet together more tightly, her breath hitching in her throat.

Kristos may have asked her a question. She didn’t know. She couldn’t think. She sank more deeply into the sensations he was creating inside her and allowed them to take over her whole being, knowing her face was relaxing, her back curving, her breathing deeper, fuller, as she sought to meet Kristos stroke for stroke. Her hands now gripped his upper arms, her nails digging into him as she reached up further. She was close, so close!
So impossibly, unbelievably close and—

She gasped harshly, the sound a virtual cry as she felt the orgasm rip through her more strongly than any release she’d ever had before—it happened so fast! So differently! She bucked up against Kristos, her body riding the tide of pleasure, and then he shattered too, his body going rigid as his own cry burst from his mouth. He surged forward, grabbing Em up in his arms and rolling with her on the bed until they were a tangle of sheets and limbs, and suddenly she was falling—off him, off the bed, and he lurched for her, barely in time to break her fall as she slid down a mountain of pillows and covers and smacked hard onto the cold tile floor.