“For now,” he corrected and couldn’t find humor in the statement.
She moved toward him. “No thoughts of that right now. Not here.” She reached him and slid her hands up his bare chest, across his shoulders. “Don’t be anything but mine tonight.”
He shivered at that idea. Hers. Tonight, tomorrow, forever. None of it would ever be enough. But beggars, unfortunately, could not be choosers and he would take what he could get until there was nothing else left and she was gone.
He caught her waist, pulling her against him. “I’m yours,” he whispered, as close to the declaration of love that would be so unfair to both of them. He kissed her before she could ask for more, and she lifted against his naked body with another of those pretty little gasps she sometimes made when he touched her.
They were music to his ears.
She pulled away. “Lie down, please. On your stomach.”
He wrinkled his brow. “I may not be the very best at this…but I’m fairly certain that we won’t get where we want to go if I’m on my stomach.”
“Your Majesty, please,” she huffed, playfully frustrated. “Now.”
He rolled his eyes, participating in their game, as usual. It was entirely a game now, though perhaps it always had been. He got onto her bed and lay on his stomach, propping his head on his forearms.
He heard her rustling behind him and glanced over to find she had stripped open the buttons along the front of her gown and undressed down to her chemise. He stared at the expanse of bare legs and gorgeous curves presented before him, and reached out a hand.
Which she promptly swatted away gently. “Honestly, you are out of control,” she laughed. “Let me just do this.”
“What is this?” he demanded although he rested his head back down.
He felt the bed shift beneath her weight. She moved next to him and then he felt her hands against his skin. She massaged the tense muscles of his shoulders, then down his back, slowly and firmly releasing some of the tension he’d been carrying all day.
All day? No, all week, all month, all year…all his life.
He groaned into the pillows. “Good God, Ophelia.”
Laughter laced her tone as she said, “I’ll take that as an affirmation to keep going.”
“Never stop. This is how I want to die.”
Her hands hesitated. “Don’t tease about that. Anything else, not that. I’m not so foolish as to be blind to the fact that you’re in danger.”
He pursed his lips. She wasn’t wrong. No matter what he did going forward, there would be very angry people left in his wake. Someone had already tried to hurt his sisters as a way to get to him. He knew full well that he was a much higher value target.
“You’re worried about me,” he said softly.
Her hands faltered. “Of course.”
“Even though you find me entirely irritating.”
“Well…not entirely,” she conceded. “Not anymore. What about you? Do you still think I’m an outrageous hoyden?”
He rolled onto his back and stared up at her. “Oh yes,” he whispered. “It’s one of your most charming qualities.”
They held each other’s stares for a beat, two. She said nothing, but slung her leg over his body, straddling his hips. She tugged the chemise away in one smooth motion before she leaned over him, finding his mouth with hunger and desire and, yes, desperation. Somehow the fact that she felt it as much as he did was comforting. He wouldn’t suffer alone, at least.
But he couldn’t think of that now. He could only think of how sweet she tasted, how perfectly she fit against him, how her nails raked against his skin and her hips rocked against his.
It took nothing to get hard for her. She didn’t even have to touch him, in truth. But she was touching him and he was on fire. He cupped her hips, digging his fingers into the softness of her, loving how she gasped against his mouth and kept grinding against him.
He reached between them, stroking her, finding her already wet, already hot and ready. He took himself in hand, aching from the anticipation, aching more when she shifted and together they aligned their bodies.
She dropped down over him, taking him inside in one deep stroke. They gasped together as he sat up. She began to ride him while he cradled her in his arms, their kisses growing ever more heated as the pleasure mounted between them. He felt her began to shift, finding the rhythm that would bring her what she needed. He pulled away from her mouth so he could watch her as she used him. Watched the way her cheeks flushed, the way her head tilted back as she arched and moaned in more earnest.
The ripples began, her pussy milking him as she began to come. He lifted into her from below, still watching as she came, marking every twitch of her face and harsh gasp of her breath. Her thrusts got more erratic as her nails dug into his skin, marking him in a way he wished was permanent so he would see the scars and know this had been real.
Her wild and explosive orgasm didn’t only please her. Every shuddering thrust sent lightning bolts of pleasure through his cock, across every nerve ending of his body. The need to come increased and he had to fight with it, to let her have every drop of pleasure. Only when he felt her go limp, the gripping heat of her fading a fraction, did he roll her to her back.
She lifted into him, seeking all over again as he took her. And it was a taking, a claiming that he could never say out loud. He took her and marked her and made her his before he could take no more and withdrew to come between them.
He collapsed next to her, gathering her close, their panting breaths and pounding heartbeats matching in the quiet of the chamber. For what felt like a blissful lifetime, they simply lay like that. But reality had to return, didn’t it?
He sighed. “I ought to get up, go back to it.”
She tilted her head. “I thought you weren’t going to let something so frivolous as food keep you from me and everything we are going to do tonight.”
“Perhaps not food, but duty,” he said.
She reached up to touch his face. “Send word that you are here if there is an emergency, and then stay with me.”
He blinked. “Tell Dash that I’m with you?”
She swallowed. “Mr. Talbot is who you would tell?”
“Until this situation with the courtiers is resolved, he’s helping me,” Grantham said.
“Well, I don’t care if he knows. Or if anyone else knows.” She shifted up to her elbow. “Please stay with me.”
He lifted a hand to trace her jawline, her cheek, to slide his fingers into her silky hair and feel it loosen from the style and began to tangle around him. He didn’t answer her plea, but simply pressed his mouth back to hers, shifting her onto the pillows to cover her once more.
CHAPTER 20
The breakfast room was empty when Ophelia entered it the next morning. She was not rested, but she was entirely satisfied after a long night in Grantham’s arms. They’d made love over and over, but they’d also talked. Not about the situation with his kingdom, but about music and books, life and dreams. If she had loved him before, that emotion was now richer and deeper, multiplied every day they spent time together.
“And still hopeless,” she muttered as she grabbed a plate at the sideboard and began looking through the food on offering. Before she could take too much, Dashiell Talbot entered the room. He looked very official and serious, though he cast her a quick smile before he taking a plate.