Freeing his ear with a tug, he scraped his teeth down her neck and murmured, “How do you want it?” He was pushing her. She’d claimed she could do sex and attraction, but not intimacy. And while dirty talk was all sex on the surface, peel back the lust and those confessions were intensely intimate. “Tell me.”
“I want . . .” She trailed off as he circled his hands around the backs of her thighs and lifted her to his hips. He fought the urge to enter her as he pressed her back against the wall. “You inside me,” she said, the quiet words seeming to blush. “Right here.”
That made two of them.
“Well then.” Skin on skin now, bodies hot and damp. The air was scented with sex and his entire being coursed with the primal urge to finish this inside her. He dragged his tongue up her neck to the hollow behind her ear. “Clock’s ticking.”
At the nape of his neck, he heard the rustle of her opening the condom.
They were really doing this.
Disbelief momentarily dizzied him as she slipped a hand between them to roll it on. Years of pretending she wasn’t his greatest desire—years of aching and hoping and holding himself in check—finally over. In all that time, he’d never imagined it happening like this.
Sheathed, he positioned himself at the apex of her thighs—and slowly pushed inside her.
“Kris.” Frankie’s fingers dug hard into his shoulders as he eased further in. “I—I need you—”
And then she was kissing him, sweet shadows and searing light, and it was all he could do to keep the pace slow to let her pleasure build. She moved with him, skin slick and sweaty, working toward release even as her body adjusted to his size. Barely keeping his head at her hot clasp, he filled her more with each push until finally he was fully seated inside her.
Then he took their timeline very seriously.
The sounds she made at his thrusts went straight to the dark, dirty stores of his mind, and he almost burst from that alone. Blood raging with sensation, he filled her again and again, until the promise of release shimmered down his spine. He was trembling, hands shaking over her body. His chest felt tight and huge at the same time, like something was growing beneath his solar plexus and his ribs had fastened tight to contain it.
He knew what it was.
Knew that even now, fully surrendered to him, she wasn’t ready to hear it.
“Kris,” she said, spine stretching to take him deeper. Her breath was shallow, heightened. Close. So very close. “Kris. Please.”
Tightening his hold, he caught the edge in her glazed stare. It stunned him; thrilled him. The look in her eyes wasn’t simple desire. It was core-deep, an endless reserve.
God above, she was all in.
“Hold onto me,” he said, and felt her tighten—felt his nerve endings fraying as he neared ecstasy. Then she clenched around him with a cry that fell beneath the roaring in his ears as his own orgasm beat its way out of him, brutal and blinding and boundless.
More.
Before he’d even found his breath, he wanted more. Frankie was sinking in his arms, shaking, her grip growing slack around his neck. He kept his hold tight, unwilling to let her go so soon, and lifted his face from her shoulder to find her watching him, her eyes heavy-lidded yet somehow more open than they’d ever been.
“You okay?” He pressed her a little harder against the wall as his muscles relaxed.
Her smile was like a love-nip of her teeth straight to his heart. “Yes.”
The base of his sternum ballooned with feeling, but before he could put it into words, she was pushing at his shoulders, saying, “Let’s move.”
Grudgingly, he eased out of her and set her on her feet. As he dealt with the condom, he asked, “Are we late?”
She picked up her phone from the desk and cursed. “We have seven minutes.”
They dressed fast. He tugged his trousers on and fixed her hair, trying to give it a generic end-of-a-long-night look and less thoroughly-wall-banged. Then she tucked his shirt in and he almost ruined her hair all over again.
“Best not to touch me below the waist,” he cautioned, letting her palm restrain him.
“Noted.” Her cheeks were flushed. “Ready?”
He grinned. “For anything.”
She rolled her eyes, swiped up all the folders on her desk and strode to the door.
“Frankie,” he said, reaching around her to cover the door handle. The sideways look she cast him was both irritated and amused. He kissed her between the eyebrows and said softly, “You’re everything.”
She waited a beat before arching a brow. “You stopped me for that?”
“Yes,” he said, trying to alleviate the pressure in his chest. He didn’t want to return to a reality where he had to be discreet about touching her, kissing her, betraying the way he felt about her. “I might be the king of a country, but you’ll always be my world. And I’ll do anything—”
“What’s happening here?” A shadow passed over her face. “We’re running late and you think we have time for a sonnet?”
“I was just trying to—”
Ah. This was too intimate.
“Enough.” She slapped his hand aside and hauled the door open. Then she stopped, hesitated, and pushed it closed again so the latch rested against the frame. “Oh. Except. It turns out that condom was a good idea.”
He grinned. “You think?”
“Yes.” Her green gaze was heavy as she looked back at him. “I know we’ll be spending nights together, but just thinking out loud here, there are a lot of secret rooms and secluded nooks in this oversized display of wealth you call home.” She patted the front pocket of his trousers, swiping her hand rather firmly across his crotch as she pulled away. “You might want to replace it.”
He almost growled as she strode into the corridor.
Utterly perfect.
10
They ran from one end of the palace to the other, bolting up too many flights of stairs, and still reached the base of the tower five minutes late. Breathing hard with a hand on his side, Kris flatly refused to run up this final staircase. So Frankie strode into the tower study ahead of him, her core temperature high, her heartbeat a post-orgasm mess, and forced herself to concentrate on Philip and the twelve guards in attendance as their attention shifted to her.
These were the personal guards of the Jaroka brothers—four assigned per family member—two for the day shift, two for the night. She had selected each of them personally and entrusted them with the safety of the royal family. Some were sitting on the study couches and chairs, others were leaning against the curved walls or standing by the windows. All in uniform, clear-eyed despite the late hour and connected by grim tension.
“Ma’am,” several greeted her.
She gave a nod, hoping to God they couldn’t see the past half-hour on her face. “Thanks for coming.”
Mark’s night guards looked understandably harried, having raced across town from Kuria Estate. And Philip, bless his straitlaced cotton socks, sat in one of the chairs opposite the monarch’s desk with spectacularly wild bed hair and the telltale piping of a pajama top askew beneath his shirt.
Her cadre all snapped to attention when Kris entered the room behind her. They were the only royal employees who knew he would soon be their king, and every one of them bowed low.