He would love her.
Her whole body flushed with sensation. The pressure inside her was building, more intense than before, and her breathing grew so hard, so loud, she used it to carry his name from the edges of ecstasy. “Kris.”
“Fuck, sorry about this,” he murmured in her hair, and pulled out so swiftly, she had no chance at stopping him. She clenched as if she could leap from the precipice without him, but hovered several thrusts away from flying as he shifted and wedged his thigh hard between her legs. While a part of her marvelled at his self-control, the rest of her was taking none of it.
“I warned you.” Even though her body was humming—singing in suspense, alive with anticipation—she pushed herself up and started crawling across the bed. “I’m getting my knuckles and I’m going to kill you.”
He caught her around the waist and dragged her back, drawing her into his lap and touching her all over as he murmured, “Trust me, trust me,” and she said, “I’ll make it quick, you could learn something,” and he said, “No, you won’t, just trust me,” and she surrendered to his mouth when it came hot and urgent for hers.
She wriggled, more for the game this had become than any effort to escape him, and he twisted her, pinning her front-down on the bed. He was heavy against her back, erection nestled against her ass, his mouth instantly pulling on the sensitive spot where her shoulder swept up into her neck. Heat flooded her. Her muscles throbbed, ever-tightening. She was moaning, pleasure-drenched, wetter than she’d ever been.
Okay. Maybe he was onto something.
He reached down and slid a finger inside her. Not enough to finish her—just enough to torment, to make her buck against him. Practically vibrating with need, she angled her head and nipped none-too-gently at his forearm.
“The thanks I get,” he muttered in her ear, and even that light brush of air rocketed through her blood.
Denial pushed her beyond thought—hypersensitive to every tiny pleasure, wordless with euphoria.
He resisted, and rubbed against her until her blood fizzed, and then kept on resisting. She shuddered as his hands praised her—caressed her sides and massaged her ass and swept across her breasts. It was only when she angled her hips and managed to get his tip inside her that she finally found his line.
On a strangled groan, he flipped her onto her back—and drove hard inside her.
Buried all the way in, he fell still, taut as a bowstring. One second, two . . . then he pulled back and started slow all over again, building her up until her tension was a tight tangle and her edges stretched and strained as her pleasure mounted higher. She’d never seen this mountain before, never known she could approach such a peak, but with his hand on her back again, angling her hips to receive his thrusts just right, he guided her two steps as a time, three, urging her to climb ever-higher.
On each stroke, friction dug in and heaved her pleasure with him. Layers and layers of it, like dense fabric, like silken fire, gathering and dragging and burning inside her on every thrust. Crazed with readiness, she pulled his bottom lip into her mouth and begged him to take more, more, more.
Finally, a swelling rush built inside her.
“Don’t stop this time,” she pleaded, clutching him against her.
“I won’t.” He rocked higher into her. “This is it.”
And then, the pleasure he’d taken from her body, one gasp and moan and tremble at a time—all that tingling and bursting and surging—
He gave it all back.
It converged like the center of a storm, and then blew, thundering outward, tackling her beneath an endless rolling beat. The strongest orgasm of her life.
Lungs empty and body wrecked, she was vaguely aware of Kris shuddering through his own ending. When he relaxed over her, she wound her legs around his hips, warm and glowing and too satisfied to speak.
It was a while before he asked, “Still want to kill me?” against her neck.
She smiled, moving her hips gently. “No. You win.”
“You’re telling me,” he said, and raised his head and kissed her. Opening to him, she sensed an aching impatience gathering low in her chest, demanding to connect with him beyond what was possible. Even now, with him buried inside her and his tongue deep in her mouth, he was still too far away, and she longed to haul him through her rib cage and right into her beating heart.
Or was it less that he was too far away—but still too unknowable?
She’d spent years of friendship skirting around his edges. Holding back questions, keeping her distance. Well. Now she’d have to wait. Months, years even, because what she really wanted from her best friend was to know him, as utterly as she knew herself, and only time could offer such truth. Mornings wrapped in each other’s arms; evenings deep in conversation; moments that tested and punished and rewarded them. Time would grant her the power to decode him one piece at a time until she understood the man he was, in all his complexity, and could fit seamlessly against him.
That was why she ached—for an intimate relationship.
And he would give it to her.
Eventually, he pulled back and said, “You’re so perfect, I never want to move.”
“But however will we eat?”
He grinned and her happiness soared. She raised a hand to the side of his face, stroking her thumb over his bottom lip, scarcely believing she was allowed to spend her life with him.
“Say it,” he murmured. “Say what I can see in your eyes.”
She blinked, startled, and focused on his chin. “I—”
Had never said it. Never heard it. She hardly knew how it was supposed to sound.
Panic kicked up her pulse and he made a soft sound of reassurance as his fingers circled her shoulder.
“I’ll help,” he said. “This is all you do. Just say . . .” And he paused, waiting until she looked up, right into his eyes. Her heart stuttered, like the pair of trembling hands she longed to hide behind, too shy to look his emotion in the face. But she did, kept her attention fixed on the affection raw and tender in his gaze as he said, “I love you.”
It sounded like the gentle brush of his lashes against her heart as he saw all the way inside her; sounded like an extended palm, held out, waiting for her to take hold.
Her breath was fast, and she couldn’t look away.
“Frankie,” he said, whispering this time. “I love you.”
As the silence stretched out, a tear slid down her cheek. Not because she was scared of his love or her own for him. Rather because she had a lifetime of fear inside her and his confession had just nudged some of it out.
“It’s okay.” He brushed the tear aside with his nose and murmured, “I know you do.”
She wanted to confirm it, speak the words out loud, but as much as the past twelve hours seemed to disagree, she couldn’t change her entire life overnight, and that included her emotional limits.
She looked back and hoped he could still see it in her eyes.
“Okay.” Kris pushed higher onto his elbows, features growing serious. “You raised something significant earlier and I think it’s time we finally did something about it.”
Oh, hell. Her heart fluttered as she struggled to remember. What had she said? And what did he mean by earlier? They’d recently spoken about spending their lives together—God, surely he wasn’t about to propose? Too soon, way too soon. Tension locked her jaw and she was halfway through planning her escape route before she got a hold of herself. Because this might be about her continuing to work for the royal guard—he’d mentioned that night in the tent that she could keep her position. Had he been advised otherwise? She should expect it. The partner of a king should be compassionate and virtuous—not combative and violent. Her gut churned as she remembered that just last night, walking the streets of Kiraly, she’d confessed to wanting a family of her own. Did he think now was as good a time as any to discuss producing heirs? Because it wasn’t. He should at least let her go for a run first, and chase that with several hard drinks.