Tempting the Crown (The Crown 1)

He tipped my chin forward. My lips quivered.

“Let me go. Just let me go before there’s nothing of me left,” I begged.

“I’m not going to let go. I’m going to protect you. Take care of you. Save you when you need saving. Push you when you need it. Hold you. Kiss you. Get drunk on you.”

I stopped crying. “You want a second chance.”

“It’s not a second chance. I fucking love you, Emily Charles. I never stopped. I left to spare you. And it almost killed me. I thought you would be better off if I didn’t come back. That my life would drag you into darkness, but I didn’t realize that without you I couldn’t find the light again. I can’t live like this anymore. I came back for you.”

I fell into his arms. The kiss turned to liquid fire, engulfing us in raging flames. He pulled me from the floor, lifting me into his arms.

I stared into his eyes.

The sliding door closed behind us and he carried me to my room. He lowered me to the bed, then turned to close the door and pushed a chair under the handle.

“Just in case.” He winked. “No interruptions.”

I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but him. He was back. Back for me. For us.

Chapter Twenty-eight

There was a fraction of a second. A moment when Vaughn stepped from the chair blocking the door back to the bed. It was the sliver of time I could have backed out. The time I should have told myself I didn’t need him anymore. That I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.

But he crawled toward me on the bed. I looked into the depths of his eyes. He brushed a kiss across my lips and I knew I would go up in smoke with him. I would give anything for this. For him.

I raised my arms overhead as he pulled the sweater from my body. His mouth found mine and I kissed him like that first night on the street. Like there was mystery and magic between us. I couldn’t think about what would happen when this was over. All I could do was live in it. Too hold him close. To love him like I had never loved him before.

His hands roamed my body, tugging, caressing until my clothes were a pile on the floor. He ran a finger over my breast, circling my nipple until it perk

ed under his command. His teeth grazed over, biting harder with each gnash of his teeth. I ran my hands through his hair, pressing harder into him. I moaned when he sucked my breast between his lips.

My legs parted and his fingers slid over my navel and dove between my folds. He flicked and rubbed my clit while he sucked my tit with commanding force.

“Ohh,” I whimpered. My hips rocked and swayed, urging his fingers to slide deeper and farther until he finally pushed inside me.

His lips broke free of my nipple as he pressed a rough kiss on my mouth. I yielded to his tongue. Hungry for his taste.

“I missed you, Em. I missed you so fucking much,” he growled, taking my face in his hands.

I nodded in agreement. Was that the word? Did that describe the emptiness and loneliness that moved in when he left. I did more than miss him. I mourned him.

“I’m going to show you.” He smiled. “Show you how much I need you. How much I have to have you in my life. In my bed. In my world.”

My hands wrestled with the buckle on his jeans. I eagerly unzipped them and shoved them over his legs. He kicked them to the floor. I fisted the width of his shaft, letting it slide against my palm. He let out a groan.

His eyes flickered. He planted a kiss on my lips. My feet tucked around his waist as he nudged his cock against my heat. He hovered at my entrance, toying with the sensations, driving me mad, pushing me to desperation. I could see it in his eyes. The lust and the longing.

We were suspended in a place where our bodies called out to each other. Needed each other. Were feverish to own the other. Letting him back in was the only choice. I didn’t know how else to erase the lost time.

I clawed at his back, arched toward the ceiling, and spread my knees. I had relived this. Remembered his eyes on me. The feel of his cock waiting to take me. It was this moment I wanted. The rawness of it. The pureness of giving him my body. He pushed the tip of his shaft deep enough to make me gasp. I stretched around him. I moaned, waiting for the full contact when his body would be inside mine.

“Fuck,” he growled in my ear, thrusting with a powerful stroke until he was buried deep in my walls.

“Ohh.” I whimpered remembering how our bodies fit together like this. I stretched around him, blinded by the beautiful pain. He rocked into me. I could tell he was eager to move deep. To push our boundary. Bind us together in a new way.

He threaded his fingers through mine, taking my hands over my head. He pumped inside me again. I moaned.

“Vaughn, it’s too much.” I tried to catch my breath.