She shook her head. “I’ve ridden horses for years,” she whispered, her throat thick, her mind barely able to process speech. “It won’t hurt.”
Relief eased his features. He framed her face with one hand and kissed her. “Are you ready?” he asked, trembling with the strain of holding himself back.
“I want you inside me,” she answered, squirming against him again, “right now, Eric, right now. Do it.”
He finally moved then and his cock pressed against her folds, then slid into her. She exhaled sharply and then moaned at the sensation of fullness, at the way he eased into her inch by inch, at the feeling of being somehow compete and needing so much more, so much harder, so much faster. He went still, giving her a moment to accommodate his length. “Fuck, Anna,” he gasped, dropping his head, “you’re so wet, so tight, so perfect.” He reached down, found her clit, rubbed it between his fingers the way he had that day on the pool table. She wrapped her arms around him, held on tight, arching her back and impaling herself as deep as she could on his hard length, reveling in the feel of his cock and his fingers right where she wanted them.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes, this is it, this is exactly…exactly…” And then she couldn’t speak anymore, because he started moving inside her. He pulled nearly all the way out and then slid back in even deeper, moving one hand to her ass, lifting it to just the right angle as he plunged balls-deep into her again. He started moving faster, unable to help himself, whispering her name over and over as he took her. She dug her heels into the bed, mindless, needing more, and slung one leg over his ass again. There, right there, it was perfect. Her hands tightened on his back as his hand gripped her ass more roughly, holding her in place against him as his thrusts got harder, faster.
“Cum for me,” he ground out, watching her face as she bucked and moaned. “I want to see it. I want to see you cum on me.”
“Eric,” she shouted, pushing herself against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. “Yes! Eric, harder, oh God, harder—this is…I can’t…” Pressure built in her core and she shouted wordlessly, tensing all over, arching helplessly against him as she tightened and shuddered around his cock, pleasure breaking over her in waves that she rode out until she could barely breathe. And then he was shouting too, his pace becoming relentless as he pumped himself out inside her.
When it was over, he rested his head on the crook of her shoulder, and they just breathed. The world looked new to Anna; she felt new, remade together with Eric. And at that moment she knew without a doubt that this, exactly here, with this incredible man, was where she wanted she wanted to stay forever.
11
Eric woke up feeling like he was winning at life. Last night had been mind-blowing, and then afterwards, he and Anna had just sat and talked. That had never been something he’d been particularly keen to do after lovemaking before, but with Anna it had felt almost as intimate as the sex. He’d asked her about her vintage swearing habit, and she’d laughingly admitted that she’d always been impressed by “those badass women” who could curse like sailors but was too embarrassed to try many real curse words herself. He’d refused to accept that and had immediately given her a cursing tutorial, which she had passed with flying colors. Her newfound dirty mouth had left both of them turned on all over again, and after another session of amazing lovemaking, he’d been too wired to fall asleep. To repay him for the swearing lesson, Anna had decided to teach him how to relax properly before bed, and had dug through the B&B’s cupboards and dressers until she came up with ten different varieties of herbal tea for him to try and some brand-new flannel pajamas in his size. He decided he loved the surprisingly comfy pjs, hated chamomile, and actually enjoyed peppermint tea. They’d fallen asleep side by side near dawn, with Eric feeling closer to her than he’d ever felt to anyone.
Between his newfound maybe-relationship—the details had been fuzzy, but he was pretty sure last night had meant there was more between them than seduction lessons now—and how well the research was coming along, he felt like a million bucks today. He did wish the research would move a little more quickly, since they’d fallen a bit behind schedule lately, but that was small potatoes compared to how well everything else was going.
He was whistling as he walked into his breakfast meeting with Simon. His cousin looked up, surprised, then narrowed his eyes. “You look…” he started, a suspicious note in his voice.
“Devilishly handsome? Roguishly charming?” Eric supplied helpfully.
“…tired,” Simon finished.
“Well, that’s a letdown,” Eric commented, taking a seat.
“But still weirdly glow-y,” Simon went on, waving a hand at him vaguely. “You look like the cat that got the cream. What have you been up to?”
“None of your business,” Eric said with a wink, and Simon gave a longsuffering sigh and rolled his eyes. Eric pulled out his notepad. “So we’re doing a soft count for our support in Parliament today, right?” he asked. “Did you get the meeting set up?”
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“Of course. We’re having lunch with two of the senators who are on the fence this afternoon. They’re senior members, so their support could potentially swing more votes our way from their junior fellows.”
“Great,” Eric said, and jotted down a note.
The door opened behind him and his mother swept in, looking regal as ever. “Have you seen this?” she said without prelude, and dropped a newspaper on the table in front of him.
“Good morning to you too, mother dearest,” he said, but foreboding filled him at the look on her face. He picked up the paper and scanned the page she’d given him. It was an article about his healthcare bill, and it wasn’t promising. It made it sound like the palace could do better and even got in a dig at Eric himself, saying he “spent all his time distracting the head researcher,” causing slower results. He grimaced—the basic facts were true, even if the reasoning wasn’t. Or at least, he was pretty sure it wasn’t. Sometimes research just got behind schedule, that was all.
But the quote at the end was damning. Apparently Anna had told the reporter that fun was what Eric did best, and the reporter surmised that Eric was still good for a good time but wasn’t the best horse to back for getting a bill through Parliament.
Eric tossed the paper onto the table, reeling. That day when Anna had asked him for rugby lessons, she said she’d gotten sucked into unexpected small talk at the gate. Had she accidentally gone to the gate that was reserved for the press and not realized she was actually talking to a reporter? He shook his head, his good mood evaporated. Now, instead of convincing the two senior Parliament members to support them today, Simon and Eric would be hard-pressed to do damage control.
The meeting went even worse than expected. Sensing blood in the water, the senators took full advantage and demanded he accept cuts that would hurt the poor populations he was trying to help. They claimed it was the only way for the bill to perform on budget, but that kind of change was a hard ‘no’ for him. He refused to allow his first bit of legislation—or any of his legislation—to harm Danovar’s most vulnerable subjects.
The older senator stood up, pushing his chair back from the table with a scrape. “The money isn’t there,” he huffed. “I know you’re young and this is your first move into serious politics, so listen to me when I tell you, things simply can’t get done if there’s no money for them.”
Eric gritted his teeth at the condescension, but channeled it into a charming smile. “Please, Senator Winton, sit. I’m sure we can come to some sort of compromise.”
The other senator, a woman with her gray hair in a no-nonsense ponytail, leaned forward. “There is one other place we could make cuts,” she suggested. “The medical research laws. We could cut some of the grants there, limit how much funding the palace provides.”
Eric bristled. That would undercut the funding for Anna’s project, and for projects like hers. Still, if she got her research back on schedule and finished before the bill was enacted as originally planned, they wouldn’t have to worry about it.
“We’ll consider it,” he said at last.