For three years he’d had nothing but cold, echoing palace rooms, the sense of being constantly surrounded by people, yet always feeling alone. The iron control he had to maintain over himself all the time, and the hard edges of difficult decisions. The sharp thorns of grief and guilt.
But here in his hands was softness and warmth and pleasure. The chance to lose himself, to feel something other than those terrible, difficult emotions. The chance to feel something good.
So he took it.
He reached for the button on his trousers, undid it, then pulled down the zip. He pushed aside the fabric and freed himself, positioning her over him. Then he pulled her down onto him as he thrust up.
She cried out, her back arching, her body shuddering.
She was so tight, he could barely get a breath.
He wound his fingers into her hair and pulled back, looking up into her delicate face. Her cheeks were flushed a deep pink, the lenses of her glasses foggy, and she was looking at him in shock.
‘Are you with me?’ he demanded. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t be slow and I can’t be gentle.’
She blinked a couple of times and then suddenly she was kissing him again and her body was softening around him, gripping him tight, the heat of her astonishing. Clearly, she was with him.
He couldn’t hold himself back. His hands settled on her hips once more and he began to move her on him, fast and deep, because it couldn’t be anything else for him, not right now. There was nothing in him but need. Nothing in the whole world he wanted right now but her.
He kissed her back, taking control, tasting her, feasting on her, his hips flexing, thrusting into the wet heat of her body. She denied him nothing, her own kisses hungry, pressing herself even closer, trying to match the movement of his hips with hers.
In some dim, forgotten part of his brain, a judgmental piece of himself was shouting at him to stop. That she was inexperienced, a virgin, the bride he’d married when she’d been sixteen and that he should not be doing this to her. That at the very least he should be gentle and careful and patient.
But there was no time to show her what to do and he had no patience left. He put a hand between her thighs once more, finding that sensitive little bundle of nerves, stroking her with firm, definite movements until she gave a soft, sobbing cry, her body convulsing around his.
Then he was moving deep and hard, single-mindedly chasing his own pleasure until it exploded like a glory around him and he was lost in the heart of it, forgetting for the first time in three years that he was a king.