His mouth found her breasts, teasing the nipples into tight little buds until she begged him to stop. But he didn’t stop the torment until she was weeping from the unbearable pleasure, until she was clinging to him and crying out in ecstasy. Then he pulled her knees even higher, changing the angle, and pounded into her until he exploded, too.
Juliana was crying, her chest shaking with repressed sobs as her body trembled in the aftermath of pleasure so great she could have died from it. Eleven years. The words kept running through her mind like a filmstrip on an endless loop. Eleven years I’ve waited to feel this way again. Only with Andre. No one else. Only with him.
Andre was still embedded within her, and he was shaking, too. Only his shaking was from the breath rasping in his throat as he tried to breathe deeply enough to replenish his depleted muscles. But there was no softening of his flesh. He was still hard, rock hard. And when her tearstained eyes met his, she saw he knew it. He rolled over, bringing her with him and retaining his place inside her.
“Please...” she begged breathlessly, not sure if she was begging him to stop or to keep going.
“Yes,” he said in his deep voice. “I will please you until we both burn, until we melt into one flesh, until you forget every man but me.”
Words of denial trembled on her lips, but he thrust upward at the moment, impaling her, driving every thought out of her head but the feel of his body so deep he couldn’t go deeper. She rocked against him wordlessly, matching his rhythm, and his fingers found her through the dark, silky curls. Then she was flying again, soaring high above the earth. The only thing anchoring her in place was his magician’s voice whispering words of love in Zakharan.
* * *
Three times through the endless night Juliana dozed. Three times she awakened with Andre caressing her, his hard, urgent body drawing a response from hers she thought she was too exhausted to give. But each time her body quickened beneath his sure touch. Each time he brought her to a shattering climax. And each time he made her weep from the beauty of his lovemaking...and then held her close until her tears subsided.
She fell asleep after the last time as if she were drugged. At some point she felt him raising her up, dressing her with such tender, gentle hands her heart broke. Then he was lifting her in his arms as if she were weightless, carrying her through the dark passageway to her bedroom before anyone else in the palace was stirring.
She woke fully when he laid her down on her bed and drew the silk coverlet around her. She gazed up into his face and caught her breath at the love shining in his beautiful green eyes as he bent over her. “Andre... I...”
He took both her hands and raised them to his lips. “No, Juliana,” he told her firmly. “Do not tell me. I do not want to know. All that matters is you are here now. All that matters is finally...finally...you came to me again after I have waited so long. All that matters is your body telling me no other man has given you what I have given you—no other man has made you weep with ecstasy.”
That faint, tantalizing smile crept into his eyes. “You were mine eleven years ago, little one. You are mine again. That is all. It is enough. But this time I will never let you go.” His lips claimed hers with urgency—a demand and a question rolled into one.
“I love you, Andre,” she said in a voice as soft as a sigh when he finally raised his head, knowing she needed to tell him this if nothing else. “And you’re right. No other man has ever given me what you’ve given me.” No other man ever will.
* * *
When Juliana woke again she was alone. She could tell from the angle of the sunbeams shining through her windows the sun was high in the sky. Her body ached in secret places and she desperately needed a bath, not only to wash but to soothe. Andre would come to her that night—she knew it. And she wanted to be physically ready for whatever he had in mind. Not only for herself, but for him. No sacrifice was too great for the man who had entrusted his heart to her the way Andre had.
She ran a bath in the huge bathtub, generously adding perfumed bubbles from one of the expensive flagons that lined the surround. She submerged herself and lay back against the smooth marble, trying to make sense of everything that had happened. Not just last night, but eleven years ago. She tried to reconcile the Andre who had made her believe in eternal love, then and now, with the Andre who had sent her money for an abortion...just in case. She couldn’t. Her father had been right—Andre wasn’t that kind of man.
The Andre of last night was like the Andre who had made love to her all those years ago. The Andre who had treated her innocence as a precious gift. The Andre who had given her such aching beauty she had wept with joy. The Andre she would have trusted with her life as she trusted him with her heart.