Gillian tilted her head back so their eyes met. This needed to be said. He de
served to know she understood the differences that being his wife would make in her life. “Maks, I know that marrying you comes with a job title.”
“Princess.”
“It’s an honor.” That he’d wanted to give her ten weeks ago.
He grimaced. “But not one you aspired to.”
“No, but I always knew it would be necessary if I was to remain in your life permanently.”
“And did you have plans to do so, before?”
“You know I did.”
“You would have agreed to my proposal ten weeks ago.”
“If you’d made one, yes, I would have.” She wasn’t going to lie to him.
“But you had no intention of accepting my proposal when I made it four days ago.”
“You know why.”
He frowned, looking like he wanted to say no he didn’t, but was manfully refraining.
She couldn’t help laughing, though her humor might be more macabre than jolly. “I know. You don’t understand the fear that love might bring.”
“I thought the saying was perfect love casts out fear.”
“I’m not perfect and neither is my love.”
“On that we must disagree.”
“What?” Now she was totally confused.
He pulled her closer, their naked flesh fitting together so naturally under the cascading hot water that emotion choked her. “You are perfect for me.”
“Because I carry your child.”
“That’s part of it, yes, but then even that only shows how insanely compatible we are. No one else could have gotten you pregnant in a single night without condoms.”
“Conceited much?”
“No. This isn’t about my prowess…it’s about how we fit.” He was very serious, his espresso eyes filled with sincerity.
To hear his words describing the feeling that had been washing over her touched something deep inside, something she thought would always hurt. Only right now, the pricks and stings were absent.
It was not love, but it was something.
She buried her face against his chest, needing a moment, but he refused to let her hide from him. Even for a second. He tilted her head up the same time he lowered his mouth to hers and pressed their lips together in the gentlest kiss.
Tenderness remained, but the gentleness quickly morphed into something else. A passion that coursed through her, making her heart beat so fast she could barely catch her breath.
They were both breathing heavily, the steam around them not as hot as their bodies had become when he moved to kiss down her throat.
“I thought we didn’t have time,” she gasped.
“I already missed one meeting.” His hand slid down her backside and between her thighs, his fingertips playing over the slick flesh. “My pilot will have to wait as well.”
She didn’t argue, though she was sure it was more than his pilot that sex would put on hold. He knew it, too. And that just blew her away. Realizing Maks could be distracted from duty for the intimacy between them was more mind-altering than the pleasure they found in one another’s bodies.
And that always left her feeling like she’d had an out-of-body experience, or rather a very intense in-body experience.
The need to show how very much that meant to her grew inside Gillian until she became determined to do something she’d never done before. Dropping to her knees, she nuzzled into his lower abdomen, her intentions clear.
Her wet hair brushed over his already hardened sex and he groaned, his hips canting for more contact. The man was insatiable and she was glad. Really, really glad.
No, it wasn’t love, but it was something worth fighting for.
He sucked in air, another long, low groan pealing out of him as she turned and quite deliberately licked his length.
“What are you doing?” he croaked out.
“If you don’t know, I am not doing it right.”
“But you don’t do this.” He’d never asked it of her and she’d never offered.
“It isn’t because I don’t want to.”
“Then why?”
She looked up; able to admit something she wouldn’t have even twenty-four hours earlier. “I don’t know how.”
“You’ve never done it before.” He sounded almost awed.
She shook her head. Gillian was determined to do it now, though, as much for herself as for him. She’d always wanted to—with him, but she’d lacked the confidence to try when his sexual history was so much richer than hers.
She didn’t just want to try something new, she craved giving him pleasure like he’d never known.
Yesterday she would have doubted her ability to do that, but the day before Prince Maksim of the House of Yurkovich had not been so moved by his desire for Gillian Harris that he’d chosen to circumvent his own schedule.
While he did not make it a habit to cancel on her, he had never rearranged his schedule to spend time with her, either. Not once, not even pushing a meeting back by five minutes, much less rescheduling it altogether.
But not only was he purposefully giving up his takeoff slot at the airport, Maks had already missed a meeting to spend as much of the morning’s early hours with her that he had.
Overwhelmed with a kind of giddy joy at the thought of it, Gillian kissed the weeping tip of his erection, lapping at the moisture. It was sweeter than she expected and she made a sound of approval.
His swollen hardness jumped against her lips. “Put it in your mouth. Please.”
“Yes.” She took his head into her mouth and wondered how she was supposed to take more.
He wasn’t small by any means and her mouth only stretched so wide.
Refusing to worry about the fact she couldn’t take it all in, she swirled her tongue around the head, eliciting groans from Maks. He certainly didn’t seem to mind she wasn’t going to deep throat him like a porn star.
He fell back against the wall of the tub enclosure, his big body giving one long shudder. “Feels so good.”
She curled both her hands around the wet shaft and began stroking him as she changed her licking to sucking.
He shouted, his hips surging forward as if he could not control the movement.
He penetrated her mouth farther, but her hands on his shaft prevented him from going too far.
“Sorry,” he gritted out, making an obvious effort to remain still.
She felt like smiling, happy he’d lost control. It meant he didn’t have all the power in their relationship.
Part of her had known that, because she carried his child, but part of her had felt helpless in the face of her own love.
She was feeling anything but helpless right now with his extreme response to her novice, but enthusiastic efforts. Increasing the speed of her caresses, she was surprised at how excited doing this for him made her.
She wanted to bring him off, but she ached with the desire to be filled, too.
She couldn’t stop what she was doing to tell him. Didn’t want to stop pleasuring him with her mouth. It was such an amazing feeling, to have him at her mercy and yet be so emotionally connected it was like a live current of electricity arced between them.
But he grabbed her head, pulling her back.
She frowned up at him.
His pupils were blown, his face dark with passion and he rasped out, “I’m about to climax.”
“I want you to.”
He let out a pained groan, his hips flexing. “No. You don’t.”
“I like the taste.”
“Come is not as sweet as preejaculate, or so I’ve been told.”
“Really?” Her frown turned to a glare, some of passion’s haze dissipating.
He laughed, the sound almost tortured. “You have nothing to be jealous about. No other woman has ever affected me like you do. No other one ever will.”
She believed him. Today. This morning, after he chose to miss his takeoff slot to be with her, she believed him.
He tugged gently on her head, both han
ds on either side of her face and she found herself rising to stand in front of him. “I want to be inside you.”
“Y…” Her voice gave out, her own want was so deep. She cleared her throat. “Yes.”
He kissed her, his mouth laying claim to hers without apology or hesitation.
She kissed him back, asserting her own claim, letting him know with the ferocity of her response that he belonged to her as well.
She didn’t know which one of them broke the kiss, or how she ended up facing the far wall of the tub enclosure with her legs spread as much as they could go in the narrow space, her nipples aching in the moist air.
But she literally shook with the need for copulation.
His body blanketed hers, his sex aligned to the apex of her thighs. “Let me have you, sérdenko, open yourself to me.”
“Yes!” She threw her head back against his shoulder, a tiny part of her brain insisting she’d find out what sérdenko meant later.
His erection pressed between her legs, zeroing in on the opening to her body and pressing inside in one smooth movement. He filled her, the stretch so perfect, so intense and the angle just right for hitting her G-spot, ecstasy sparked hot along each nerve ending.
One long fingered hand reached around and delved between her folds to tease her clitoris, the other slid up her stomach to play with her breasts. The multiple stimulations were body buzzing and mind numbing.
Her brain stopped making fully realized thoughts as he touched her in ways guaranteed to bring her the ultimate in pleasure and she offered her body to him without limits.
The water beat down on them; Maks moved with passionate urgency, his sex caressing that sweet spot inside her, his fingertip rubbing circles of delight on her clitoris.
The pleasure spun higher and higher inside of Gillian, her body naturally arching up on her toes in response, her hands against the slick wall in no way holding her up. It was Maks’s strength doing that, his big Cossack’s body.
And then everything exploded in a starburst of color that rivaled the Northern Lights, her body convulsing around his sex, her womb contracting with ecstasy, her breath sawing in and out in passion-filled pants.
The scream of completion that ripped out of Gillian’s throat mixed with Maks’s feral shout as he climaxed, too, his body rigid behind her, their voices rising in a crescendo of delight.