The Prince's Scandalous Wedding Vow

He kissed her, smiling against her mouth, and then his smile faded as the kiss turned hot and electric. She opened her legs for him, allowing his hips to settle between her thighs. He entered her slowly, taking his time, and Josephine had to draw a deep breath and tell herself to relax when it began to pinch and then burn, and then there was all that fullness and that pressure inside her, so different from anything she’d ever felt before. He was right. It wasn’t comfortable and she wondered how anybody enjoyed this.

He must have sensed her panic, because he held still and kissed her, biting and then sucking on her lower lip, distracting her from everything but his teeth and tongue. Gradually the sting eased and the pressure was less overwhelming. He rocked his hips a little, shifting inside her, and as he eased out and then in, she found herself holding her breath again, but this time because it was a strange fluttery sensation that felt new but good.

“Do that again,” she urged.

He laughed softly. “Many, many times,” he answered, withdrawing again to thrust in more deeply. The fluttery good feeling happened again and continued with every thrust, and the pleasure built, the sensation erotic, making her arch and dig her heels into the mattress of the bed.

He met the lifting of her hips with a deeper, harder thrust, and the pleasure continued to rise, pressure and pleasure swirling, tightening so that she felt almost dizzy from it. She didn’t know what she was waiting for, or reaching for. She just knew he couldn’t stop, and she wanted whatever it was that he was doing and making her feel. Emotion and sensation joined together, hot and intense, as she tried to grip him with her body, wanting to keep him inside her where he felt so good, but he wouldn’t be stopped and her skin grew hot and damp, and she felt the heat sweep through her, her skin prickly and tingling all over.

She panted with the need and tension, her body wound up, too wound up, and she didn’t know what to do or where to go with the tension, and then he reached down, between them, and touched her where she was so very sensitive, circling her nub even as he drove into her, and his touch there, as he thrust deep inside her, made her shatter. She stifled her cry by pressing her mouth to his chest, but the waves of pleasure didn’t stop. The climax continued, hard and intense, breaking her into a million shimmering pieces. She felt like stardust strewn across the sky and it was earth-shattering, heart-stopping.

Even as she was still floating like stardust, her mind so scattered, she felt him groan and stiffen, his hoarse guttural cry not so different from her own.

Josephine’s arms tightened around him and she held him fiercely, desperately thinking her life would never be the same.

It could never be the same.

He would forever be a part of her now because she had just given him a piece of her heart.

* * *

He woke up in the night and glanced around, wondering what had woken him, and then he realized it was the moonlight streaming through the window, falling across the bed in white streaks of light.

The moonlight illuminated Josephine’s elegant profile. Her features were delicate and refined, reminding him of a fairy-tale princess. Every day he discovered something new about her, and tonight he’d discovered her passion. Part of him felt guilty for taking her virginity, and yet another part of him agreed with her—they were meant to be. Destined to be together. She was beautiful and brilliant, innocent and earnest, and temptingly sweet.

His head dipped and he pressed a light kiss to her temple and then another to her cheek.

She stirred and moved closer to him, her slim warm body pressed to his. “What’s wrong?” she murmured sleepily.

He stroked her long silky hair back from her cheek. “Nothing.”

“You’re awake.”

“The moon woke me.”

“I’ll close the curtain.”

“No, don’t. Then I couldn’t see you, and I want to see you.”

Her lips curved, her cheeks rising with her soft smile.

He dropped another light kiss on her lips. “You’re a jewel, Josephine. A rare jewel.”

Still smiling, she nestled even closer so that her cheek rested on his chest. “Thank you for the compliment, but seeing as you don’t remember anything of your world, I’m not sure it’s valid.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said with a faint laugh, her breath a light caress against his bare chest, and then she fell back asleep, and he lay awake for another hour, just holding her and watching the big full moon high in the sky.

This wasn’t his life, or his world, but in some ways he was quite certain it was the best life he’d lived, as well as the best world.

* * *

Josephine woke the next morning and stretched and smiled as she felt his arm tighten around her. He was here. It wasn’t a dream. She was so glad because it had been the best night of her life.

She slipped from bed and pulled on her bikini and then headed outside for an early-morning swim. As she swam she heard the buzz of a helicopter. It was far from the beach, but the hum grew louder. She stood up in the water, hands over her head, waving frantically as the helicopter moved toward her and then headed in a different direction, flying away.

She ran back toward the house. He was just leaving her bed, pulling on the pair of her father’s shorts she’d given him along with the other clothes. The shorts were huge and so he anchored them with a belt as he raced back outside with her.

“It came so close,” she said, running toward the beach. “And I waved, and I thought it must have seen me but then it went away.”

“Maybe it did see you. Maybe it’s gone for help.”

“Maybe.”

They spent the rest of the day on tenterhooks waiting for the helicopter to return or a glimpse of a boat, but the morning turned into afternoon, and then dusk fell. “I’m sorry,” she said to him where they sat side by side on the sand.

“I’m not,” he answered, turning his head to look at her. “I’m glad. This gives me more time with you. It gives me more time to discover you and all the different ways I want to know you.”

“But we made love.”

“There are so many ways to make love.”

She chewed her lip, hiding her smile. He made her feel so excited and nervous and shy and hopeful and all those emotions ke

pt rising in her, bubbling up, making it impossible not to smile.

“You like that,” he said, his voice dropping, growing husky.

She blushed, even as her smile stretched wider. She shouldn’t smile. She shouldn’t encourage him, and yet she loved how he made her feel and how amazing it had been to be his last night. His weight, his scent, his heat...the friction and the pleasure.

“I did,” she said unsteadily. “I loved it. I loved being with you. It was...perfect.”

“And that was just the beginning,” he answered, drawing her toward him, pulling her on top of him as he lay back. She felt him beneath her, hard and warm, his chest crushing her breasts, and his erection pressed to the apex of her thighs, the heavy rigid length making her impossibly aware of his desire. His hands shifted from her waist to her hips and then lower, to cup her butt, his hands so warm on her that she felt as if she was melting.

He cupped the back of her head, kissing her deeply, making her whimper with need. She wiggled against him, her hips dancing over him, encouraging him, practically begging him to take her.

She wanted him to fill her and stretch her. She wanted the maddening pressure and then the explosive release. She wanted everything he’d shown her last night, and even more wild and fierce tonight.

Passion—she wanted the passion he’d awoken within her.

And then he was lifting her and he was sliding lower, holding her thighs apart until he settled beneath her, his face under her most private place.

She pressed against his shoulders, trying to escape, but he held her knees firmly, keeping them wide-open so that he could her kiss there, between her thighs. She shuddered and swallowed a cry.

“Take your bikini bottoms off,” he told her. “Now.”

It was a definite command but also unbelievably sexy, and she peeled them off, trying not to panic. This was what she wanted—him. Them. Earlier today she’d wanted him to want her like this; she’d wanted him to show her all the things she didn’t know, and he could, she thought. He could teach her and share with her, helping her discover the world that lay beyond Khronos’s beach.