Virgin Princess's Marriage Debt

He didn’t want her above him, he didn’t like the way she looked down upon him, but the slender neck exposed by the upsweep of her hair called to him. He could resist no longer. His lips and teeth gently nipped at the exposed sweet flesh there, and he inhaled, deeply drinki

ng her in, the soft blueberry and bay scent, heated by her skin, almost a mirror of the first wine he had produced. Theos, had he been consumed by her even then? The story he had woven for the obtuse minister came back to haunt him, as did his proclamation that the greatest lies held a kernel of truth.

But he didn’t want to think of the past, nor the future, he only wanted to think of now. Her sigh brought him back to the present as easily as if she were a witch who had summoned him.

She placed a hand on his chest, his heart leaping there beneath it, as if it had finally found a missing piece of itself, and he itched to bat it away. Instead, he took her hand in his and pressed his lips against her palm, and even as his body cried out for quick release from this sensual prison he forced himself to stop and savour her as he would a wine. Surely only when he had identified each of the individual flavours, notes of what was unique to her, he would be satisfied, he would know.

He took each of her fingers, one by one, into his mouth, his tongue gently sucking on them, relishing the different sounds that fell from her lips as he did so. With one hand he traced the line of her delicate wrist, up to the elbow joint, around the firm muscles beneath her shoulder, and back up to her neck.

She rubbed against him, cradled in his hips, drawing an arousal so acute, so swift, it was almost painful. Once again the game of power was being played between them as she moved to take what she wanted.

He pulled her into his arms, and turned them so that her back was now against the chaise longue, and he was above her, surrounding her with his shoulders and body, and she knew it from the look that entered her heated aquamarine gaze. There was too much assessment there, too much calculation. He wanted her blind with pleasure, as blind as he was at risk of becoming.

He took her lips with his, pressing against the perfect pink plumpness, lathing it with his tongue, drawing moans of pleasure as he plunged into her hot, wet depths, knowing that they were both imagining his tongue somewhere else on her body.

He wanted skin against skin, he wanted to see the rosy, taut nipple he could feel pressing through the material that separated them. He wanted to taste it, tease it.

The dress was beautiful, but it was in the way. His hands ran down her sides, looking for a zip, something, anything to release her from the wrapping and get to the present of her body beneath. He groaned when he could not find anything.

‘Theo?’

‘The dress...it’s...’

She groaned her own frustration. ‘It needed nearly two people to get me into the damn thing.’

He looked down on her, for a moment their shared frustration a shared amusement.

‘It will only need me to get you out of it,’ he said, giving her one last assessing gaze before he took the bottom of the dress, found the side-seam and tore apart the fabric with his hands.

The squeal, almost guilty in its pleasure, that came from Sofia drew an impossible smile from his lips. A smile that died the moment he took in the body that he had been dying to see, touch, taste for nearly ten years.

She was incredible. Her chest bare to him completely, the perfect rounds of her breasts, full and almost tear-shaped against her torso, only her modesty covered by the thin scrap of lace that he had encountered between her legs. She tried to hide from him, her face turned aside as if she was embarrassed by her own skin. Her knees came together before him, as if she was protecting herself from him. He couldn’t help the words of praise that fell against her skin.

‘Do not hide from me, Sofia. Not now,’ he growled, hating how his voice almost broke under the power of his arousal, of his desire for her. His hands went to her knees, gently levering them apart to make room for him as he leaned over her, finally taking one of her nipples between his lips, lathing it and toying it into perfect hard submission.

Her back arched upwards, against his mouth, the almost sob that fell from her lips the greatest satisfaction. He worked his mouth and lips lower, in open-mouthed kisses, leaving a damp trail that he knew the air would cool, sending shivers of arousal over her skin.

‘Theo,’ she begged and the sound of his name on her pleasure-filled voice nearly undid him.

‘You want me here, Sofia? My touch, my tongue?’ he demanded.

‘You would make me beg?’ Her voice broke.

‘I would make you own it, own your pleasure, Sofia.’

Each time he said her name, her pupils dilated with pleasure. He almost couldn’t say it enough. She nodded but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to hear it, hear her wants, desires...needs.

For a moment they simply stared, the war of control ebbing and flowing between them like a tide, as he held himself back from what they both so desperately wanted. Until she said it, until she commanded it, until she gave in to it.

‘Yes, Theo. I want—’

Her words were lost to a cry of pleasure as he pulled aside the thin, silken material between her legs, as he uncovered the heart of her with his tongue, as he lathed the length of her and returned again and again to the one place that drew the most exquisite sounds of tormented need from her.

Her hips bucked beneath his ministrations, and he placed a hand low on her abdomen to hold her in place for him, his thumb stroking the silken curls hiding her womanhood.

He took her to the brink of her pleasure again and again, refusing to let her fall. Because when she did, he wanted her to be there with him.

‘Theo, please...’