The Once And Future Prince (Castaldini Crown 1)

She sank on him in one downward stroke, losing sight for a moment with the blow of pain and pleasure. He seemed to fill her whole body. He did fill her whole being.

He buried his face in her breasts as he lay buried inside her, and they trembled together for a long moment, just savoring the connection, the reciprocal submission and domination.

He suckled her nipples in turn, soft pulls that grew hard then harder, each tug shooting straight to her core, making her pulse around his invasion, shifting her up and down his shaft. She pulled his head up when she couldn’t bear any more, captured his lips. He drew her soul right out of her, infused her with his. His endearments grew thicker, more explicit, the words she longed for, the voice she lived to hear.

As the pulse of pleasure threatened to burst into the convulsions that would shatter her, he felt it, swept her around and under him and gave her the pressure she needed to spill over, screeching, into intoxicating climax. She felt his jolt of answering ecstasy, was scorched by his seed as it pulsed over and over into her womb, bathing it, filling it, until the pleasure eddied in a downward spiral so violent her consciousness flickered.

She came back into her body to his caress, to the feel of him still filling her. He was poring over what she knew was her ravaged-by-emotion-and-satisfaction face. His was gentleness and possession personified.

“You would send a man to his grave with a smile on his face and a fervent wish to rise again only so that he could die once more at your hands. You’d make him want to do anything to deserve your esteem and respect. You make me want to be the best man I can be.” He took her lips in what felt like a pledge. “So yes, Phoebe, I will become crown prince.”

She cried out her pleasure, for him, for Castaldini, surged up to fill his cherishing and indulgent embrace.

Throughout the rest of the night, they planned and projected and shared all the exquisiteness that was only theirs to share, a steady supply of which would fuel all her tomorrows.

And if something in her deepest consciousness fidgeted, wondering why he hadn’t exactly asked her to be part of his future, it settled back into serenity with the certainty that he soon would….

Fourteen

T hey stayed two more weeks in paradise.

They would have gone back to Jawara the day after Leandro made his decision, since he’d refused to have a succession ceremony. He wanted no fuss, no media, no delegates bearing congratulations. He was taking the oath then getting down to business. But the king’s illness had postponed his instatement.

On the day they did return to the capital, she went out. She bought something. She returned to the palace, entered her bathroom and came out. Transfigured. Pregnant.

She’d planned on taking the Pill before she and Leandro become fully intimate, but their intimacies hadn’t been planned. She’d started the Pill the day after the fire, but the power of what they’d shared that climactic night hadn’t only brought them back to life, it had sowed new life inside her.

It felt like a miracle. It was one. And more.

Before Leandro had come back into her life, she’d been resigned to live a life devoid of passion, had assumed that, to fulfill her hopes of having a child of her own, she would have had to go the sperm donor way. But now…

She was having Leandro’s baby.

The only baby she wanted.

The discovery rocked her, the knowledge tore her apart.

With joy.

The reality, the significance, the beauty expanded through her in a paroxysm of mindless delight. The news trembled on her lips, shuddered through her limbs with the need to tear through the palace and fling herself into his arms.

One thing held her back. Something just as momentous. The historic occasion of Leandro taking on the mantle of power. And even though she felt her heart unraveling with impatience, that event had to take precedence right now.

But after he did…blood frothed and tumbled through her system in a boil of expectation and glee.

Then, as she got ready for the succession ceremony, her whoops and whirls around her room decelerated, her simmering blood cooling. Then it gradually…chilled. With the sedimentation of frost. Of uncertainty.

He had been beyond loving to her, beyond magnificent, beyond memory or imagination, as he’d promised. But he hadn’t promised her a future.

Oppression bore down in degrees, until it started to cut off air and blood flow.

Did he want a future? Wouldn’t he have said something during the past weeks if he did?

He’d told her everything, from his earliest memories to how he loved everything she’d ever touched. But he’d said nothing about taking back his original pact—the one she’d once agreed to wholeheartedly. What if he’d been gorging himself on all they could have, like a man would at an all-you-can-eat buffet, to turn craving into a permanent glut? He might have been living a totally different experience from the one she’d been losing herself in, believing they were in agreement. And she would be the one guilty of changing the rules midstream, believing her own fantasies, and imposing them on his every word and look and touch.

More nightmares blossomed, billowing like the smoke that had heralded the flames that had almost claimed their lives.

His old accusation mushroomed inside her. That she’d wanted him as a stepping-stone to royal status. What if he considered her pregnancy a ploy to entrap him? Even if he didn’t—if he hadn’t thought of a future with her, did she want one if he felt obligated to offer it now that she was carrying his child?

The dream world she’d been inhabiting for the last seven weeks started to distort into something macabre. A place where any move might end in devastation.

Stop. Stop. What was she thinking? This was Leandro, and this was the present, not the past when everything had gone wrong. They had a future together. If she couldn’t believe he loved her after all they’d shared, when would she? So he hadn’t mentioned future plans. Yet. He had that tiny matter of taking on the destiny of a whole kingdom on his mind. She should just shut up her insecurities, and go watch her man—her love—enter history.

She rushed to put on the dress he’d asked her to wear. Feeling the fumes of insecurity blowing over, chalking them up to the aftereffects of the life-changing discovery and pregnancy hormones, she ran out to the Throne Room.

Despite Leandro’s wishes, there was a ceremony of sorts. The representatives of the D’Agostino family and the Council gathered in their fineries to witness a succession, something most of them hadn’t witnessed. But Leandro wouldn’t let them force him into changing his plans by much, didn’t give them the spectacle they were congregated to watch.