Page 95 of Rise of a Fallen Man

The utter devastation on her face gutted me.

“Come with me,” I said. “Let’s leave together.”

I must’ve lost my mind. Where would I take her? What could I offer her? But as her eyes opened wider, I saw our future in them because I could give her something no one else could.

“I can make you happy, Ari. No other man can.”

Because no one knew her the way I did. No one loved her the way I loved. And no man could love her more than I did.

“Where would we go, Salas?” Her voice was soft. Her eyes lit with a dreamy expression.

“North, where it’s warm, even in winter.” Cold felt especially bitter when one was on the road, I knew it firsthand. “I’ll find a job easily this time. Thanks to you, my shameful past is moredistant now. No one would hesitate to employ a former gladiator of Her Majesty.”

“We’ll live in a small house on a beach somewhere?” she joined in the fantasy with me. “You’ll make swords, and I’ll cook us potatoes for dinner in every way I know how.”

“I love potatoes.” I smiled. “Almost as much as a rabbit pie.”

She smiled, too, despite the tears that glistened on her eyelashes like dew drops.

“It’ll be a beautiful life,” she said with a wistful note in her voice so sorrowful that I instantly knew our future together was only a dream, just like that date we would never have. “I will kiss you whenever I want.”

I held on to the dream with everything I had. “And I will make love to you whenever and wherever we wish.”

She rose on her tiptoes, and I met her lips with mine. It was a desperate kiss, deep and hungry.

“I can’t come with you, Salas,” she whispered fervently, clutching the shirt on my chest. “I wish I could, because you are the only one who makes me truly happy. But many people would suffer if I left. I can’t... I’m... I’m not free.”

She would never go anywhere with me. Not because she’d hesitate to leave behind the luxurious life of a princess and not because of my past, but because Ari had a purpose and obligations, and no one could steer her away from them. Not even me.

She slid her palms up my chest.

“Let’s have this date, Salas,” she said softly. “Let me love you one more time, please. Just this once.”

Just this once.

The words sliced through me like a blade.

“This once,” I echoed, unbuttoning her dress so fast, I nearly ripped the buttons off.

I tugged her dress off her shoulders and freed her breasts. Cupping one, I rolled the nipple under my thumb, and she moaned, arching into my touch.

The sweet, sexy sounds she made sent a rush of desire through my body. My cock swelled with heat, straining to leap out of my pants. Sucking a breath through my teeth, I rocked my erection against her belly, my mind growing blank from lust.

Before Ari, being with a woman had always been methodical for me. Over the years, I’d worked out a system and used it, adjusting it slightly, depending on what worked best for each client.

But Ari wasn’t a client. She never had been. With her, I lost the ability of any logical thinking. There were no thoughts in my head, just feelings in my chest and sensations all over my body.

Tugging her dress lower, I kissed every sliver of her exposed skin. I placed a string of kisses along her collarbone, then between her breasts. I caressed each nipple on my way down, eliciting sweet, whimpering moans from her lips.

I trailed my kisses down her stomach as her muscles contracted and her skin pebbled with shivers of pleasure.

Worshiping every part of her body, I fell to my knees and tugged her skirts down her hips, taking her undergarments with them. I kissed the patch of dark hair between her thighs, drinking in her scent and committing to memory every sensation of loving her.

She raked her hands through my hair, gently stroking my skull with her fingers. I freed her leg from her dress and placed her thigh on my shoulder. She moaned, rocking her hips against my tongue as I dipped it inside her.

She was already wet, so wet for me, my princess. I reached as deep as I could with my tongue first, then replaced it with my finger, while leaking and sucking on her swollen clit. Shemoaned louder, her breathing turning erratic. Her fingers flexed in my hair.

Ari was lost to pleasure now, completely consumed by the need to orgasm, and I held the key to her climax quite literally in my hand.

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