Page 24 of Vows to a King
A soft, utterly beautiful smile hovered on his lips. He released her wrist and she opened her mouth in protest.
Jemima felt his fingers land on her hips like she was the main character in some slow-moving, live action film. With a searing burn that should leave deep fingerprints on her willing flesh. Tilting onto her toes, she tipped forward, eager for more contact, more of his hands on her flesh, more of him.
She’d been granted a feast and she wasn’t going to simply stand on the sidelines and salivate.
The tips of her breasts brushed his hard chest and breath whooshed out of her, as if she were a child’s balloon deflating during the festivities of the National Day Parade.
“I’m not the brightest when it comes to words, Princess. My headache after two hours of reading those legal documents confirms it. So please clarify your intentions for me. Also, ‘whatever else we can muster up between us’ sounds…” he scrunched that blade of a nose in distaste and Jemima wondered if she could get away with calling him adorable, “…tedious and dry and uninspired. You should know that I thrive on challenge.”
“I want to see if there’s passion between us, Adonis,” she said, grabbing the bull by the horns. “And if that can be the thing that adds another brick to our foundation. Because that cannot be dictated by the crown or the council or the cynical media. It would be all ours. Only ours. And honestly, the idea of owning some small part of this arrangement makes me—”
His mouth sealed over hers, stealing her breath, her thoughts, and her conflicting emotions. In those first moments, Jemima clung to him like a limpet. And perhaps sensing her stiffness, the Prince softened the press of his lips immediately.
Slowly, she relaxed and her other senses rushed into focus, bringing more awareness and keener yearnings.
For a hard, leanly muscled man, he had the softest lips. The taste of wine and something darker he had indulged in dribbled down from him to her lips, into her throat and further below to her chest, to pool into liquid sensation at her center.
One touch of his lips and she could feel her entire world tilt and shake, rearranging itself into one with more color and light and sensation.
No wonder she hadn’t forgotten that first kiss, and her only kiss, all these years later. Even as a naive, utterly inexperienced eighteen-year-old, she had sensed the pull between them. Not that she had any more experience now, she thought, as he moved those sinuous lips over hers in a slow dance. But she had the bone-deep conviction that this was right.
One of the few right things in a life full of nasty twists and turns.
His fingers edged around her waist, claiming more and more ground, but Jemima sensed him withholding, treating her as if she were a porcelain figurine. As if he wasn’t sure she wanted this.
If she was doing this, she was going all in.
Sinking her fingers into the nape of his neck, she dragged her breasts against his rock-hard chest. Their raw groans rent the air. “Kiss me properly, please. As you want, Adonis. Not this tedious, dry version you have decided is my worth,” she said, meeting his gaze.
His smile was a delight when she tasted it with her tongue and that was the last coherent thought she had.
Adonis sipped at her lips like she tasted better than the finest Thalassan wine, nibbled like she was his favorite treat, and when she dug her teeth into the lush sweep of his lower lip, he devoured her as if she were a feast to a starving man.
Even the shattering of his wine flute on the tiles couldn’t fracture the urgency that beat at them.
Jemima gasped when he lifted her and brought her to the chaise longue where she’d found him fast asleep one night. As if she were a sweet, light feminine thing made of feathers instead of the sturdy, dependable accessory she had turned herself into for her father and his brother.
The burgundy leather was soft against her fingers as she gripped it while Adonis knelt over her, caging her.
For just a second, as she read the naked hunger pulling at his features, she felt a sudden attack of bashfulness about her body. Round and plump, she was no man’s fantasy of a woman but she had always loved her body for all that it had given her.
“No,” Adonis said, pressing a finger between her brows. “Do not let the world intrude on this moment, Princess. Like you said, this is for us.” He leaned down and touched his forehead to hers, his warm, wine-scented breath coasting over her lips. “And I need this, need to see you unravel so badly.”
“It’s not the world interfering, Prince,” she said, clasping his cheek. He leaned into the touch like some great cat, willing to be petted, and more than desire lashed through her.
“Touch me. Wherever and however, you want. All the madness that’s swirling around me right now, and the grief that haunts me…” Blue eyes searched hers. “I need escape, Jemima.”
His whispered command filled her with liquid longing to the brim.
She’d never counted it as such but her father first and then Adamos at his turn, had deprived her of even the simple comfort of touch.
That Adonis not only needed it, but demanded it openly felt like her most secret yearning given color and shape and the wings to fly.
Without curbing her greed or worrying about betraying it, she ran her hand over his shoulders, neck and back, finally settling them over his chest. The buttons popped open on his shirt when she tugged. A sigh escaped her when she discovered warm, taut skin. Christos, the man was hewn in rock, every inch of him cut and lean, as if a master sculptor had removed all the excess.
Jemima explored the planes of his chest and back with increasing fervor, eager to feel it against her own body. Already, the idea of rubbing her curves against all that muscle filled her with unbearable heat.
The whole time, Adonis bent his head as if he were being granted a benediction.
