Page 66 of Royally Romanov
“Maxim.” She said his name as if it were a plea. A plea to end the frenzied sensation that had begun to bear down on her center.
Is this what intimacy was supposed to be like? Because it was nothing like she remembered.
Finley had never experienced desire like this before—desire so intense it felt like she might crumple under its weight. As Maxim’s mouth moved closer and closer to the apex between her legs, she thought she might hyperventilate. She buried her hands in his hair, seeking, tugging, wanting him to stop, almost afraid of what might happen if he didn’t.
But when he slid his hands to cup her bottom and licked his way inside her, she could do nothing but close her eyes and succumb to the pleasure coursing through her body.
She’d needed to be touched like this for so long, and yet she’d been so blissfully unaware of how very badly she’d needed it. Maxim seemed to sense it, though. He knew just when to pause so he could draw out her pleasure. His lips pulled away, no farther than a whisper. Then he blew gently, and the soft puff of air against her wetness made her tremble.
She cried out, and then Maxim’s mouth was back, along with his fingers, and Finley could no longer keep the chaos at bay. She shuddered against him, climaxing hard. Then she went liquid. Boneless. She probably would have slid right off the piano bench into a puddle on the floor if Maxim hadn’t gathered her limp form into his arms and carried her to the red-velvet alcove.
The velvet felt exquisite against her bare skin and Maxim was standing over her now, caressing every inch of her with his gaze as he removed his shirt.
Finley rose up on her knees to unbuckle his belt, but her hands were still trembling from the afterglow. Maxim gathered them in his and brushed his lips against her knuckles. Then he swept her hair from her eyes and kissed her, slowly, deeply, while she let her hands explore the solid planes of his chest, each dip and groove of his abdominal muscles.
She couldn’t see his bruises in the dark. She knew they were there, right beneath her fingertips, but they were invisible in the violet night—just as the scars of Finley’s past had been invisible for so long.
But Finley had memorized his chiseled body. She could see the masculine grace of his physique in her mind’s eye. So she dipped her head to kiss the places where he’d been hurt, one by one. She could feel his heartbeat against her tongue. It hammered in time with hers, and it thrilled her to think that she might be able to give him as much pleasure as he’d given her... that she could be wanted like that. Desired.
Maxim’s hands moved to his belt, and he finished the task she’d started. Finley’s breath caught in her throat as she took him into her hands. He was hard. So hard. And heavy, and in that moment of discovery, as she saw all of him for the very first time, she wanted him inside her so much that it hurt.
“Please,” she whispered against his mouth when he bent to kiss her again. “Maxim, please.”
He groaned and pushed her back gently on the bed. Suddenly he was on top of her. His body pressed against hers, and for a moment it was too much—too much heat flowing through her veins, too much electric pleasure skittering over her skin. Too much truth.
She let her eyes drift shut, because keeping them open would be like looking at the horizon while falling off a cliff. The tallest, most beautiful cliff imaginable.
Maxim’s erection was poised right at her entrance, warm and wanting. But he grew suddenly still, and in the seconds before he entered her, he pressed a tender kiss to both her closed eyelids.
“Open for me, lovely.”
The timbre of his voice left her no choice. She did as he asked, opening her eyes, her body, her heart. And when he pushed inside, she believed.
Reallybelieved. She’d told him as much before, but had never been quite sure. There was always the slightest flicker of doubt, tiny enough to ignore but still very much there.
Not anymore.
She didn’t need a DNA test to know who this man was. The final pieces of the puzzle fell into place. There was nothing between them now. She could feel him pulsing deep inside her while he groaned his pleasure.
She believed Maxim was who he said he was. She believed inhim. And even though on some level it seemed as if everything—the past, the present, even the future—was conspiring to ruin whatever was flourishing between her and Maxim, she believed inthem.
SOMETHING HAPPENED WHEN MAXIMpressed inside Finley. He felt it somewhere deep inside his soul, as surely as he felt her wet heat clench around him. It hit him hard, knocked the wind out of him until he had to pause above her and catch his breath.
Finley looked up at him, her eyes shining bright. She was so perfect, so lovely. Like a dream. The best damned dream he’d ever had.
But this wasn’t a dream. It was real. As real as the books that surrounded them on all sides, as real as the stars shining over Paris, as real as the bells of Notre Dame chiming in the distance. As real as they were, all those things seemed very far right now. It was like they were part of another life. A life as distant as the Romanov Empire.
Here... now... there was only Finley. Just the soft swell of her breasts, the tantalizing peak of her nipples, as pink as rosebuds, and her delicious little shudder as he moved inside her.
He reached for her hands, pinning them over her head, and her eyes fluttered open in honeyed surprise. He wanted to take her to the very edge, to a place she’d never been before. A place no man would ever take her again. A place of wild abandon.
Maxim gazed down at her—at the thick waves of her gold curls splayed on the pillow, at her bottom lip as it slipped between her teeth and at her slender wrists captured in his grasp. The sight of the bracelet should’ve been a reminder of why he never should have touched her. A reminder of how badly he could hurt her without even trying.
Afterward, once the sun had come up and everything changed, he’d think back to seeing it there. He’d remember the bell-like sound it made as they moved together as one, the way its jewels glittered against Finley’s alabaster skin in the darkness. The primal thrill he’d felt at knowing he could give her something so precious. Something no one else could. Something no one would ever cherish as much as Finley would.
But even if he’d known then what terrible truth the morning would bring, he wouldn’t have done anything differently. He wouldn’t have needed her any less.
He’d been broken that night weeks ago. Broken in body, mind, and spirit. Finley had been the only one who could put the pieces of his shattered life back together. He’d known that since the night he’d first woken up in the hospital, weak from the loss of blood, so sore he couldn’t even turn his head.
