Page 54 of Crowning His Innocent Assistant

But this was, at least. This desire that she felt for him. And this was an easy way to show him. Because he could understand this. He could feel this.

She caressed him, running her palm over his hardness. Luxuriating in the feel of him beneath her hand.

Oh, but he was a glorious man. Truly wonderful and miraculous in ways that she could not express fully. Not without touch.

So she squeezed him, tested his length. He was large. If she had examined him too closely prior to their first joining she might have been terrified.

But then of course, Matteo de la Cruz could never be anything but exceptional. And he was.

Then she leaned in, his musky, masculine scent tormenting her, enticing her. To greater exploration. She pressed her lips to his shaft, then tasted him tentatively, before taking him fully into her mouth.

He jerked beneath her, and she took control of this moment. Of their pleasure.

All the while, he reached between her thighs and began to test her wetness. Her desire for him. He pushed two fingers inside of her as she continued to taste him, and she let out a low moan of pleasure, which made him growl out his own.

Then he grabbed hold of her, his large hands spanning her waist and easily lifting her up, bringing her down to straddle his body.

“Go right ahead, Mouse. Show me what you can do.”

Her heart pounding hard, she shifted, and felt the blunt head of his erection against the entrance to her body. And with shaking thighs, she lowered herself onto him slowly, achingly so. And he filled her, inch by delicious inch. She gasped as he did, her head thrown back on a sigh of pleasure.

“Show me,” he growled. “Show me what you want, Livia.”

She shifted her hips tentatively, finding a slow and steady rhythm until pleasure began to build inside of her to an unbearable degree. Her core ached with need, her body so slick, the friction it created driving her near to the brink. And then, he seemed to lose his control entirely. He thrust up into her, arching up off the bed, the ferocity of his movements pushing her over. Her internal muscles pulsed around him, and she couldn’t hold back the scream of her release, didn’t want to. For she wanted him to know. Wanted him to know just how deeply she was affected by this. By the intensity of their joining.

His own feral growl of release was not far behind, his blunt fingers digging hard into her hips, and she was certain there would be bruises there.

Good. She wanted to be marked by it. Wanted to be changed by it. She wanted to wear it.

For she had wanted this, wanted him for an untold number of years.

And when it was done, she lay, spent and breathing hard against his chest.

And she felt... Happy.

For all that this was imperfect, for all that they were imperfect, there was a deep sort of satisfaction to this that she had never known before.

“Would you like anything?” he asked, his voice rough.

A smile curved her lips. “Coffee.”

And that was how she found herself naked, sitting in her bed drinking coffee with Matteo. It was a direct echo of that night she had found him dreaming.

And it was a relief, because it was something other than the fighting and all of his autocratic behavior from the previous few days. This was where he was human. She liked him something more than human too. It was part of his charm after all. Perhaps charm was overstating it. But it was part of him. A man who was bigger than life. A man who was nearly a god. A rock. A mountain.

But also a man.

“When you were a child,” he said, “what did you dream? Before there were nightmares. Before... Before everything. What was all that too much that you wanted?”

“I dreamed of education. I dreamed of a world where we didn’t have to be afraid of the King. Where we did not have to hide from soldiers.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault. My people are freer now than they’ve ever been, and that is because of you.”

“And you will continue it,” he said. “I’m confident in that.”

“I hope so. I hope I will be a good queen.”

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