Page 16 of Impossible Heir for the King

‘Then let me show you,’ he growled, his hands instantly going to her waist. He lifted her right off her feet. Maia looped her hands over his shoulders and clasped them together at the nape of his neck. For balance, right? But the action allowed her to be pressed more intimately against his bare chest. He was hot and hard and strong as he pressed her closer until they were plastered together from chest through stomach, hips, thighs. And then mouths.

Mouths most of all.

His lips locked on hers. His tongue flickered into her mouth and entwined with hers. He kissed her increasingly intimately, plundering her mouth with luscious thrusts the way he’d fill that other, aching, empty part inside her. The part that had slickened and heated and that she couldn’t help rubbing against him. With power and passion and relentless depth he commanded her response and she gave it all. While her innards went weak, her arms remained strong. Energy flowed through her and she clung to him like a limpet. Mind lost, only instinct remained. And thehunger. That all-consuming hunger simply grew. She was not releasing him. She was not ever ending this searing kiss. Pleasure shot through her entirety. She arched her feet, half kicking to keep afloat, to keep every inch sealed to him. Her clothes were sopping and as her shirt was already old and thin it now might as well not exist. She could feel more than her own reaction. She could feelhisferocity of passion. It made her quake. She heard his low growl and felt the vibration from his chest through hers as his hand swept down her back and pressed, driving her hips harder against his. She shook even more then as his fierce erection jutted against her. She parted her legs to let him fit better, nearer to where she wanted his touch most. His hand tightened on her hip, grinding her on him.

Another wave knocked them. This time he lost his footing and she slipped from his hold, her lips torn from his, the seal—the flare of insanity—severed.

She staggered and straightened at the same time as he. It wasn’t fast, it was confused. And then three feet separated them. Breathless she glanced down and saw her nipples were diamond hard. So were his. So was something else of his.

Shocked she slowly stared up his straining body. He too was breathless and she tried not to stare at the way his gorgeous chest was rising and falling, and his defined abs rippling. Instinctively she lifted her hand to her mouth, automatically moving—too late—to hide the swollen sensitivity of her lips and their blatant, desperate ache for more. Finally she dragged her hungry gaze all the way up and she looked him in the eye.

His expression was burnished with arrogant defiance and his lips were curled into a saturnine smile. ‘You more than met me halfway, Maia.’

‘I stumbled—’

‘You wanted it and youlikedit.’ He turned away.

She didn’t like that he turned his back to her. She felt instantly cold.

‘Aron,’ he said gruffly.

‘Your Highness.’

Stunned, Maia swivelled towards the beach. There was an ancient man walking towards them on the fine white sand, impassively holding white towels and studiously not looking her in the eyes.

How long had he been there watching them? The awful thing was she’d been so lost to passion that they could have been in front of astadiumfull of people staring and she wouldn’t have stopped. She wouldn’t have given a damn. Because all she’d wanted was more of Niko’s touch. That realisation shocked her all over again.

But the elderly manservant didn’t bat an eyelid. Apparently he wasn’t fazed by a fully clothed, soaking woman being kissed to within an inch of ecstasy in the midday sun.

‘Thank you, Aron. This is Maia. Can you please show her around the facilities. I would like her to be accommodated in the coral room.’

‘It is already prepared, Your Highness.’

Niko turned to her and an exasperated but amused look entered his eyes. ‘Go with Aron, Maia. You’ll be perfectlysafewith him.’ He underlined the word edgily, as if mocking her for feeling unsafe with him.

Well, shewasn’tsafe from the very mixed feelings Niko wrought within her. But she didn’t move. She refused to jump to his every order in the way he so clearly expected. ‘What are you going to do?’

His eyes widened and his already charged body tensed. Yes, he was definitely unused to being questioned. He never had to answer to anyone. But Maia stared at him expectantly and she was determined to wait for an answer.

‘Kingly things,’ he said stiffly.

‘Kinkythings?’ She deliberately misinterpreted what he’d said and allowed tartness to sharpen her tone. ‘Well, that makes total sense.’

Yes, it was childish. And yet she was totally satisfied when she saw his jaw drop as she turned her back on him and stalked up the beach.

CHAPTER SIX

NIKOLITERALLY,FIRMLY, rubbed away his rueful smile with his fingers on his lips as he watched Maia march up the beach towards his favourite place on earth. Her stiff spine radiated outrage but even so he couldn’t resist appreciating the lush curve of her waist and sensual flare of her hips that he could now finally see because her shapeless clothes were sodden and stuck to her skin. His hand tingled from where he’d gripped her softness only seconds ago. Happily the horrible headscarf had been lost at sea in that frantic swim and her hair had loosened from its knot in all the effort. Now it hung in gleaming black ropes right to the small of her back—the silkiness had whipped his skin when he’d brought her flush against him and he wanted to wind it around his wrists.

As she stalked off like a wilful, dangerous Siren all he wanted was to rip that unsexy outfit from her beautiful body, clutch her close and bury himself deep in her astonishingly fiery hold. Instead he just stared, sluggishly processing what the hell had happened. How had he responded to her touch so ravenously? Why, when once more the way she’d spoken to him had been shocking?

Unvarnished. Honest. Devastating.

‘Be gentle and take it slow’ had been the unsolicited advice from that damned doctor. Hell. Niko had just ravaged her mouth in full-out beast mode. Explicitly carnal and with extremely uncharacteristic possessiveness, he’d displayed zero finesse nor the patience to seduce her slowly given what he knew about her.

Yet apparently she hadn’t needed slow, had she? She’d been as hot as he. Hungrily rubbing those lush breasts against him in a way that made him forget where they were, why they were here and hell, frankly who he evenwas. All that had mattered was capturing the full force of her fire in his arms. Damned if she hadn’t burned his brains to ash in an instant. And she hadn’t been afraid to throw out an equally inflammatory comment in the aftermath, had she? Though then she’d turned red and fled. That seemed to be a habit of hers. Was she wary of reprisal? Maybe she should be. But maybe one day soon she’d have to face the full consequences of letting her sassy, sweet mouth run amok on him...

But that flush suggested she’d been as surprised by her snap as he was. She was like a skittish kitten testing new-found claws. Maybe it allwasnew to her. Because surely if she’d been like this with any other guy before now, no way would she still be a virgin. Just none. So either she hadn’t been playful like this, or some fool had never picked up on her sensual challenging side and encouraged the hell out of it. That aspect of her definitely ought to be developed, and wasn’t Niko just the man to help her with that?

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