Page 30 of Crowned For The King's Secret

They reached a space where she could tell the light was soft, muted. The kiss softened, stopped.

‘I need you,’ he said, his voice rough and low. ‘I need you and I can’t—’

She placed a finger over his lips. ‘I’m here. For you.’

Something changed then. He placed her gently, reverently, on the bed and climbed up next to her. Lying side by side, they faced each other. Sandro stroked his finger tenderly down the side of her face, drifting to her breast. Caressing her nipple through the fabric. He brought his lips to hers once more, teasing her mouth with his own. Their breaths mingling. She began to unbutton his business shirt, smoothing her hands over the strong, sculpted muscles as he moaned into her. He shrugged it from his shoulders, tossed it to the floor. Reached round the back of her dress, slowly pulled down the zip. It was as if she could feel each notch. The sleeves fell from her shoulders and he skimmed his lips over the side of her neck.

She lay back as he lifted the dress from her body, looking down at her in her lacy underwear of blues and greens to match the dress, his eyes the stormy colour of the deepest ocean. Victoria stretched like a cat under that worshipping gaze.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmured as he stood and she took him in. His body was leaner than she’d remembered from their night together. Harder. Her mouth watered at the sight of the carved and chiselled muscle, the highlights and hollows in the golden light from the lamp on the bedside table. Sandro dropped his trousers and underwear, his legs strong and muscular. His erection impressive. She needed him inside her, with an ache so deep she knew only he could conquer it, desire so overwhelming it fogged her brain. He moved to the bedside drawer, sheathed himself and crawled over her, hooking his hands into her underwear and gently dragging her panties down her legs. Then he dropped his head to the centre of her. Kissing her stomach, then lower.

‘I want to taste you,’ he whispered into the skin of her thigh, pressing soft kisses closer and closer to where she needed him most. Then his tongue found her. The perfect spot. Teasing, tantalising. She tilted her hips up to meet him.

‘I need you,’ she said, her voice breathless, almost stolen by the pleasure as he sucked and her back arched from the bed, the pressure between her legs building and building.

Then it stopped. She moaned in protest and he smiled, something wicked and at the same time joyous. Moving to her bra. Undoing it. Casting it aside. Taking her left nipple into his mouth and lavishing it with attention till she writhed in ecstasy.

For a few moments she believed she could die from pleasure. It could all end, right here and now. She was so close, and then he was over her, arms propped either side of her head, their noses touching. The blunt sensation of him between her legs.

‘Whatever you need,bella, I will give you.’

She tilted her pelvis up, and he slid inside in one long thrust that stoked the ache inside, all the while easing her. A contradiction of sensations. Then he stilled and they stayed there, his forehead to hers, their panting breaths mingling. She slid her hands round his narrow waist, resting them on his buttocks, the muscles taught and tense. As if it took all his will not to move. Then he began rocking, the slow thrust in and out. His lips teasing hers in feather-light swipes. Keeping up the gentle, remorseless pace. She gripped as his muscles under her palms bunched and released with each move deep into the heart of her. Till she stopped caring and their breath and lips and bodies fused in perfect synchronicity. The glorious slide of him winding her tighter and higher. In a slow and perfect burn that caught, and roared over her as she sighed his name breathlessly onto his lips.

She surrounded him, with her scent, her slick body. It was all he could do to hold on till the spasms subsided and he gloried in her again. He could lose himself in this woman, as she curled her legs round him and gripped tight, still moving with him. Such a wonder. The care she showed to him...her seemingly boundless capacity to give. Sandro never wanted it to end.

The feeling built, prickling at the base of his spine, curling and winding harder and tighter as he kept the slow, steady pace, her gasps and moans driving his arousal tighter and further. How he wanted to thrust hard into her body and end this torture, yet he kept going, because of her, the grip and release of her hands furtive and desperate and he was sure she was close again. Then the desire became too much to bear as he ground into her, swivelling his hips, the exquisite feel of her hot, wet body against his own, and the sensation ripped through him, tearing him apart, putting him back together. Then she followed, pulsing around him once more, her nails cutting into his buttocks as another orgasm overtook her. He’d be happy if they drew blood as wave after wave of sensation followed.

He slid out of her, rolled onto his back and carried her with him. She lay there limp, breathing heavily. Skin damp. Her hair a tangle across his chest. The rightness of the moment settled bone deep. The wonder of this moment bright, like a beacon. How Victoria gave and gave. To their son, and especially to him, when he was the one who least deserved it. Sandro was humbled. She was a woman who was owed tender care. A soft place to call her own. He owed her so much, but after tonight?

His debt was greater than ever before.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SANDROSATINhis office, waiting. He’d invited Victoria here for an important discussion, on neutral territory. Since their night together a little under a week before what he hadn’t expected was the constant incandescence of his desire. It was unrelenting. Bleeding into every spare second of the day. It addled his common sense.

Sandro had no idea what was happening to him.

That night...they’d both acknowledged in the moment that it was a mistake, but try to convince his body, which craved her. He’d had to enforce some distance. He’d visited Nic, of course, but otherwise remained cool. Perhaps a little aloof, however much he was sure Victoria hadn’t cared. After a few days, she’d seemed just as aloof too, though he didn’t know why that was an annoyance, like a burr in his shoe. It was a relief that they could remain practical about the situation in which they found themselves.

Instead, he’d immersed himself in long days of meetings. About security, safety. The future... All this meant he’d not had enough sleep, had drunk too much coffee, changed the strict routines imposed since his concussion. Those things did not bode well, given the tenuous nature of his health since the accident. Whilst he was still in the recovery phase it was as if he’d taken a backward step with Victoria’s presence in his life. The constant worry, the fears in the dark of night when he recalled the loss of his parents. The photos. How fragile humans were. How small his own child was...

Yet he mustn’t think about any of it. The past was behind him, and the future required his full attention. Sandro pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling...he wasn’t sure. His headaches usually gave him some warning, enough to find a dark room and hide himself away till they passed. This was different, an ever-present weight he wasn’t sure how to shift.

Probably tiredness. The past few months had been enough to try the strongest of men.

He checked his watch. Of all the meetings he’d held recently, this was his most important in many ways. A solution to protect his son, and Victoria. The only sensible approach, especially now that the second DNA test had confirmed Nicolai was his.

Marriage.

Given her clear interest in doing everything possible for Nicolai, he knew she’d agree. It was the only thing that made sense.

A knock sounded at the door.

‘Enter.’

His private secretary ushered Victoria into the room. His breath caught as he saw her, even though today she was dressed practically for running round with a little boy. However, there was something about seeing her in the clothes he’d arranged to fill her wardrobe that gave him a kind of perverse satisfaction—jeans that hung slightly low on her hips, a simple black T-shirt that hugged her body. Her blonde hair was done in another messy topknot. She looked fresh, casual.

Beautiful.

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