Chapter 12
Raz’s thighs ached with the primal urge to pound into the splayed female beneath him, to mark her permanently as his possession.
What had happened to him? What had happened to one night until the ball ended? He was civilized, dignified—he already owned more than he could comfortably hold.
And he would throw it all aside for this ray of light who had reached him from across galaxies.
With slowly accelerating force, he stroked her, burying his hard flesh in the slick heat of her body. And he couldn’t look away. Her dark eyes, gleaming with the reflection of the glowglobes, were wide enough to swallow him. And he’d willingly, gladly, ardently fall.
But not before she did.
Watching her closely, he timed his caresses to the hitch of her breath and the slow, deep contractionsinside her. Ah, the way she held him inside… To distract himself, he dipped his head to kiss her again. But that was its own irresistible delight. The taste of the ghost-mead intoxicated him more than if he’d drunk the entire decanter himself. Her sweet little gasp nearly pushed him over the edge. But he was determined they would fall together.
He shifted his position, bracing his knees on theanti-grav gown, so they were both floating precariously. His weight strained the small devices, and the whole makeshift bed tilted toward him, angling her body sharply into his. Her whimpering cry told him he’d found the deepest heart of her pleasure. He quickened his pace, his body shivering as his control wavered. He wanted her too much, and her every glance and sigh stoked him higher. But larfit, he was a duke, and he would not fail in his duty, not to her.
But when she grabbed his backside and yanked him close, rocking their floating divan, he almost lost it. Nearly slipped right off the petals, nearly orgasmed without restraint, nearly giggled in delight.
He managed to control all of them, except the last, which emerged in a throaty chuckle. “You want it like that?” he rasped.“You want that much of me?”
“Oh yes, Your Grace,” she cried. “Please!”
How many times had he heard those words in his privileged life, and yet they never reverberated through him as they had when spilling from her lips.
Or maybe it was the vibration straining the anti-gravs struggling to keep them afloat. He shifted her again, bearing down, taking the anti-gravs and her to the edge of whatthey could bear, his muscles quivering with the strain. And yet he knew he would go all night, into the next day, for all of eternity.
With a sharp, keening cry she came. She thrust up against him three times, stoking her own pleasure. He’d never been so thrilled to be used. He’d give the universe—fine, just his solar system—to thrill in the sensation of her spasming around him, her arms lockedaround him as if she’d never let him go. When she whispered his name in a broken breath, his own release seized him, and he thrust into her with long, shuddering strokes that wrenched another cry from her passion-swollen lips.
He slanted his mouth over hers, drinking her pleasure as if it was the finest ghost-mead, the most exotic coffee from her faraway Earth. As their shared breaths seesawedbetween them, gradually calming, the anti-gravs sank to barely above the stone tile floor, exhausted. He knew the feeling.
Rayna held him tight for another infinity of heartbeats before her arms sagged limply to the sides and she let out a gusting sigh. The tattered remains of the last leaf of tissue clinging to her body ruffled in the breeze, and he petted the sweat-dampened curves of her tokeep the scraps from blowing away. Not that he wouldn’t delightedly have her naked again.
But he had other considerations besides his pleasure. That would always be the case from now on, since he’d stepped into his sire’s boots.
Regretfully he smoothed out the crumpled petals and reattached them to her gown. With the anti-gravs worn down, the gauze hung limp and used around her. She didn’t looklike a lady; she looked like a lover, thoroughly handled. He’d done that to her, and the knowledge roused an unacceptably primitive satisfaction within him.
She watched his efforts with uncharacteristic passivity. “Good thing you know how to do this.” A crease appeared between her brows. His ray of light had never seemed to be the jealous sort, but he could read that expression well enough.
“I haven’t done it many times,” he chided her. “No matter what is going through your head right now.”
She glanced away, spots of embarrassed color riding her cheekbones so recently flushed prettily with her desire. “I didn’t mean… It’s fine. Whatever you did before, we didn’t even know each other then. And what you do now…” She gave an awkward, one-shoulder shrug that made the servos in the anti-gravswhir sluggishly. “It’s not like we’re really engaged.”
“True.” Even as he agreed, her diffidence irked him. Mostly because it too was true. This was the agreement they had made, for both their sakes, and it was better to hold a little part of themselves separate. But he preferred her flushed with passion, not with shame at her instinctive possessiveness, the same instinct that stirred in him.
He clenched his fist against the urge to—what had she called it?—deflower her again. And again. Until the inconvenient engagement was the incontrovertible truth.
But he had a duchy to preserve, while she only wanted to return home.
He eased her upright while he knelt to attach the last of the exhausted petals to her skirts. The last were hopelessly crumpled, and they rode up around her knees,exposing the glittering crystal high heels. She wobbled just a little bit, and that hint of fragility incited protective reflexes that at one time would’ve confused him. But now he understood this was what he’d been bred for, raised for, sent away for: To become a man who would do whatever was necessary to protect those under him.
He latched his fingers loosely around her ankle and looked upat her. “I’ll take you back to the rooms via the servants’ corridors,” he said. “You fulfilled your end of the bargain in front of the recorders. I won’t subject you to further scrutiny from Octiron, my mother, or anyone else.”
Instead of thanking him, she stepped out of his loose hold. “I know the way back myself,” she said coolly. “It was a fun ball, and I had fun with your balls. That’s goodenough for me.”
He narrowed his eyes at her unnecessary vulgarity. It wasn’t like her, as if she was trying to push him way. “There’s no need to be satisfied with just that. You have a whole universe open to you now.” He straightened in front of her, naked.
She twisted away to look out toward the courtyard, but the view was blocked by the scrambler. He didn’t think she was even really lookingat it when she said, “I never asked for the universe. I was fine where I was, not bothering anybody, nobody bothering me.”
“But you were lonely. You said so.”
