down his chest, her eyes never leaving his. “I have a feeling you don’t have any room inside you for more guilt.”
Cursed woman. Why did she have to see things so clearly? “Are you charging for this session?”
“What does that mean?”
“Like a therapist. They charge per hour to listen to you talk about your feelings.”
“That seems like a waste of money to me. You could go out into the woods and just scream until you feel better.”
He looked down at her bland expression. “Is that what you do?”
“I have.”
He cupped her face with his hands. “What makes you scream, Zara?”
“The first time I did it,” she said, looking down for a moment, “it was after my parents died. I ran into the woods. And I knew I was alone. Really, really alone. So it didn’t matter if I screamed. I had to behave myself at the palace. I had to be a princess. But out there, I didn’t have to be anything. Nothing but sad. Nothing but lonely. So I howled like a wolf. I don’t know for how long. No one heard me, or if they did no one came for me. When I went back...”
“Did you feel better?”
“Not really. But I could breathe.” She traced the path of a water droplet over his chest. “So whenever I had trouble breathing, that’s what I would do. I was alone a lot. I found ways to make it bearable. Ways that it was an advantage.”
He had a flash of his own life. His own behavior. Parties. Drunkenness. Sleeping around with any woman who happened to show interest. That was how he combatted the years of isolation as a child.
An isolation that had been an illusion. Locked in a bedroom, in a palace full of people, you could never scream.
So he had found new ways to learn to breathe.
“Perhaps you could take me to your mountain someday and show me,” he said.
“Are you lonely right now?” she asked.
“No,” he said, and he found that it was the truth.
“I’m not lonely either.” She pressed her mouth to his, light, tentative. “You can touch me now. I’m ready.”
He didn’t deserve such easy forgiveness, but he would be damned if he didn’t take it.
He did not need to be asked again. He claimed her mouth, his touch anything but tentative. She said she was ready. Giving him permission showed that she knew what she wanted. And he would take her at her word, because he had no other choice. He had to have her. Had to have this. To chase the full, aching feeling in his chest that was so different from the emptiness that normally lingered there. Yes, this hurt too, but it was a different pain. One that he relished, one that he embraced.
He wrapped his arms around her, her breasts pressed tightly against his chest, slick from the water. He held her tight, tilting her backward so that her hair was in the water again, making sure that he had rinsed all the shampoo away.
He brought her back up, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her eyes locked on his. There was something in them. Something luminous, filled with wonder. And he knew for a fact that he was undeserving of it.
But he would take it. And he would take her.
He claimed her lips again, delving deep, his tongue sliding against hers. He’d kissed so many women. More than he could count. More than he cared to count. But this was different. As though it were something entirely new. She was not simply another woman; she was Zara. She was wild, spicy, untamed. Like the land she had come from. He tangled his fingers in her newly cleaned hair, holding her hard against him. He was glad that this time they didn’t have any clothes between them. But even the water was too much.
He gathered her tightly into him, moving into a standing position, holding her against his chest. He stepped over the edge of the tub, carrying her out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. They were both still wet, but he didn’t care. As he had done that first day, he laid her down the middle of the bed, but this time he looked. He looked his fill. From those full breasts, down to her slender waist, the gentle flare of her hips and the dark shadow at the apex of her thighs. Water droplets rolled down her skin and he had a fantasy of licking each and every one of them away.
Already, he was so hard it was painful. She made him shake. Made him feel as if he were the virgin. His years, his experience, melted away. Until there was no one else but Zara. Nothing else but this.
She was staring at him, transfixed. “I have never seen a naked man before. Not one... Not one quite like you.”
“Meaning?”
“I have occasionally seen men changing. Or getting ready to bathe in the river. I have not seen them aroused.”
“And what do you think?”
Color slashed across her high, arrogant cheekbones. Arousal, he thought, not embarrassment. “I very much like it. You. Also it.”
He couldn’t help laughing at that. “I am glad.”
He joined her on the bed, placing his hand on her thigh and drawing it down the length of her leg. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to the inside of her knee. She shivered beneath his touch and he moved forward. He saw a drop of water on her inner thigh and he lapped it up, moving closer to what he craved. He owed her. She had satisfied him out in the hall. And while he knew she had received some pleasure from their coming together, it wasn’t enough. She had also been given pain, which meant she deserved a double portion of pleasure. He was her only lover, would be her only lover ever. It was up to him to show her how incredible it could be.
It wasn’t entirely altruistic on his part. He craved her. Needed to know what she tasted like. Needed to satiate the hunger that was building inside him for her. That had been from the first moment he saw her. He hadn’t realized just how much he wanted her until that moment out in the hall. Until he had lost all control and had had no choice but to claim her.
He took hold of her hips, moving forward and sliding his tongue over her slick flesh, teasing the bundle of nerves he knew was the source of her pleasure. She lifted her rear off the bed, pulling away from him, but he held her fast.
“You can’t do that,” she said, her voice trembling slightly.
“Of course I can.” He ran his tongue over the same path again. “And I intend to do it until you aren’t screaming because you’re lonely. But because you’re screaming my name. You’ll scream until you can’t breathe because of me.”
He lowered his head again, tasting her, satisfying his craving until she was rocking her hips against his mouth, until she was whimpering. He teased the entrance to her body with his finger, sliding it in slowly, before adding a second, establishing a steady rhythm with his lips, tongue and hands. She was close, so close. So wet and ready. And he was so hard he was about to lose all control. But he was intent on giving her this. On satisfying her in this way before he claimed any pleasure for himself.
And then, finally, she screamed her release, her internal muscles tightening around his fingers as she did.
While she was still shivering from the aftershocks,
