Page 31 of Awakened On Her Royal Wedding Night
“I do.Yes.”
His features were shadowed and dark, the line of his mouth a cruel tilt. But his tracing touch was barely there as he explored the lace of her underwear.
“Give me your mouth. I want to kiss you again.”
She tightened her arms around his neck, sealing her lips to his while his devilish touch continued to draw those maddening lines down her center, the pressure too light. Too teasing.
In a flagrant move, she thrust her tongue into his mouth, trying to tell him how badly she neededmore.
In an equally deliberate move, he picked up the gusset of her undies and shifted it to the side, baring her damp flesh to the cool air of the back seat.
She looked again at the driver and the guard, both silhouettes facing forward through the dark privacy window, both oblivious to what the Crown Prince was doing to her.
He tipped her another degree off balance and ducked to steal another taste of her nipple. At the same time, he began to explore the wet seam of her sex, parting her folds, deepening his caress, exploring and invading. Claiming.
She released a guttural moan of unrestrained joy, clenching on his finger as he made love to her with his hand. He suckled at her breast and danced her toward an elusive pinnacle.
“Hurry,cara mia,” he lifted his head to coax. “We’re almost there.” His touch rolled and pressed, growing insistent. “And so are you.”
With another sob of abandonment, she caught his hand and held his touch where she needed it. She crushed her mouth to his and ground her hips andbroke, flying outward in a thousand pieces. It was so powerful she turned her face into his neck, every breath a cry of ecstasy while he continued to caress her and murmur in Italian, holding her tight with his other arm, keeping her safe while she shook.
Slowly she came back to herself, still trembling and weak. She was dimly aware of him fixing her underwear and lowering her leg and helping her thread her arm back into the sleeve of her dress before he drew her zipper up.
“That is another compensation I want you to be brazen about accepting.” His lips pressed to hers with something like tenderness. “I enjoyed that very much.”
“Do you...” She was still befuddled, but she was aware of the prod of his arousal against her hip. “Should I...?”
“I’ll wait. Go back to your seat. The car has stopped and I can see paparazzi is already gathered here, too.”
Felipe didn’t want to wait. His body didn’t. Pleasuring Claudine and feeling the intensity of her response had nearly put him over the edge behind the sealed fly of his trousers. He longed to lose himself in her for hours. Days.
But therein lay the issue. He would lose himself in the process. He had known this lust between them was powerful. Now he knew exactly how all-consuming it could become, and that simply would not do.
As they entered their royal suite overlooking avenue Montaigne and the Eiffel Tower, Claudine’s maid appeared in the door to the bedroom they were sharing.
Felipe had interviewed Ippolita himself before giving her the opportunity to prove herself to Claudine. She had been suitably intimidated by him and very earnest in her admiration for his fiancée. She didn’t speak English and he had encouraged her to keep it that way, to help Claudine learn Italian, but also because it was useful in situations like this when he wanted to speak to Claudine without her maid following every word.
“You head to bed,” Felipe said to Claudine. “I have calls to make.”
“I thought—” Claudine’s cheekbones scorched red. Her confused gaze searched his.
“Run a bath,” he told Ippolita in Italian, who nodded and hurried away.
“I don’t understand.” Claudine’s brow pleated with hurt. Tension came in around her mouth. There was accusation there, too, and defensiveness in the way she folded her arms so tightly across the breasts he had worshipped. “Did I do something wrong in the car?”
“Not at all. I enjoyed our interlude as much as you did. This is not a rejection, Claudine.” It was an exercise in self-discipline.
“What then? A power trip?” Her troubled expression hardened into a glare, one sheened by angry tears. “I thought we were sharing something. Ourselves, maybe, but you were actually proving how helpless you can make me feel?”
She had been delightfully at his mercy, yet sensuously demanding in the way she had pressed his hand to her mound and moaned into his mouth. It had been exquisite.
“I wanted to give you pleasure.” He had reveled in it. “It’s as simple as that. You asked what you should expect from our marriage and I showed you.”
“Yes, I’m beginning to fully grasp what I should expect—to be treated like a toy.” A strident note had entered her voice. It annoyed him.
“I do not view you as a toy.” He was well aware she was a fully grown, hot-blooded woman. “I’m merely avoiding any slip-ups that could result in a pregnancy that is not seen as wholly legitimate.” That wasn’t entirely a prevarication.
Behind her shock, a shadow of profound injury moved across her expression.
