I press my cheek to his chest with a gusty sigh. Lord, it feels glorious to be held by this man. The entire world could fall down and he wouldn’t let a speck of dust reach me. “Yes. Right there. Thank you.”
When I sling my legs up around his waist, I swear I do it so his arms won’t have to hold my entire weight. I’m trying to be helpful. But oh God, I don’t expect it to feel so good to have the thick trunk of his body between my legs.
“Oh my,” I whisper, nestling closer—encountering a thick ridge between our stomachs.
Rex goes very still, his breath rattling in my ear. “Ah, love. This isn’t suitable.”
“What is that?” I whisper, shifting my hips.
He hisses through his teeth. “That’s a part of me you’ll never have to worry about. I’m sorry. It’s very difficult to keep it from…reacting…when you’re clinging to me like this. Wet and beautiful and other things.”
It’s an erection. Of course. I’ve been learning about health and anatomy for years. It’s just that the diagram of the male body made the penis look so small. Like a thumb.
This has the thickness of my bedpost. The length of a milk jug.
“W-was it like this last night?” I whisper into his neck, unable to subdue a thrill.
I hear him swallow. “I’m ashamed to say, yes, Britta. I was…very hard with you pressed up against me like that. I couldn’t make it go away, no matter what I tried.”
Pleasure slides into my belly, sticky and hot. “You desire me, then,” I breathe. “You want to put—”
“Oh Jesus. Don’t finish that sentence,” he growls. “I am your guard. I shouldn’t even be holding you like this. I’ve no goddamn right.”
“But I like you holding me.”
Rex pulls back, his expression incredulous. “Why? Don’t you have eyes, Britta?”
My brows knit together. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He shakes his head. “Britta, I look like a beast of the bloody forest. Scarred and heavy and hairy—”
Ha! I knew it!
“And you’re…well, you have a mirror. You’re nothing short of an angel. Do you not see the differences in us?”
As he’s been speaking, his hands have begun to shape my calves, his palms running up and down the curves of each. As if unconscious of the movement. And I’m definitely not going to say anything to stop him, because the scrape of his rough hands is heaven itself, sending fiery tingles along my limbs. “I don’t understand. Are you saying two people have to be the same body type in order to—”
“Do not. Finish. That sentence.” His hands are coasting over my knees now, gripping me mid-thigh. “Let’s get you dressed and back to the palace, Princess.”
That’s what he says. But his eyes are zeroed in on my mouth.
“Maybe you should kiss me instead,” I murmur, tilting my face up toward his. “I think that’s what you want to do.”
“What I want doesn’t factor into this.” His touch coasts higher, dragging my drenched slip up toward my hip, his mouth dipping closer to mine. “I’m your servant.”
“Maybe I’ll order you to do it, then,” I whisper. “Just like last night.”
He holds his breath a beat.
I search his eyes, wanting to make sure the feeling is mutual and I’m not abusing my power over this man. But no. His pupils have bled into the rich brown and I sense the same hunger inside him that is purring inside of me. Maybe his is even stronger than mine. Yes, his hands clutch my hips now, molding me, learning my shape, and I roll my body on instinct, enticing his bulge with light rides of my sex. In response, he yanks me closer, his shallow breaths pelting my mouth. “Britta.”
“I hereby order you to kiss me, Rexington Monroe.”
I’m not prepared for the full force of this man, my guard. He makes a hoarse sound and goes to battle with my mouth, a rough angling of his lips, breathing, breathing, absorbing me. Pulling at my mouth with seemingly everything inside of him. He begins to walk us toward the shore, the water making rippling sounds around his legs, moving with more and more urgency as he goes. And he never breaks that first suctioning kiss. Not until he has me laid down on the grassy bank of the inlet and he’s blocking out the sun above me does Rex finally give me his tongue. He tastes me with it just as I’m running out of air, so I gasp into the determined intrusion, before recovering, lungs replenished, and I reach up, spearing my fingers into his hair, pulling him down for more.
I’ve read books and seen plays where the woman is overcome with lust, often destroying her life for one night, one experience, and I always thought it silly. But I never will again. I would trade chests of gold and ships and land for Rex’s kiss. There is no hesitation in him, just out and out hunger, gruff grunts coming from his throat while he licks that tongue into me, over and over again, his thick body settling in between my thighs, though never giving me his full weight. I mewl over that fact, trying to pull him down on top of me, but he resists and kisses me with even more thoroughness, distracting me, turning me into a writhing paramour beneath his thick, warrior’s body.
Finally, Rex tears his mouth away, burying his face in my neck, his breath sawing in and out. “Jesus, the taste of you. Perfect. Perfect girl. You have to stop me, Britta.”
“I don’t want to stop.”
He lifts his head, his eyes clouded with thirst. Some anger as well. “What are you offering me? Your virginity? The future king might have something to say about that.” He looks down at my body, on display in nothing but a wet, white slip, and groans, running his hand down the center of my breasts, my belly, stopping just above my mound. “My God. If there’s a female alive worth getting hanged over, it’s you.”
“No.” My breath stutters. “I would never let that happen. I’d never tell.”
As if compelled, his hips move more securely into the cradle of mine, his erection hot and hard against my core. With a bitten off moan, I wrap my bare legs around his hips and take a slow, involuntary thrust from Rex, both of us panting, panting, his fingers burying in the grass, ripping it up. “I was in your bed chamber last night. You’ve made me your personal guard. It might be insane, the beautiful queen taking a beast between her thighs, but they’d have no one else to blame. Worse than anything, you would be…ridiculed. I couldn’t bear it.” He pumps his hips again and bares his teeth at me. “I can’t fuck you, Britta. Bad as I need to.”
Reality comes crashing down on me.
He’s right.
He’s…right.
If we were found in this position, Rex would take the punishment. Not me.
How selfish I’ve been.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, horrified. “I’m putting you in danger. I-I didn’t think—”
“Shhh, love.” Rex shakes his head. “I won’t have you feeling guilty over giving me the best moments of my life.”
“They were?” I breathe, smiling dazedly. “The best?”
“Yes, love. The best.” He stares down at me, conflict and misery waging war on his face. “Christ, but you’re sweet,” he rasps. “Britta, I could…”