Duke of Desire (Maiden Lane #12)(88)

“What you do to me,” he rasped, and opened his mouth over hers.

She arched up, feeling all that bare skin, warm and alive. The hairs on his chest tickled over her nipples, teasing them into points as he kissed her. His thigh was between her legs, pressing insistently into her. Making her widen her legs and gasp.

She clutched his shoulders, feeling his muscles shifting beneath his skin. Feeling a sense of wonderful freedom. This, this, must be what it was to be truly happy.

To be happy in love.

She opened her eyes.

He shifted, lifting his head. Kissing along the underside of her jaw. “Are you ready now?”

She tilted her head back. “Yes.”

“Then put my cock in you now, Wife.”

She widened her legs and reached down, grasping that heated length of flesh. Placing it at her entrance where she was wet.

She looked up at him. “I love you, Raphael.”

He gazed into her eyes and thrust into her, burying himself to the hilt with one movement. When he was fully seated, his flesh in hers, linked to her as intimately as it was possible for a man to be with a woman, he paused and said, “You are my wife and my love, Iris. Without you I die.”

He lowered himself so that he lay completely on her, his body covering hers, and he began to move. Gently rocking. Hardly thrusting at all.

The movements so subtle and yet so right that they nearly drove her insane.

Iris gasped and twined her legs around his, locking his body to hers so that they moved together.

Grinding.

His shoulders shone with sweat. His eyes were feral and he gritted his teeth as he worked his cock into her. Seeking her pleasure and his.

She moaned, long and low, wanting to arch, to thrash, to scream. Instead she opened her mouth and bit his shoulder, tasting salt.

Tasting want.

Then she gasped. “Please.”

“What do you want?” he whispered in her ear, an incubus, dark and alive and in her. “Tell me. What do you need?”

“I …” Her mouth opened, wordless.

“Tell me,” his smoky voice curled around her.

“You.”

He chuckled, dark and low.

“This?” He thrust short and hard into her, the impact sending jolts of pleasure through her body. “Yes, that,” he murmured to himself as if pleased, and did it again.

And again.

Until the heat between them combusted. Until she felt hot liquid wash over her limbs. Until she looked up and wondered why she’d ever thought his gray eyes emotionless.

He was watching her with passion. With lust.

With so much love.

She felt tears in her eyes.

He groaned above her, his hips jerking without rhythm, but all the while he watched her with those eyes.

And when he at last stilled and rested his sweaty forehead against hers, he whispered, “I love you.”





Epilogue




Now the days went by and time trundled on until at last it came to be that a year and a day had passed.

Ann took the few things she had brought with her into the barren wastelands. Everything fit into a small sack. All but her mother’s pink rock. That she held in her hand.

She turned to the Rock King. “I’ll away, then.”

He sat by the door to his grim tower and he didn’t look up. “Indeed.”

She hesitated. He’d never shown her affection, but his arms had been warm in the night. “Will you bid me farewell?”

“Farewell, my wife.”

She took a step, but then whirled to face him again. “You could come with me!”

At last he looked at her, his black eyes grave.

“No, I cannot.”

Ann frowned. “Why not?”

“Because I am cursed to remain here,” he replied simply.

She looked at him, this stern, gray man. Looked at the ugly black tower and the surrounding barren landscape.

Then she looked to where she knew her father’s hut lay. “I’ll come back.”

“No,” he said gently, “you won’t.”

And she wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. No one came back to him.

At that moment her heart broke for him.

Ann dropped her little sack. “Then I’ll stay with you.”

For the second time only she saw surprise in his eyes. “What?”

She nodded. “I’m staying here with you as your wife.”

He stood, his fists clenched. “For how long?”

“For always.” And she held out her mother’s pink pebble to him.

As she said the words the ground trembled beneath her feet. The tower shuddered and fell, rocks tumbling down to be swallowed by the earth. All around them green grass, verdant trees, and blue streams billowed up from the ground, overwhelming the dull rock. Where once the black tower squatted, a shining gold-and-white castle stood.

The doors opened and a crowd of people swarmed out, soldiers and ladies in fancy dresses, farmers and townspeople, children and old crones.

Ann turned to look in astonishment at the Rock King, but he had changed as well. Where before he had been dreary gray and black, now his hair was a burnished brown, and his eyes glowed clear blue. He wore fine velvet clothes in shades of red and green and purple, and she fell to her knees before him, for she knew him to be a king.