The King's Spinster Bride, (Royal Wedding #1)(28)
A robed, bearded man steps forward. “But First Warrior, it is against custom to leave a groom alone with his bride before the weddi—”
Mathior turns and gives the man such a fierce look that the interloper visibly flinches. He bows and hurries back out, ushering the others along with him. A second later, the door is shut and I am alone in the room with my soon-to-be husband. He turns back to me and his mouth thins into a line.
“Are you this unhappy, Halla? I would not force you into marriage.”
“You’re not forcing me,” I say quickly. “I simply had to think for a while and clear my head. Make sure that this was the right thing to do.”
He leans in, searching my face as if looking for lies. “I did not please you last night?”
My face flames hot immediately. “That wasn’t it.”
“So you were pleased?”
Gods, he’s really going to make me answer that. I give a jerky nod, mortified, and before I can say more, he sags to his knees before me, arms wrapped around my waist as he holds me close. “Halla,” he murmurs, voice husky. “I have aged a hundred years in the last handful of minutes.”
I want to stroke the glossy black head that is so close, and I hesitate…then decide that he’s going to be mine, is he not? I can touch him. So I put a hand on his head and caress him, sliding my fingers through his thick hair. “I’m sorry if I worried you. I needed time to think and make sure that I was making the right decision and not being led astray by my heart.”
His head presses against my belly and he takes in a deep breath. “Someone spoke to you. Made you doubt me.”
“Mmm,” I say noncommittally, because I don’t want the old woman to die. No matter that she was not my favorite person, she meant well enough. “I needed to think anyhow. But yes, I worried if I was letting my girlish fancies run away with my common sense.”
“Why do you always doubt that I want you?” Mathior looks up at me, his heart in his singular dark eye. The paint on his face is smudged and likely decorating the front of my dress, but I find that I do not care. “Have I not shown you my love?”
I reach down and brush my fingers over his jaw. “Mathior, I’m sorry if I doubted. It’s just…I’m so much older than you…”
He growls low in his throat, like an animal, and in the next moment, he lifts me into his arms and carries me as if I weigh nothing. A second later, I’m tossed down onto the bed on my back, and he pushes my skirts up.
I let out a yelp of surprise, pushing them back down. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to show you just how desirable you are.” The look on his face is fierce, as if I’ve somehow offended him with my worries. “If it means I have to lick that sweet cunt of yours until you come on my face six times, then I will.”
“Mathior!” I let out a scandalized gasp even as heat pulses low in my belly.
“You’re not old,” he tells me as he moves my skirts aside and tugs on my pantaloons. “You are the most beautiful, desirable woman in three kingdoms and I mean to marry you and make you mine. I’m going to keep you in my bed for an entire fortnight until you realize just how perfect you are. And then you’re going to tell me that you were wrong.”
“I just don’t understand why a handsome young king would marry an old spinster with no money,” I say, smoothing his hair back from his face as he nuzzles at the inside of my thigh. Riekki have mercy, I should be pushing him away. There’s an entire castle full of Yshremi nobility and Cyclopae warriors waiting for our wedding, and here we are in bed. Worse, there’s a hole in the door where someone is sure to overhear what we are doing…and yet I find I don’t want him to move his head away from that very spot.
“Not old,” he says between kisses on my thigh.
“Aventine has a princess,” I tell him, fretting. “It would be a good alliance with a port city-state and bring wealth to the kingdoms.”
He pushes my thighs farther apart, until I’m sprawled beneath him. “Aventine is a cesspit,” he mutters. “Why do you throw other women before me on the brink of our wedding?” His tongue moves over the seam of my pussy, stealing my breath away. “Aventine’s princess surely cannot taste nearly as good as the one in my arms right now.”
Oh, gods. Mathior says such scandalous things that I feel as if I’m melting into a puddle of heat. “Then…you’re marrying me because you want me in your bed?”
He growls again, and I feel it against my core. It sends shivers through my body and I cry out softly. “I’m marrying you because you’ve been mine from the day you saved my life. I’ve loved you for sixteen years, Halla. I’ve fought countless battles and worked my way through the ranks of cyclops warriors to become First Warrior, because I knew that when I was king, I could have you. I’ve never wanted anything but you.” His tongue drags over my folds and then he slides a finger up and down them, teasing them apart. “Do you think I haven’t been advised to make political marriages? To quell Yshrem’s mutterings in some other way than a wedding?”
Guilt surges through me. “Oh, but—”
“No buts,” Mathior says. “I will never give you up. You are mine. Tell me that you’ll marry me.” He looks up from the cradle of my thighs, his lips hidden by the curls covering my pussy. I can feel his breath there, hot and ticklish, but the look in his gaze is anything but playful.