To Love a Prince (Knights of Valor Book 1)(35)

She gazed up at him and grinned as she slid her body over his and moved lower, her lips teasing over his taunt abdomen as she tickled his navel with the tip of her tongue. The evidence of his desire, thick and rigid, pressed against her.

She dipped lower, and he tried to catch her.

“Auburn, you don’t have to...” but his words trailed to garbled incoherence as her hands wrapped around his erection.

Eli struggled to catch his breath as she gripped him, stroked, then eased back only to start all over again.

He reached for her, but before he could grab her, she guided him into the hot recesses of her mouth.

Eli’s eyes widened as she took him and sucked.

He growled her name, but she only smiled at him around his shaft and made a soft purring noise deep in her throat. Every muscle in his body tightened.

Happiness filled her as she learned that she could bring him the same pleasure he’d brought her. She wanted to give him all that and more. He hadn’t ordered her to, nor had he demanded it. She did it because she wanted to share all she could with him.

Her head bobbed up and down as she concentrated on him, listened to his breathing and felt the tension in his body. Learned what intensified his pleasure through his reactions.

She felt him climbing, felt the tautness in his body as he raced toward the same golden peak he’d taken her to the previous night.

Eli clenched his teeth and reached for her again, but she laced her fingers with his so he couldn’t stop her.

“Auburn,” he warned, but it was too late. He lost himself, and she only smiled as she continued her ministrations.

When he slumped back on the bed, she released him and pillowed her head on his shoulder.

Wrapping a blanket around her, Eli held her close and kissed her forehead. Auburn thought she heard him say something about Daniella and Tamarian politics being damned before they both fell asleep.



Dawn found her Auburn snuggled beside him, her body warm and soft with sleep. Eli stroked her bare skin, watching it flush as her eyes fluttered open.

She smiled up at him and nuzzled closer. “I like waking up beside you. Is it customary to share a bed in Tamryn?”

Eli thought about Lady Daniella. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“Why you’re in a bed together.”

She traced a finger along his jaw. “How long before the negotiations resume?”

Eli’s hands cruised over her hip and teased the indentation of her waist before stroking the swell of her breast. “Several more days.”

She wriggled against him and arched her back, filling his hand with her softness.

He kneaded her sensitive flesh and listened to her breath catch. By the gods, he wanted her, but the part of him that wanted to protect her knew he should bring her to Tamryn with her virginity intact. It would make it easier to find her a husband, and it would guarantee the rule of succession wouldn’t interfere with his plans.

His conqueror bristled at the thought of Auburn with another man, and that same part of him wanted to use the rule of succession to his advantage. To the seven hells with politics. If he married her, he could have what he needed and give her what she wanted.

After all he’d worked for, all he’d done to position himself to take the crown, Prince Eli couldn’t believe he was considering throwing it away and following a very different path.

He was a fool.

A fool touched by the Twins.

Auburn stroked his chest. “Your thoughts trouble you.”

“Thinking about the future.”

She propped herself up on her elbow, and her copper-colored hair cascaded down her shoulders and over her full breasts. “You don’t like what you see, so change it.”

“What if I can’t?”

“You fight harder than that to win a game of chess.”

Eli thumbed over her lush lips as he stared into her soft blue eyes. Change it. She had no idea what she was saying, and yet, he’d learned to get what he wanted. He’d wanted Daniella and the throne, but that was before he’d known what else he could have.

That he could have something more.

Would his mother understand?

Eli had no answer, but he knew what he wanted. Rolling Auburn onto her back, he levered himself above her and grabbed a silk scarf from the nightstand. He trailed it over her body, listening to her soft sighs as the scarf slid over her flushed skin. He teased it around her nipples, watching them furl into little buds under his attention.

Swirling the scarf around her milk-pale breasts, he wrapped them in the silk only to pull it away and slide the scarf down her belly.

Auburn sucked in a breath as she opened her thighs to him.

Eli smiled as he teased the silk along the back of her knees then up over the insides of her legs. He paused, taunting and teasing her before inching upward and feathering the scarf over the petals of her soft juncture.

Auburn writhed beneath him, opening herself further to his caresses.

He grinned and set a leisurely pace of tickling her with the scarf as his fingertips explored her. Stroking over the smooth globes of her rounded breasts, his lips followed his hands. He kept the kisses light, a taunting touch over her heated flesh.

She whimpered beneath him, reaching for him as her body arched up to meet him. She stroked his back and sides, her nails grazing his flesh. Eli captured her questing hands and wrapped the scarf around her wrists. He then bound the scarf to the headboard.