She groaned again, arching her back to increase his touch. Her thighs stayed clamped around him, but her movement sent a pulse of joy up from between her legs. Her hips began rocking in an abbreviated grind, feeding the excitement still gripping her. He shook with strain, holding her pinned and suspended while she found the sensations she needed.
She stroked her fingers through his hair, pleading, “Don’t stop, please don’t stop.” She clung to him and writhed in the tight space between his hard body and the hard wall, nipped at his stubbled jaw and bared her throat to the rough suction of his love bite. And when the striving tension turned to tingling shivers of climax, she nearly screamed, she needed it so badly.
As an achingly splendid release washed over her, he grabbed her butt in both hands again. All of him went taut as he thrust his erection across wet silk. He tipped back his head and made the sexiest, most animalistic noises of pleasure she’d ever heard. It was earthy and primal, and time stopped while throbbing ecstasy fused them together, melting and hot and indelible.
When she came back to awareness, her forehead was lax on his shoulder. He was still trembling with exertion. They were both quaking with aftermath. Javiero still leaned on her, heavy and damp. His weight made it hard for her to catch her breath, but he seemed as wrung out and weak as she felt. The slam of his heart was still hitting her breast and her own pulse felt as though it would remain unsteady and panicked forever—because that had been every bit as intense as their only other time together, and it had happened after only a bit of groping and necking. Surely that terrified him as much as it did her?
She lifted her head off his shoulder and thunked her head against the wall.
He made an admonishing, concerned noise and eased his hold on her until she found her feet. He stayed pressed tight to her and caged her with his forearms on either side of her head. He kissed her again, lazy and thorough, until she nearly sank into a puddle on the floor. Only the unrelenting press of his body held her up.
“That,” he said in a feral rasp beneath her ear, “is what our marriage will be like.”
“We might not survive,” she said in a shaky attempt at humor. “Dare we risk orphaning our son?”
“Heh.” His cloud of warm breath pooled against her cheek, causing a final pleasurable shiver down her spine.
He drew back enough to swipe the edge of her gaping robe across her stomach and his own, then he pushed the garment off her shoulders.
“Laundry,” he said with a quirk of his mouth as he let the robe dangle from his hand. He ate up her naked breasts with his gaze. “I’d join you in the shower, but...” His growl was hungry and possessive. The kiss he touched to her mouth, however, was surprisingly tender.
Her lips clung to his, begging him to linger. He drew back long before she’d had her fill.
“Thank you. That was every bit as incredible as I remember,” he said throatily.
For some reason, she wanted to cry. She wasn’t sad. That had been incredible. She had loved every second of it and wished they could fall into bed and do intimate things to each other all night long. She wanted to build on this connection until she didn’t feel things were so tenuous between them.
She was also aware that he could have dragged an officiate into the room right now and she would have spoken any vows he told her to repeat through these buzzing lips. She didn’t have an excuse to leave or a promise to someone he hated. She had no guardrails at all against slipping straight over the edge into falling for him completely.
Which was terrifyingly dangerous because she couldn’t imagine him ever feeling the same toward her.
Javiero entered the gala without any self-consciousness over his appearance. Most people had at least seen pictures of him by now and he’d caught a bit of sun the last few weeks. The claw marks had faded, no longer standing out nearly as horrifically as they had in the early days.
Besides, nothing could bother him while he was riding this smug, endorphin high after his fervid tussle with Scarlett.
He had only meant to kiss her, but they’d both lost control. He ought to be scared out of his skin by that, but it was amazing how omnipotent he felt when he made her come. If he thought too long about the way she had clung to him and sucked his lip and fairly dissolved the silk between them with her wet response, he would embarrass himself with a fresh bulge behind his fly.
Crazed as the experience had been, he’d needed it. Sexual frustration had been approaching lethal concentration in his bloodstream. Her too, he suspected. They were both tossing and turning every night.
Not that deprivation had fueled that madness. That was how they reacted to each other and he liked it.
Thankfully, they were proving to be compatible in other ways, as well. Scarlett was fitting nicely into his life. The cool English cucumber she’d always been made a perfect foil for his more passionate, forceful personality at events such as these.
A deeply primal and gratifying mine rang in his head as he wove their fingers together and felt the warm gold of her engagement ring dig into his skin.
She caught him looking at her and must have read his thoughts because a pretty, shy blush hit her cheeks.
A strange thing happened in that moment. One of those odd musical pauses occurred, leaving space for a familiar voice to carry.
“...had to come see Beauty and the Beast myself, but which one is which?”
It was a savagely cheap shot that elicited a few titters from the group where Regina was holding court a short distance away.
Scarlett stiffened and would have
