by Mel Teshco
The glass baubles she’d admired at the market stalls were interspersed with the rare yellow gems of the larakytes—the one and same gems her mother had loved wearing. She turned to him, throat thick. “These gems once belonged to my family.”
He nodded. “It took some doing to track them down, some remain missing still. I had planned to give them to your father long before I met you. But fate intervened…and I figured you’d much prefer them to the diamond from the tikkal mines.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she said hoarsely.
He removed the necklace and placed it over her head, lifting her hair as he did up the clasp. “Say yes,” he murmured.
She looked up at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.
Adoration flooded his stare. “Say you’ll marry me, become my queen. I loved you from the moment I saw you in the holding yard—the moment you undressed to get my attention.” His husky laugh barely infiltrated her numbed senses. “Unnecessary, really. I was already smitten.”
She stared and stared, hardly able to comprehend the truth. Except, this time she wasn’t running away from it. “Yes,” she said softly, and then stepping into his arms she said loudly, “yes! A hundred times yes!”
And as the cheers of their people from behind them infiltrated her mind, she knew at last…she was home.
Epilogue
Akeisha lay sated and unmoving on the royal bed of cushions, watching the man who slept beside her and realizing she’d never get enough of him.
Judas. The king.
Her husband.
It’d been a little over three years now since Judas had made her his queen, marrying her in the traditional human way with the exchange of rings, followed by the joyous celebrations that were the larakyte way.
His harem was no more. Many of his once lovers had gravitated to the soldiers loyal to Judas, while the remainder of the women returned home, much wealthier and wiser than when they’d left.
The half-gutted candles around the mandeolo danced in the sudden breeze through an opened window, casting the strong lines of Judas’ face in shadow and light. Her heart fluttered. If possible, he was even more arresting.
Pushing aside lethargy, she sat, forcing her stare away from the obsession that was her husband. Her depth of feeling for him scared her at times, but it was an emotion she was content to deal with knowing that he returned it ten-fold.
Judas stirred, then asked in a muzzy, just-woken voice, “Angel, are you all right?”
She smiled. Even in sleep he’d sensed her unrest. They really were attuned to one another in every way.
Soul mates.
She twisted, her gaze caught by his and causing her voice to come out husky. “Nothing you can’t make better.”
His white teeth glinted. The fact they’d made love only hours earlier clearly not a concern. Akeisha wasn’t surprised. She’d learned long ago Judas was insatiable, a big-cat trait. Not that she was complaining.
“I’m pleased to hear that,” he murmured.
She moved into his arms, not for the first time happy she slept naked, the same as Judas. And in an all too familiar caress, her breasts scraped along his chest, her belly along the thick ridge of his cock.
He cupped her face as she bent and kissed him, open-mouthed, their tongues meeting one against the other in mutual accord. His hands slid downward, over her shoulders and down the tiny bumps of her spine, his touch warm, steady and sure.
He cupped her ass cheeks and pushed her forward. The momentum had her sliding partway along the length of his cock that lay flat and heavy on his belly, before he tugged her back again. She gasped into his mouth. Her clit felt lit up as though tinder, the nerve endings screaming into glorious life.
His cock throbbed beneath, as if ready to explode. And it was with some satisfaction to know he wasn’t immune either. Was never immune.
Tearing her mouth from his, she sat upright. Cupping her breasts for his admiring stare, she fondled the silken skin of her globes, fingertips flicking at her already hard nipples. Her womb clenched, her breaths coming shorter and shorter. She was all too aware of the tic of a muscle in his jaw, the pulsating length of his cock underneath. And wanted him with a savagery she couldn’t conceal.
Didn’t want to conceal.
His eyes alight with answering need, he grasped her hips with his big, adept hands and slid her back and forward again, grinding her pussy along his shaft until she wondered if she just might faint with unfulfilled lust.
She closed her eyes on a shuddering breath. Foreplay with Judas was never dull. It was exciting and titillating, even when sometimes a little pain shadowed the pleasure before he pushed her right over the edge into climax.
It mattered little whether they made tender love or fucked with all the brute animal force and passion that was their panther heritage. She couldn’t get enough and neither could he.
It was a heady realization.
She kneeled a little before Judas fisted his cock and guided it between her spread thighs. As his cock head teased the folds of her flesh farther apart, she sank onto him, impaling herself on his length, inch-by-glorious-inch.
“Sweet Jesus,” he groaned, while she took his all, her inner muscles expanding to accommodate him as fingers did to a glove.
His possessive stare caught hers as she rocked up and down in an ever quickening tempo, and in the moment before climax took her she seriously wondered if her heart shared the rhythmic beating of his own with their joining.
Unable to take even a second longer to catapult into release, she angled her pussy on the next downward plunge, dragging her already sensitized clit along his hard, veined cock. She gasped, then cried out his name, her pussy squeezing his shaft as one contraction after another spun her high and held her in its thrall.
A growl filled the air. Judas’ eyes dilated. His jaw locked and his seed abruptly shot deep. Her inner muscles clasped and released, milking him of all his seed and then some. When their finale of pleasure peaked then ebbed, before drifting back down to earth like a feather from the heavens, Akeisha collapsed on top of him, inhaling deep of their mixed fluids that scented the air and smeared her thighs.
She smiled sleepily. Beyond sated. And as he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head her eyelids fluttered closed.
A shrill cry pierced the air.
She jerked fully awake.
“Get some sleep, angel,” Judas murmured. “I’ll check on Mira.”
Akeisha’s smile returned with a vengeance as she watched the king of a nation pad barefooted into the makeshift nursery at the far side of the room, away from the cool desert night air circulating through the windows.
Mira, short for miracle. Because that was what she was—a miracle and a blessing. And at only four months old she already had her daddy wrapped around her little finger.
She pressed the palms of her hands to her still slightly rounded belly. That she conceived with Judas at all stunned her even now. That the birth had been the catalyst to stop the war between Judas’ human subjects and the larakytes—all shifters—had been the icing on the cake.
Mira was unquestionably heaven sent. Life was pretty near damn perfect.
Judas’ soft tread returned, Mira hiccupping and snuffling in his arms. “Sorry angel, but I think she’s hungry.”
She sat upright, taking hold of the little bundle of joy before cradling Mira against her breast. As Mira suckled hungrily, Judas sat behind his queen and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“My family,” he said hoarsely. “It’s something I never dreamed possible.”
“I know,” she said softly, her heart melting at his words as much as the little cherub in her arms. She half-twisted toward him, brushing the corner of his mouth with her lips. “We’ve been blessed.”
He nodded. “In every way.” His arms tightened around her. “I love you, angel.”
At the catch in his voice and the glint of moisture in his eyes, she knew no one would have believed she’d boug
ht the mightiest king ever known to his knees. But she knew and that was all that mattered.
She intended to spend the rest of her years showing him exactly how much she loved him in return.
Starting now.
About Mel Teshco
Mel Teshco lives in rural Australia with too many animals, too many children and not enough hours in the day to write!
Her loving husband is in training as a real-life hero and waits patiently to retire on the success of his wife’s writing.
Mel welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Mel Teshco
Carnal Moon
Discovering Sofia
Galactic Burn
Galactic Inferno
Kallie Revealed
Moon Thrall
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Volume 1 anthology
Winged & Dangerous 1: Stone-Cold Lover
Winged & Dangerous 2: Ice-Cold Lover
Winged & Dangerous 3: Red-Hot Lover
Print books by Mel Teshco
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Volume 1 anthology
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Lusting the Enemy
ISBN 9781419944147
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Lusting the Enemy Copyright © 2012 Mel Teshco
Edited by Briana St. James
Cover design by Syneca
Photos: Vish Studios, Kavram/Shutterstock.com
Electronic book publication December 2012
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