by Tara Pammi
She hadn’t touched him at all that night. She had only been a receptacle for his mindless caresses. She had waited an entire lifetime for passion like Gabriel had showed her that day, but she’d barely participated.
It had taken her thirty years to take her life into her own hands. It was high time she took the matter of her pleasure into her own hands too. And today, her pleasure was in learning all she could of this hard man who had driven her to the mindless edge that night. Today, she wanted to know what would drive him crazy like he did her.
Today, the Plain Princess of Drakon wanted a little power over her husband.
With a boldness that surprised herself, she pushed him back on to the mattress.
“Eleni?”
She bit her lip, staring at the masculine beauty that was stretched out in front of her. How she wished she’d been a painter like Andreas, so that she could forever memorize the bold, intensely masculine lines of his body. There was such honed strength in him and yet, when he touched her, he was capable of a gentleness she would have never thought possible.
“I want to do this, Gabriel. I want to pleasure you. Will you let me?”
Hands folded behind his head, he raised his brows in a taunt. “I’m all yours, Princesa.”
Her eyes darkened, her silky hair falling like a curtain around her face. Candlelight flickered over her lush body, bathing it in a golden glow. She swept that golden gaze over him thoroughly, from his hair to his toes, lingering over the tent the towel made at his groin.
Gabriel had never met a woman quite like his wife. Determined, even in the darkest of times. Never backing down if she thought it right. Reaching for what she wanted, even when he’d behaved like an ass.
And now she stared at him as if he were a delicious feast. He wanted to push her plush body down and thrust into her, and yet, he had already misused her that way.
Today, he would go slowly if it killed him, and with the way she eyed him it probably would.
“You have to unpack me first, Princesa,” he taunted, and she blushed again.
Fingers swift and sure, she pulled his towel from under him. Her eyes widened, her breath held as she eyed his erection.
Then slowly, gently, she took him in her hands and squeezed. Her grip was tentative but firm as she studied him with such focus that Gabriel turned into stone in her hands.
“I don’t know what to do.” She licked her lips with a silky innuendo she wasn’t even aware of. “Teach me, please.”
His eyes closed, a low growl rumbled out of his mouth. “You’re going to be the death of me.” He closed his hands on top of hers and showed her how to stroke him. How to drive him out of his own skin.
Sweat broke out on his skin, pleasure balling up in his groin as she pumped him with her hands, just as he showed her.
He felt the silky slide of her hair over his chest, teasing his nipples, turning his abdominal muscles into hard rocks. Her tongue licked the shell of his ear and he bit out the filthiest oath he could think of. “What do you want, Gabriel? All you have to do is tell me.”
“Take me in your mouth,” he growled without hesitation.
When her heated breath fell on his erection, he opened his eyes. Just in time to see her lush, pink mouth close over the head of him.
Eyes rolling back, Gabriel groaned. His hands plunged into her hair, guiding her to take him deeper. Pleasure built up along his spine. With another oath, Gabriel eased her away.
“Gabriel, wait...”
But he was too far gone now. With one flip of his hand, he pulled her on top of him until she was straddling him. He wanted to feast his eyes on her like this—her breasts with those plump nipples moving, her belly contracting, her spine arching, every inch of her lushness only for his eyes.
“Take me inside you, wife,” he said in a voice hardly recognizable as his.
The most beautiful smile flared over her face as he nudged her thighs apart. Tension corkscrewed in his pelvis as she edged the tip of his shaft inside her sheath. Hands on her hips, Gabriel waited for her to get used to him again. Fought the urge to ram upward into her slick warmth.
Slowly, she lowered herself into him, her brow tied in focus, her tongue peeking out to lick at her lips.
Beads of perspiration dotted her upper lip.
Inch by inch, she impaled herself on him in slow torture. When she had sheathed him completely, the tightness was incredible, gloving him like a fist. Slow tremors began in his muscles, desire a knife arching through his spine.
He would have bucked his hips up into her. Except the whimper of discomfort that fell from her mouth stayed him.
Somehow, he leashed his own lust, felt the twitch of his hardness inside of her in protest. Gritting his teeth, he looked at her and his heart thudded against his rib cage.
The stiff arch of her spine reminded him that she was new to this. That her body had been untried until only a week ago.
The slow shift of her hips sent a bolt of pure pleasure through his groin. And yet she was still rigid. He molded her hips in his hands, feeling powerless in the face of her hurt. “Does it hurt, Eleni?”
She opened her eyes, her mouth pinched. “Not hurt, but not quite okay.” She wriggled her round bottom and gasped again. “It...it feels like you are everywhere, Gabriel, like you have cleaved me in half. And I’m afraid to move.” Sudden tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry for... I just need a few seconds to get used to you.”
“It’s okay, Princesa. We have all night. We have months to learn each other, years to do all the things I want to do with you.”
For some blasted reason that he couldn’t fathom, that made tears roll down her cheeks.
She wiped at them roughly. “I wanted to be sexy and alluring with you. Not turn up the waterworks.”
Had his trysts with other women been anything like this? At that moment, Gabriel couldn’t remember another woman’s face, much less any sweet words he’d whispered to one after sex.
Sinking his hands in her hair, he pulled her down, uncaring that he slipped out of her warmth. Uncaring that his body coiled tighter with unspent frustration. “You are the most fascinating woman I’ve ever met, Princesa. And it’s not your fault. I...didn’t quite prepare you. You’re tiny and I’m...a big brute.”
She laughed against his mouth. “I can’t verify that so I have to take your word for it.”
He smacked her bottom playfully and nudged her closer to him. “You will, if I have anything to say for it. Don’t worry, querida. Once we do get used to each other, I’m going to devour you. You’re not going to get out of bed for a week.”
Eyes wide like saucers looked up at him. “Yes?”
“Yes. Now shut up and kiss me, wife.”
Her breasts were lush and a delicious weight, her belly soft as she nuzzled into him. He took her mouth in a soft kiss, tenderness cutting the hard bite of his lust. Using every bit of his skill, he stroked the recesses of her mouth until she was moaning against him.
Slipping his hands in between them, he touched every inch of her—from her taut nipples to the folds of her sex that were silky wet. Only when she was rubbing against him again, only when he could feel her readiness, did he enter her again.
He kept up the pressure of his fingers, brought her to the peak. The moment she leaned forward and kissed him, he thrust up into her. They groaned, their bodies finding an easy rhythm this time.
As if they knew how to create the magic.
They moved together like some wild things, their mouths kissing and licking, their hands clasped together. When he showed her how to move with him, Eleni followed his instruction, arching her back, trusting her body and his, reveling in Gabriel’s hoarse grunts of pleasure, the fact that she had brought this powerful, breathtaking man to such undefinable pleasure.
Pleasure burst on them in tandem, and Eleni fell forward on his broad chest. Curling into him, she closed her eyes. Their bodies were damp, their breaths still labored.
The silence w
as a blanket over them. Yet every beat of her heart said she had irrevocably fallen in love with her husband. Every pulse in her body, every bead of perspiration on her skin wondered at the hard flesh beneath her. The loud thud of the thundering heart beneath her own—she would know it even in the dark, always.
And with the realization flooded in panic. For she knew Gabriel would never give her his heart. Would never love her as she’d love him whether they were together or not. Whether they had a child or not.
For the rest of her life.
CHAPTER TEN
OVER THE NEXT month Drakon celebrated the fact that their beloved Crown Prince Andreas was back from his mysterious expedition.
It was all Gabriel heard from Eleni, whom he barely saw. She was overjoyed that her older brother was back. The one time he had seen Andreas, Gabriel had gotten quite the shock.
Andreas Drakos had always been a hard man, yet it felt as if there was nothing but a fierce, cold rage in his eyes these days. Now Gabriel had information sitting on his desk that he knew Andreas was looking for, information he had acquired because Eleni had begged him to help her brother.
And he was coming to learn he could not deny his wife anything.
Yet, something in the other man’s gaze had held Gabriel’s hand back.
The Royal siblings appeared everywhere for a few days, Nikandros leaving his pregnant wife’s side with the greatest reluctance. Whispers of a great alliance between the House of Drakos and a cabinet minister’s daughter abounded but if there was a man who was less suited to be anyone’s husband, it was Andreas Drakos.
The portentous niggle that had beset him from the moment Andreas had returned came true when he was informed that the Crown Prince had requested an audience.
Without Eleni’s presence.
Gabriel entered Andreas’s office after a short knock.
Any civil greeting he had rehearsed disappeared when he spied not only Nikandros but another man in the room.
Spiros Kanellos, if his sources were right. And they always were. The man his wife had once loved. The man who had disappeared from the face of Drakon for close to a decade. The man who had suddenly reappeared the night of their wedding.
Suddenly, everything fell into place. The man’s unhindered access to the palace, his outrageous confidence that Eleni would receive him—he was going to throttle Andreas.
Gabriel refused to acknowledge the man’s presence. But of course, he couldn’t help noticing the defiance in his expression, the perfect symmetry of his features.
Cold fury filled him and beneath that, for the first time in his life, a sense of doom. “What the hell is the meaning of this, Drakos?” he said, refusing to corral his temper.
Andreas didn’t even blink at the menace in Gabriel’s tone. “From your expression, I gather you know who Spiros is.”
“Yes, since he’s been scuttling around the palace and sniffing around my wife’s skirts, I had to alert my security force that he was a threat to Eleni and that they could shoot him on sight.”
The blond man paled while Nikandros muttered, “Damn it, Marquez.”
Andreas held Gabriel’s gaze, something moving like shadows in his. “Nik, Spirios, leave us.”
Muttering something to himself, Nik escorted the man out.
Gabriel waited maybe two seconds before he gave into the rage building inside him and punched Andreas in his jaw.
The celebrated Crown Prince of Drakos clutched his jaw, nary a curse rising to his mouth.
Gabriel shook his hand, savage satisfaction filling him. “Keep your crooked games to yourself, Drakos. She’s not your sister anymore. She’s my wife. If you don’t want me to sink Drakon, if you ever want to see her again, you will stay out of our lives. I will ruin everything before I let you interfere with us.”
Andreas continued as if Gabriel hadn’t threatened everything dear to him. “She deserves to be loved, Gabriel. She waited for him for eight years. My damn father lied to her all that time. He intended to tie her to a man of his own age, just so that he could have control over her. So that she would be his willing servant for the rest of her life.
“Spiros loves her. He’ll give her what she needs. I know you, better than anyone does. In the end, you’ll break her heart. You’ll crush her. It’s not too late, Gabriel.”
“She doesn’t need love. She entered this marriage with her eyes open,” Gabriel protested, yet there was a hollow ache in his gut. “And what she did want out of it, I can damn well give to my wife.”
Even though she was busy during the day with Angelina, and their nights were filled with passion that only seemed to grow the more they fed it, Gabriel knew what Eleni craved. Knew the sudden smile she pulled to her mouth when she saw him.
Knew that his inability to love her would one day pain her. Knew that he was forever waiting for the ax to fall on their relationship. Waiting for something to go wrong.
In every word and smile, there was a part of him that held back. That resisted every attempt Eleni made to get close to him. That measured their marriage still as a successful but convenient arrangement.
Andreas homed in on his hesitation and went for the kill. “All her life, Eleni has been pushed around by my father. By me and even Nikandros. By the stain of her birth. By my father’s condescending kindness toward her. By being neither daughter nor staff. I’m fixing all the damage he did to us, Gabe. Nikandros is back where he belongs. Eleni deserves to be given a choice in her life, for once. She needs to have a chance at happiness.”
Gabriel had never wanted to throttle a man before. Never had he wished that his heart had remained buried. Never had he wished that he’d never met the Princess of Drakon.
If he gave her the chance, would Eleni choose a life with him? Did it matter to him that she chose it, and was not forced into it?
He set his jaw tight. “I have a file on my desk, Andreas. I have the information you’re looking for. And you know why? Because Eleni begged me to help you. Because she worries about you and Nik and all of you.”
Every inch of Andreas’s face hardened, a dark light coming on in his eyes. Outwardly, he was still. But Gabriel knew the rage that was building up inside him. He would separate Gabriel’s limbs with his bare hands, but of course he calmed himself. Nothing remained of his hunger for that information except a gleam in his eyes.
Andreas’s self-control was legendary.
“You know where she is?” He couldn’t quite hide the quiver in his voice, however.
“Yes,” Gabriel replied. “I’ll give it to you if you make Spiros disappear. I don’t ever want to see him.”
Andreas rubbed a shaking hand against his eyes, a small betrayal of his inner state. “I can’t. You have no idea how tempted I am to play God. But no more. I will not be like the man who raised me. I will not play with other people’s lives.”
The hard laugh that fell from Gabriel’s mouth was hollow. “And the woman in the file?” Despite his determination to stay out of it, he felt a twinge of pity for her. Andreas Drakos was a determined, cold man, made in the mold of his father, King Theos, however much he fought it. “What do you think you’re going to do to her, Andreas?”
“She belongs to me, Gabriel. Keep the information. She could go to the ends of the earth, but I would still find her. My sister, however, deserves a choice. Deserves to choose for once how she wants to spend her life. Either you give it to her or I will.”
* * *
Studiously avoiding the silent bedroom, Gabriel went into the bathroom, stripped and took a much-needed shower. He dressed himself, wandered into the sitting room and poured himself a drink.
Andreas’s words went round and round in his head. The sight of the man she had once loved turned the scotch to ash on his tongue.
Did Andreas actually think he would give up his wife, just like that? Did he think he would let Eleni go to some blond fool who hadn’t had the guts to fight for her?
But could he live with Eleni knowing that he had
forced this on her? Knowing that all she’d ever wanted of this marriage had been a child? Wouldn’t he forever wonder if she’d choose him again given a true choice?
He had no more clarity two hours later when the door opened to the suite and Eleni stood at the threshold. Gabriel had never imagined he’d see a sight that would shred him to powerless pieces as did the sight of his wife’s tears.
Pale and drawn out, she stared at him with unseeing eyes.
Tenderness filled Gabriel. “Black Shadow?”
She didn’t say anything, only nodded. But even in the dark, he could see the sheen of her eyes.
The depth of her pain unmanned him like nothing could. He never wanted to see it again. He opened his arms and she flew into them like she belonged there. Burrowed into him as though he was her everything.
And for the first time in his life, Gabriel wanted to mean something to a woman.
She was tiny, slender against his hard muscles. And yet, there was strength inside this woman.
Squeezing her against him, he left her not even a little space to avoid him. “Tell me about him,” he said, in his usual authoritative tone, realizing only after he had spoken that maybe she needed a gentle hand. But he had never been capable of gentleness.
Maybe she wanted a man who would trust without doubt, who could be romantic without ulterior motives in mind, a man who could give words to the tumult inside him. Maybe she wanted Spiros Kanellos back in her life. The thought was like acid, gouging into him.
“Black Shadow was the only gift, the only thing, really, that my father ever gave me. He cost Father some atrocious amount of money and he refused to let any rider tame him. Father had always been proud of my riding talent, my ease with horses. I was a natural since I was a toddler. It proved to him, I think, that I was truly his—that I belonged to the House of Drakos.” She spoke as if the fact was still in doubt. As if she had to justify her presence in the royal household again and again.
Was that why she worked so hard for her brothers? Did Eleni still doubt her place as a daughter of the House of Drakos?