“So good,” she moaned. “Don’t stop.”
He brought his mouth to hers, nipping at the plush curves as he pushed deeper, harder, inside her, giving her all he had. Her body rippled around him; tempted his self-control. Still he held back, his palm sliding beneath her buttock to lift her higher so he could find the spot that would give her the deepest, most intense orgasm.
“Right there,” he breathed in her ear. “I can feel you tightening around me, Stella mou. Come for me.”
A low moan ripped from her throat. “Kostas...”
He gripped her hips tighter, penetrating her body with deliberate, forceful thrusts that had her contracting around him. Digging her nails into his buttocks, she threw her head back, a sharp cry leaving her throat as her body clenched his in a long, hot pull that shattered him. Bracing his hands on either side of her, he let go, spilling himself inside of her.
The intimacy of it blew every emotion he’d ever had to smithereens—the giving of his life force to this woman, who in turn gave hers to him.
* * *
Long minutes later as his wife lay sleeping in his arms, the same state of being remained elusive for Kostas. Sleep had once come easily to him, a gift as his yaya had called it, an escape from the complexities of his life, but as the years had passed and his father’s manic phases had escalated, plunging the country into disarray, a solid night’s rest had eluded him. How could he rest when he was torn in a dozen different directions? When his father was a madman terrorizing his neighboring countries? When his people were suffering?
When no decision had ever seemed like the right one.
He would have woken Stella and lost himself in her addictive warmth again, but a part of him needed distance, the distance he had always craved when people got too close. When his life seemed too complex to manage any other way.
Sliding out of bed, he dressed and went down the hall to his office, where he read the latest security report that had come in on General Houlis’s activity. The man who had just wished he and Stella the best of luck for their future happiness in an award-worthy performance was growing increasingly desperate as the elections loomed and his window of opportunity diminished.
If he was going to make a play for control of Carnelia, he would need to do it soon. When that might be was unclear according to Kostas’s eyes and ears on the ground.
Grimacing, he tossed the report aside. He was hoping it would never come to pass; that Houlis would realize the time for change had come to this country. But his security team was preparing contingency plans in case the general did elect to go for the jugular.
He leaned back in his chair, rubbing a palm over the coarse stubble on his chin. He should be focusing on the threat to his country, to his own personal safety. Instead, his head remained on the woman who lay sleeping in his bed—his wife, whose armor had come off tonight, proving she was every bit the vulnerable, passionate woman he’d known existed underneath all those protective layers.
Watching her walk down that aisle today, deliver that emotional toast, had touched a piece of him he hadn’t even known existed. Taking her to bed, unleashing the passion that blazed between them, had only intensified those feelings; deep, uncharted ones he knew he should smother, the very ones he could never have for his wife. He had been so intent on scaling Stella’s defenses, revealing the woman he knew, obliterating this chemistry between them, that he had ignored the potential consequences.
He felt for her, he always had. Perhaps too much. Her speech tonight had touched him but had also left him deeply conflicted, more aware than ever that he was not the man she thought him to be.
His chest tightened, the guilt in his stomach a heavy weight he’d been carrying so long he was shocked it even registered. He could not afford to play emotional roulette with his wife, not now when he was so close to replacing his father’s legacy with a brighter future for Carnelia.
A throb pulsed at his temples. He massaged it with his fingers, attempting to ease the pressure. Allowing this thing between him and his wife to run any deeper couldn’t happen. Better to cut off these feelings at the source, stick to the rules they had agreed on.
Stella was already digging holes in his armor, making him question what he was, what he wanted to be. And although she’d been an unquestionably integral presence by his side and would continue to be so, he needed to keep her at an emotional distance. His father was too stark an example of what happened when emotion clouded rational thinking.
Sitting forward, he reached for yet another report he hadn’t had time to read. He and his wife were on the same page when it came to this marriage. Deep emotion, love, didn’t belong in it.
* * *
Stella awoke alone in the big, luxurious bed, the bright dial on the clock telling her it was far too early to be awake. Three in the morning, in fact. But her husband was.
She sat up and reached for a drink of water. Setting down the glass, she hugged her arms around her knees, a hollow feeling invading her. It didn’t surprise her Kostas wasn’t there. He never slept well. But the fact that he had taken her apart tonight, then left their wedding bed to work, turned the key on a long-seated feeling of rejection she couldn’t quite shake.
I’ve never wanted a woman more than I wanted you that night, yineka mou, not since and not now.
Her stomach clenched, curling into a tight ball. It had been just as beguiling as she’d imagined it would be to discover Kostas wanted her as much as she wanted him. To wipe away his rejection of the past. But on the heels of his expert seduction had also been the knowledge she was exposing herself to new vulnerabilities, scarier ones, because now she would have to guard against the adult version of falling in love with him, which could be oh, so much more painful than its predecessor.
Which she would never do. Firming her mouth, she got out of bed, slipped on a robe and went to find her husband rather than ruminate. Ensconced behind the handsome cedar desk in his study, he looked as if what he needed was sleep—days of it.
Fatigue-darkened eyes regarded her as he put down his pen. “You should be sleeping. The send-off breakfast is in a few hours.”
“I was thirsty. You were gone.” She walked around the desk and perched on the edge closest to him. “Have you always been this way? Not able to sleep?”
“Most of my life, yes.”
Because he’d never had any grounding influence to make him feel secure after his grandmother had died. Because the fear and intimidation his father had practiced had likely chased him everywhere, even in his sleep. Her chest grew tight, the soul-deep wound she felt for him growing with every day they spent together. She couldn’t change the past, but she could help him now.
She absorbed the lines creasing his brow and mouth, deeper it seemed, in the hours since he’d left her. “What’s keeping you up tonight?”
He waved a hand toward the desk. “Half a dozen things.”
“But something is making you extra stressed.”
He reached out and scooped her off the desk and into his lap. “The election is less than a month away. I have a million things on my mind. I am preoccupied. But now that you are awake,” he murmured, gaze dropping to the curves of her breasts the gaping neckline of her robe revealed, “I’d prefer to enjoy you.”
Heat invaded her bones, warming her insides, her body recalling the pleasure he could give her. Fighting the hedonistic pull, she curled her fingers around the thick muscle of his biceps. “You promised to share things with me. Let me help.”
“I will. Just not tonight.” His fingers traced the line of her jaw.
“Did you miss him today? Your father?” So many people had spoken of the late king, some with a reverence that had blown her away.
“No,” he said evenly, “I did not.”
She could only imagine the complex feelings Kostas held for his father that must have been unearthed by today. “Your mother’s sister was lovely. She seemed to find it bittersweet.”
His fingers dropped aw
ay from her face. “She didn’t want her sister to marry my father. She considered him far too power hungry, too ruthless, but my mother was in love with him.”
“It sounded as if she softened him—made him less so.”
He nodded. “She was the balancing effect on his personality, the thing that held him in check. When she died, it set off something in his brain, turned loose the controlling side of his psyche, his near psychopathic need for power.”
“Too much pain,” she said softly.
His eyes turned bleak. “Shortly afterward, his aide found my father in his study with a gun pressed to his head. I think he might have killed himself if the aide hadn’t stopped him, made sure my father saw a doctor and received medication for his manic depression. It wasn’t a commonly recognized thing then—being a manic depressive—but he clearly was one.”
Her heart dipped. “Love can be destructive in so many ways.”
“Yes, it can.” Amber eyes speared hers. “It’s why this arrangement of ours will work—because we based it on our mutual respect for each other, not some illusionary emotion.”
She nodded. She was going to keep her feelings out of this. She was.
He traced the line of her throat with his fingers. “And very hot sexual chemistry. That we have, too, moro mou.”
A wave of heat suffused her skin. Nudging the lapel of her robe aside, he closed his fingers over her breast in a possessive movement that stole her breath. She inhaled as his thumb nudged her soft, sensitive areola, sliding over its peak.
“We should go to bed,” she said huskily. Before he obliterated her again.
“Or not.” He covered her mouth with his and bit lightly into her lower lip. “It is our wedding night after all. Creating an heir is...necessary.”
Her head spun as his mouth hovered over hers, their breath mingling. Waiting. Anticipating. Her insides fisted tight with need. The urge to walk away, to extricate herself before he destroyed more of her defenses, dissolved in a sea of lust.
This was her wedding night. Rational thought could come tomorrow.
Gripping her hips, he lifted her, bringing her down so her knees straddled his lap. Eyes on hers, he settled her against his erection covered by the thin pajama bottoms he wore, no barrier to the thick heat that parted her most intimate flesh with possessive intent.
Her gasp split the air. “Kostas—”
He rocked against her, sliding his staff against her. Every sensual movement stoked the inferno rising inside of her.
The whisper of his big hand sliding along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. A stroke of his fingertips against the crease where hip met leg. She squirmed against his touch, flesh on fire.
“Get on me,” he murmured in her ear. “I want to take you like this.”
Excitement pounding through her veins, she reached down, freed him from the silk that covered him and guided his rigid shaft to her slick flesh. Lowering herself on him, the wide tip of his body pressing against her, a harsh breath escaped her. She froze, absorbing the power of him inside her still tender flesh. Centimeter by centimeter she took him inside her until his big body stretched her muscles so tight she was at the very edge of how much pleasure she could take. Until he touched things that had never been touched before.
Never had she felt so full, so taken, so possessed.
“You have all of me now,” Kostas said huskily, his voice a hot burn in her ear. “Is that good, yineka mou?”
She nodded, past speech. Opening her eyes, she set her hands on the muscular bulk of his shoulders. There was emotion radiating from those fiery, dark eyes as he watched her. He felt something for her. But his caution rang in her ear, underlining her own promises to herself. He wasn’t ever going to let himself be his father, nor was she ever going to become her mother.
She closed her eyes and focused on the sea of pleasure washing over her. Kostas lifted her off him, then filled her with a delectably slow movement, his erection tantalizing every inch of her. He did it again and again until she dropped her head back and moaned with the pleasure of it.
Cupping her bottom tighter in his palms, he increased his pace, thrusting into her with a deep, intensely erotic focus that sent starbursts of blinding pleasure exploding behind her eyes. He was so big, so hard, he pushed her pleasure beyond anything she’d ever felt, winding her tighter and tighter with each controlled thrust.
“Kostas—” Hot, white lightning radiated out from her center, stiffening her limbs, toes. Whispering hot, heated words in her ear, he pressed his thumb to the tight bundle of nerves at her center, drawing out her orgasm. Another wave of pleasure washed over her, shattering her. Taking her mouth with his, Kostas filled her with deep, deliberate strokes, a low growl escaping his throat as he came.
When the tremors in both of them had subsided, Kostas picked her up and carried her back to bed. This time, as the crisp night air flowed in through the windows, he slept. Head on his chest, she absorbed the tiny victory, then let unconsciousness take her, too.
CHAPTER TEN
A LAVISH WEDDING breakfast had been laid out in the newly renovated dining room of the Marcariokastro for close friends and family leaving Carnelia that day. The warm, charismatic room was a feast for the eye, its recent renovations retaining the original frescos on the walls and ceiling as well as its large, cathedral windows and stunning, intricate dark woodwork.
A massive harvest banquet table ran down the center of the room, the focal point of the space. Dressed this morning with the finest Laskos crystal and china, it was full of fresh flowers and the animated discussion of its occupants, a lively, happy destination. Except for the preoccupation of the bride.
Sitting at one end of the table with Alex, Sofía and Jessie while her new husband was immersed in conversation with her brother at the other end, she had woken up alone in bed again at seven, full of so many conflicting emotions about the night before she could have painted the Akathinian Independence Day parade in about fifty colors of them.
Confusion about her feelings for Kostas. Concern about the pressure he was under. Worry she felt more for him than she’d ever let herself admit.
He had looked as preoccupied as he had the night before when he’d entered the dining room this morning, greeting her with a quick kiss before sitting down with Nik. She knew in her bones something was going on he wasn’t telling her.
“So,” Alex said archly as Sofía and Jessie went off to find more of the figs and fresh waffles, “how was last night?”
Stella eyed her. “Are you asking me to give you details about my wedding night?”
“Yes.” Alex looked unrepentant. “I want to know if that hunk of a man is as good as he looks.”
She took a sip of her coffee. Reined in her emotions. “Yes. He is.”
Alex’s mouth turned down. “That’s all you’re giving me?”
“Yes.”
Her sister did not need to know her night with Kostas had been mind-blowingly good. That it had exceeded her expectations in every way. That she was sore in places she’d never been sore before. Because he had also annihilated her defenses, stripped her bare, left her skin feeling too sensitive, her vulnerabilities wide-open.
Alex eyed her. “You okay?”
“Tired.”
Her sister chewed on her lip. “Can I say something brutally honest?”
“That depends on what it is.”
Alex took a sip of her coffee. Set it down. “Any fool could see you and Kostas have deep feelings for each other. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room last night. Try not,” she said quietly, eyes on hers, “to sabotage this relationship as you’ve done every other.”
Antagonism lanced through her. “I don’t do that.”
“Yes, you do.”
She put down her cup and shoved it away. “This is a partnership, Alex. I’m too far gone to ever find love. I don’t have it in me and neither does Kostas. In that, we are a perfect pair.”
Alex frowned. “Don’t you think you an
d Kostas can be different? That you can build on what you have? Aristos is different, changed, since us, you’ve seen that.”
“Aristos was crazy about you from the beginning.” She sat back in her chair, her gaze flitting over her husband. “Kostas has been molded with so much fear and discipline, taught to keep his emotions inside of him at all costs or he will pay the price. I’m not sure he’s ever going to let himself feel. I would be crazy to think I can be the one to change him.”
“You don’t think I felt the same about Aristos? The press were putting bets on how long our relationship would last, Stella—bets—and I was falling in love with him. It was like walking on quicksand.”
An apt analogy. “It’s not the same,” she said with finality. “I believe Kostas cares about me. I believe we can do great things for this country. But that’s as far as it goes.”
She moved the conversation on to when they would all next get together as her sister-in-law and Jessie came back, plates laden. Better to keep her expectations where they should be and focus instead on what was making her husband so edgy.
The last guest left in the late afternoon. Her husband retreated to his office, murmuring something about a pressing phone call. Missing her family already, Stella sat in the conservatory reading a book.
Her mood disintegrated as the hours went by and her husband remained chained to his desk. She’d signed on to a partnership, not to be shunted off to the sidelines while Kostas looked ready to self-destruct.
By nine o’clock she decided enough was enough. Heading upstairs to his study, she knocked, then entered. Kostas looked up from the document he was reviewing, a dark shadow on his jaw, his eyes weary.
“Lypamai.” I’m sorry. “I didn’t mean to be in here all night.”
She fixed her gaze on his. “What’s going on, Kostas? What can I help with?”
An unblinking dark stare back. “Election mechanics. Boring but necessary.”
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