Page 35 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

A small nervous energy started to bloom in my chest as I considered what was about to happen. He was about to learn just how much I had been bullshitting about my experience. Part of me feared his reaction upon learning that he had deflowered the maiden princess.

But that smile was still on his face, and this was Io.

The fear fled as he laid me on the mattress and found my lips again.

His hands raked down my body, and a soft moan escaped my throat. His fingers went to the laces on the front of my nightgown. I pushed against his chest and rose with him as he backed up, straightening, with a puzzled look on his face.

I turned, pulling my hair to the side, showing him a row of delicate buttons. "The ribbons are just decorative," I said, grinning over my shoulder.

"I see," he said, reaching for me and placing his lips against the back of my neck.

I felt him going through the buttons, shivers breaking out from the light dip of his fingers under the fabric as he slid each one out of the catch.

"You are unusually quiet, Sera. Are you having reservations about this extremely...absolutely..." He punctuated each word with a kiss down the length of my neck." Completely...reckless...idea of yours?"

In answer, as I felt the fabric give way with the final button, I let my gown fall, sliding down my arms and catching at my waist. Only a slight push had it past my hips and pooling at my feet.

His indrawn breath was all the confirmation I needed that he was pleased with the action. I was completely naked before him.

"Dear fates, Sera, are you trying to kill me?" he growled as he ran his hands down my waist, over the curve of my backside.

I turned in his arms, noting his eyes devouring the image of me before him. "Again, you mean?" I asked with a sly grin.

"Wicked, cruel thing," he said, guiding me back onto the bed.

My heart raced as I looked at him. He was more than beautiful. He was perfectly, wonderfully made. His long arms came down beside me on the bed, caging me in. I didn't feel trapped, though. I felt protected, wanted.

And I felt need; sharp, unyielding need. It pulsed low in my belly, sending heat rushing to my face and between my legs at once.

He laid his hand on my chest, sliding his fingers up to cradle my throat. I arched into his touch as he slid them back down, my breasts heavy and aching with their own need to be claimed.

"You are so fucking beautiful." The words were barely more than a hoarse whisper as his eyes slid over me.

And then he bent his head, capturing my nipple between his teeth, his lips, tongue sliding around the peaked bud as he ran his fingers around the rounded flesh of my breast.

And lower, his fingers trailed over my stomach, finding the dark hair between my legs, dipping into the flesh and sliding against me until I gasped.

He groaned as his mouth found mine again. "So wet," he said against my lips. I felt his smile of pleasure.

His finger...was doing something wonderful as he again trailed kisses down my body, over my breasts, lower and lower until I felt him parting my thighs, grasping my hips to draw me to the edge of the bed.

His mouth replaced his finger before I knew what was happening, his tongue, fiery hot, at my center.

The sensation was too much. My upper body jerked up as I caught his head, meaning to push him away.

But then he lessened the pressure of his tongue, and hot waves of pleasure licked up my spine as I watched his mouth on me. That wicked tongue moving over me as I ran my hands through his hair.

The sight of him on his knees between my legs sent such a wave of power through me that I felt my breath leave me in a halting gasp.

His eyes met mine and he smiled, "You like the sight of me down here, don't you, Sera?"

"Yes," I admitted quickly, my voice hardly more than a breath.

His dark chuckle against my sensitive flesh began some unwinding in me as his tongue returned to me, and pressure built between his mouth and my body.

Release hit me all at once, wrenching his name from me on a harsh, nearly sobbing cry as my legs jerked and pressed in around his head.

His eyes, as he rose, were dark and depthless, his half smile at the way my body still shuddered, evidence of his own satisfaction.

I watched him as his hand went to the waistband of his pants. Without taking his eyes from mine, he deftly unfastened the buttons and let them fall to the floor.

I dared not look down even as his eyes dared me to.

But then he moved, and I could no longer keep my eyes away. I looked at him—nude and erect, moving toward me like a predator coming in for the kill. He was big—too big. I suddenly felt that undercurrent of fear return over what was about to happen.

But then his body met mine, his skin fiery hot. He kissed me again, and I tasted my body, slightly salty on his lips. I arched toward him, wrapping my arms around his neck to pull him to me as I forgot the fear again.

"I really like it when you say my name," he told me.

Before I could respond, he was lifting me up onto the bed at the same time he yanked the blanket down so that I was lying against the soft, cool sheets with my head on the pillows.

I felt his knees come between my legs, spreading me as he kissed me again. That little knot of trepidation again edged around the desire that still had my heart racing.

I felt his cock slide against my flesh, and it was so hot against the still overly sensitive bud at the juncture of my thighs that I gasped and moaned. My hips lifted toward him of their own accord as the shock of the touch turned to need—wicked and sharp.

His hands were still roaming, his hard length moving against my skin. "You feel so good, Sera."

As my heart soared at his words, I told him, "I like it when you say my name, too.”

"Do you, Sera?" I shuddered at the sound of his wonderful, deep voice in my ear as he smiled against the skin of my neck. An unexpected thrill to be the cause of that smile positively lit me up inside.

Before I had time to process such a reckless emotion, he shifted his hips, poised against my opening. A tremor went through his body, and he stilled, dropping his head and closing his eyes as though in pain.

"What's wrong?" I asked, concerned for him, or that I had made some misstep. I placed my hand on his cheek, and he opened his eyes, surprised at the touch.

"Nothing. Nothing is wrong," he said, a faint smile curving his lips as his eyes narrowed on me with that predator’s gaze.

He pushed inside me in one long stroke.

I cried out as pain lanced through me, the foreign fullness chasing my breath away as I closed my eyes.

I did not push him away. The need for him, the surprising pleasure at the intrusion, was quickly chasing away the discomfort—the heat shifting from burning, to aching fulfillment.

I realized he had not moved. My eyes shot open to see him looking at me almost...horrified.

"Fuck, Sera," he ground out through clenched teeth. "Why did you not tell me you're a maiden?"

"I..." I stammered. "Because it didn't matter. Because I want this," I said more confidently than I felt. I wrapped my legs around him and felt him shudder again at the movement. "I want you, Io."

He huffed a laugh, dropping his head again with a groan. "Dear gods, Sera, I am absolutely certain now that you are trying to kill me."

He moved inside me slowly—so tantalizingly slowly—as he propped one hand on the bed beside me and cradled my face in the other. "Beautiful, wicked assassin," he said, stroking my jaw, running his thumb over my lips as he moved in me.

The feeling of him was beyond anything I imagined it would be as he slid in and out, still so very slowly. His hips jerked slightly with what I thought was the effort of keeping still.

It was madness and ecstasy and greed. The ache that should have been sated once he was buried deep inside me, only pulsed louder and more insistent as I began to need more. "Io, please," I moaned, but I barely knew what I was asking for.

I arched up to meet him, pushing our bodies together, urging him to move.

And then he did. He let go of his restraint and slid into me. I realized he had not been all the way inside as he finally filled me, pushing against an ache that I had not known I felt. I cried out again, unable to stifle the breathless moan of his name on my lips.

He pulled out and slid back inside in quick succession, and then again and again. That throbbing center inside me built and reached a peak, but instead of ebbing, it continued, muscles coiling, pressure rising.

"Fuck, Sera," he ground out as he continued to move his hips, each long, delicious slide stoking some primal need for the next.

And then, as I felt something inside me might snap from the pressure, compounding waves of ecstasy rolled through me, making my body shudder.

I moaned, cried out, pleaded, as my upper body rose up from the bed. My lips found his shoulder where I sank my teeth into his skin, desperate and consumed.

But the pleasure did not end. More and more it rushed through me until I fell back to the bed, crying out in a harsh sound that edged on pain, but was born of pure, unadulterated pleasure as I climaxed again.

He slid into me once more as the hand on my cheek grew warm with a delicious heat that spilled into my skin, making some strange relief wash through me, seeming to banish every dark thought or feeling I had ever had.

Brilliant golden light obscured my vision just before he jerked his hand away, planting it on the sheet beside my head. I heard his deep, almost angry growl in my ears as he reached his own release, while I lay floating in a peace that still invaded my mind like warm sunshine on a summer day.

And then his hands were on my face, and even while still buried inside me, he turned my face this way and that.

Realizing my eyes had fluttered closed at some point, I opened them to see a shocked expression on his face as both his gaze and his fingers roamed over my skin.