Ways To Ruin A Royal Reputation (Mills & Boon Modern) (Signed, Sealed…Seduced, Book 1) by Dani Collins (best ebook reader ubuntu .txt) 📗

her so fully, there was barely any place he didn’t touch. Didn’t claim. She was all his. At the mercy of his unconstrained sexual heat.

He slammed into her and rocked against her swollen, delirious flesh. The universe opened into an expansive void. For an infinite moment, they were suspended like stars in the universe, caught in the peak of supreme perfection for all eternity.

Then his tongue touched hers and reality folded in on itself. Orgasm struck like a hammer, and she was moaning against his own noises of supreme gratification while waves of culmination rolled over them, again and again.

Luca woke to the sound of the door locks releasing.

He kept his head buried in his pillow, willing himself to let her go.

“Just once” had turned into twice. Twice was not a slip of control. Twice was unabashed self-indulgence. He had deafened himself to his internal voices of caution and abandoned himself to sheer lust. It had been incredible.

And disturbing to realize he was so capable of immersing himself in base desire. He was not so far above his father as he liked to believe. He was just as capable of pursuing immediate gratification.

When sexual exhaustion had crept over them, he’d thrown himself into a hard nap so he wouldn’t have to face this reckoning—which was another facet of abandoned responsibility. On the few occasions when he had made a mistake, Luca always confronted and corrected it. He didn’t play denial games.

Sleeping with Amy was definitely a mistake. He’d known it even as her name had left his lips after their lunch. He should have let her walk away.

At least he was doing it now. She was making it easy for him by slipping away while she thought he was sleeping. He would make it easy for her by not trying to stop her, even though his shoulders twitched with the need to come up on his elbows. Wait, hovered unspoken on his lips.

What time was it? Beyond his lowered eyelids and the mound of the pillow, he had the sense that daylight was fading. He didn’t look. He held still with belated but ruthless control, waiting to hear the door close behind her.

The sound came from the wrong side of the room. The air moved. It tasted cool and carried the scent of the sea. He lifted his head and glanced toward the terrace.

The sight of her knocked his breath out of him.

Amy, bare-legged and shoeless, strawberry blonde hair streaked with gold wafting loosely down the back of his rippling shirt, was backlit by one of Vallia’s signature sunsets.

A trick of air and water currents beyond their west coast caused wispy clouds to gather on the horizon at the end of the day, providing a canvas for dying rays. As the air cooled, the sea calmed to reflect sharp, bright oranges that bled toward streaks of pink and purple while indigo crept in from the edges. Couples came from around the world to photograph their wedding against it.

Luca rose and was outside before he’d consciously thought to join her. He was drawn. That power she exerted without effort should have scared the hell out of him, but he was too enchanted by the expression on her face when he came alongside her.

She had moved to the northern end of the terrace and was looking back toward the castle ruins where the colors of the sunset were painting the gray stones bronze and red, throwing its cracks and crevices into dark relief.

He joined her and took in her profile with the same wonder she was sending toward the castle. Her mouth was soft, eyes lit with awe. Her creamy skin held the magical glow off the horizon.

“This is so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Me, either.” The compliment was meant to be ironic, but his voice was lodged in his chest where thick walls were fracturing and tumbling apart.

He gave in to the compulsion to draw her into his arms. His hand found the curve of her bare backside beneath the fall of his shirt, and he reveled in the way his caress fractured her breath.

Let her go, the infernal voice inside him whispered. It was more of a distant howl, like wolves warning of the perils that stalked him if he continued to linger with her.

But she was fragrant and soft and shorter without her heels. She sent him a smoky, womanly smile as she realized he was naked and traced patterns at the base of his spine that tightened his buttocks with pleasure.

Her expression grew somber. Vulnerable. “Thank you for this. I haven’t been with anyone in a long time. I needed to know I could be intimate with a man and not lose everything.”

Tension invaded his limbs. Not jealousy or possessiveness, but a primitive protectiveness that tasted similar. His arms unconsciously tightened, wanting to hold on to her because he understood from her remark that she was afraid of being caged again.

She was reminding him this couldn’t be anything more than this one day.

He knew it as well as she did, but he moved his hand into her hair and gently dragged her head back, mostly to see if she’d allow it. They’d grown damned familiar in the last couple of hours, and he wanted that small show of trust from her.

Her lips parted in shock while lust hazed her gaze.

A self-deprecating smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I should hate myself for enjoying this as much as I do.” Her capitulation. The surge of virility it gave him that she allowed him to dominate her this way. He was an animal, just the same as everyone else. He had never wanted to admit that. “Sex was his thing. It’s hard for me to give in to desire without thinking there’s something wrong with me when I do.” He had never told that to anyone. He’d barely articulated it to himself. “It’s probably best that today is all we have.” Otherwise, they might