My hand at her waist felt like it had always belonged there. Like the more than a decade of separation had changed both of us in synchronization somehow, and we’d grown into the perfect match for the people we’d grown to be as adults.
On the other side of our tragedy, she was mine and I was hers.
She just didn’t know it yet.
Her silence grated at me, and I knew I needed to try to be mindful of her virginity. While I’d watched her fingers dance over her clit at night and slip inside her tight heat, she’d always been cautious. The knowledge that her betrothed would expect her to be a virgin, and she’d been saving that for him, only served to drive my need higher to claim her and make her mine. By the end of the night, I alone would know what she felt like on the inside.
As I shoved open the door to my suite, I tried to convince myself it didn’t matter that she hadn’t recognized me. There was no shame in that, because she’d only been a girl when I’d left. Even if I’d have recognized her anywhere, life hadn’t been kind to Thalia. I didn’t know what it was like to go through life in shades of gray, but I imagined it made people less recognizable. All light eyes looked the same. All dark hair looked the same.
She stepped inside hesitantly, her back straighter than a rod and her head held high to look every bit the princess her father had tried to mold her into, but Thalia was never meant to be a princess or a queen. She’d been born to be a warrior.
To bathe in the blood of our enemies.
I closed the door behind me gently, moving into the suite to stand behind her. She stilled at the feeling of my chest against her back, her breath hitching in a way that I instinctively knew wasn’t in desire. It would take time to get rid of those impulses, of her instinctual expectation of pain.
Gathering her dark curtain of hair in my grip, I pulled it over one shoulder and revealed her smooth olive skin to my gaze. There wasn’t a blemish marking the top of her shoulder, only the faint remainder of a welt across her shoulder blades that made me grit my teeth. She moved as if she might step away, freezing when I gripped her hair tighter and pulled her head to the side. Careful not to pull, only to put her where I wanted her, I moved slowly until my lips touched her skin.
A gasp escaped her, making me wish I’d positioned her in a way that I could see her face. Instead, I trailed my lips over the delicate flesh, touching gentle kisses and working to start preparing her to take what I would give her.
She allowed it for a few moments, her slim body writhing against me as desire built in her. ‘I thought you were going to fuck me,’ she murmured softly, a teasing challenge to the words that made me smile against her skin. Spreading my mouth open, I sank my teeth into her shoulder to suppress the fight.
She moaned, her voice breathy as I released her and spun her to face me. With a hand still buried in her hair, I tilted her head back until she had no choice but to look up at me. When her pouty lips parted slightly, the desire to taste her came over me. Leaning forward slowly, I brushed my lips against hers. She held my stare, and I willed her to feel me.
To see me.
Her hands came up to rest against my chest as I pulled away, touching my forehead to hers and wondering what it would take for her to see me as I was. For who I was. Would she remain oblivious until the moment I revealed myself? The thought bothered me more than it should.
I leaned forward, touching my lips to hers again and tracing the parted seam with my tongue. She moaned for me, opening wider as I slid inside and claimed her mouth as mine. The first part of her to be possessed by me, the first part of her that I would take. As she adjusted to the softness of my kiss and the slow and erotic tangle of our tongues, I exerted more pressure.
Her eyes drifted closed finally as I plundered her mouth. She inhaled suddenly when I released her hair, dragging a hand down over her arm to grab the zipper at the back of her dress. Slowly pulling it down, I waited for the moment when she’d come to her senses and realize the dangers of being so reckless.
For the moment when she’d walk away, not knowing that what would happen between us was inevitable. Whether it happened here and now or on our wedding night was her choice, but in the end Thalia would be mine and mine alone.
Instead, she pulled her lips away from mine and brushed the straps of her dress off her shoulders. The forest-green fabric dropped to her waist, bunching around her hips until she slid her hands down to it and shimmied out of it. She stood nearly naked in front of me with a tease in her eyes as she backed away a step, unconcerned with the fact that it was the first time she’d been nude with a man. Only a scrap of lace covering her pussy hid her from my view, her small breasts high and perky on her frame without a bra.
The high heels on her feet made her legs look even longer, and she bit her lip as a trace of insecurity filled her face when I didn’t move. Wrongly assuming I might not want her, when the reality was that I couldn’t move or take my eyes off her.
Finally shrugging my jacket off my shoulders, I tossed it over the back of the armchair at the side of the room. Thalia’s eyes narrowed in on my fingers as I worked open the buttons of my shirt one by one. I smirked at her when her eyes heated, throwing my shirt to join the jacket and then stripping off my shoes and pants. ‘Last chance, my beauty,’ I murmured. Every second that the words sat between us made my deception worse. Every time I used the name that didn’t belong to her, it struck against the deepest part of me. We were finally reunited, but still so far away.
I left my boxer briefs on for the moment, closing the distance between us again. She tilted her head up to accept the kiss I didn’t give her, instead taking her waist in my hands and tossing her onto the bed behind her. She giggled as she bounced against the surface, the sound trailing off as I climbed up and spread her legs to slip my hips between them.
My cock nestled against her pussy, her heat like a brand through the only clothing remaining. With the warmth in her amber eyes, I leaned my weight over hers. Pebbled nipples rubbed against my chest, driving me mad with the need to drive inside her.
I kissed her, groaning when her cautious hand slid between us to touch my cock. She nipped my bottom lip before pulling away. ‘If I wanted gentle, I could have picked a dozen other men,’ she said. A warning grumbled in my chest; the very idea of her choosing anyone but me would have been disastrous for all involved.
I’d kill anyone who dared to touch her.
‘Fuck me,’ she ordered.
‘I’ll hurt you,’ I returned, raising an eyebrow at her. I couldn’t say any more than that, because the knowledge that she was a virgin wasn’t something a stranger would have. As much as I’d wanted Thalia to recognize me, it was truly for the best that she hadn’t.
She nodded. ‘I want it to hurt,’ she said, a questioning hurt filling her gaze. She couldn’t understand that there was nothing wrong with having desires like that, and she’d never be able to fulfill them in a safe way with a husband she couldn’t trust, but everything about our first time would be wrong if I gave her what she asked for.
She deserved so much more than to be brutally fucked by a stranger in a hotel, and everything inside me rebelled against what had become of her, and that this was how desperate she was for the ability to make her own choice even once. It seemed like such a simple thing to anyone else. Her right as a human being.
But for her it was an act of rebellion at best. Suicide at worst, because if her father found out what she’d done, if Damianos rejected her if he realized the truth?
Origen would have no use for her.
It was very fortunate for my Little One that she would never marry Damianos.
I leaned forward, nipping her bottom lip before surging inside her mouth. I kissed her like I wanted to consume her, painting every corner of her with my possession. With only our undergarments between us, she squirmed beneath me. Rolling her hips against the outline of my cock, she gasped into my mouth at the pressure it put on her clit. I was overwhelmed with the need to feel her slick heat rubbing against me, to glide through her parted lips and drive her mad with teasing thrusts long before I ever slid inside her. But Thalia would need to know who was in charge, and her very demand for me to fuck her before I was ready went against everything I knew about myself.
As my wife, she’d need to know exactly what to expect from me, and there was no time like the present to start with her education.
I pulled her hands away from my body, pinning them to the bed beside her hips as she narrowed her gaze up at me. ‘I think you’ve misread the situation,’ I purred, gliding my lips away from her mouth and toward the sensitive skin of her neck. I trailed them over her skin, feeling her squirm and press up against me as her body was lost to the instinct that lurked inside her. ‘You aren’t in charge of anything when you’re in my bed, my beauty.’
‘Unless you live in a hotel, I’m not sure how that’s relevant,’ she said quickly. The comeback came with such ease that I chuckled hoarsely. The very fact that she had one after being so beaten down by the life I couldn’t protect her from proved everything I’d always known about her.
She was stronger than anyone imagined.
‘If you’re in it, it’s my bed,’ I murmured, biting her ear briefly before gliding down over her collarbone to touch my lips to the swell of her breast. She shuddered beneath me, her body going taut as she prepared for the contact she’d so desperately craved. With my hands occupied with pinning her down, all I had to work with was my mouth.
It was enough.
‘I think your logic is faulty,’ she gasped as I sank my teeth into her flesh, biting harder than I should in my desperation to mark her. ‘Don’t,’ she warned, seeming to realize the dangers of returning home to her stepmother with bruises. It took everything in me to pull back and gently run my tongue over the mark.
Releasing one of her wrists, I gripped her breast in my palm as my mouth found her other nipple. Her back arched off the bed as her free hand plunged into my hair. Grasping and pulling at the short strands, she kept me pressed tightly to her as I worshiped her and every inch of her torso with my mouth. By the time I’d slid down between her legs, she quivered beneath me with desperation. Her eyes met mine as I tugged her underwear down her thighs and tossed them to the side.
She spread her legs wider for me without me needing to ask, her body bared to me without a hint of hesitation. She didn’t need to care what I thought of her when she thought she would never see me again, and she most definitely didn’t want to waste the opportunity to feel what she probably never would again.
Men like Damianos had no need to make sure their wives enjoyed their sex life. Not when they were already paid for and unable to escape.
Pinning her arms to her sides once more, I moved slowly into her, holding her eyes as I ran my tongue from her entrance to her clit in a smooth glide. She moaned, shoving her hips up at me harder in an attempt to get more pressure as I kept the touch of my mouth against her soft. ‘What do you want, my beauty?’ I murmured.
‘More.’
‘Manners,’ I reprimanded her, gently biting into the soft flesh of her thigh.
‘Please,’ she groaned. Smirking into her flesh, I dove forward and gave her everything she wanted. I devoured her with intense sweeps of my tongue, shoving it inside her and fucking her with it while she gasped and moaned. ‘Fucking please,’ she begged again, squirming until my mouth returned to her clit. I wrapped my lips around it, sucking it lightly and working it with my tongue until she shattered beneath me. Her eyes squeezed shut, separating me from her in those intense moments of her orgasm. I determined in that moment that her next one would be with her eyes on mine. That I’d watch as the pleasure consumed her.
When her breathing relaxed and she opened those stunning eyes, I released her hands and crawled off the bed. I wanted nothing more than to pretend the condom waiting in my pants pocket didn’t exist, so desperate to feel her pussy wrapped around me with nothing between us. But a one-night stand would wear a condom, and I wanted there to be no doubt that our future child was conceived when she was already my wife.
Tearing the packet open with my teeth, I watched the first tendril of caution settle over Thalia’s features that I’d come to recognize as well as my own in the time since I’d started watching her obsessively. ‘Last chance,’ I said, a challenge in my tone.
Daring her to back down was the fastest way to ensure she followed through, because there was no possibility of her leaving my bed as a virgin. Not after what we’d started.
She raised her chin, watching as I shoved my boxer briefs down and rolled the condom onto my cock. Her lips parted in shock for a moment, the reality of what was about to be inside her giving her another moment of pause.
Prowling onto the bed between her legs, I settled over her and spread her wide. With the wet heat of her pussy searing me even through the condom, I slid through her oversensitive flesh as I watched her face. The smart thing would be for her to give a stranger a warning. To tell him that he was about to fuck a virgin so he might have a chance to be more gentle with her.
But even as I gave Thalia the opportunity to be honest with me, she kept her lips firmly clamped around her secret.
With a ragged groan, I notched myself at her entrance and watched her face. Even though I wanted to have my lips on hers when I first slid inside her, I forced myself to keep separated, to watch her face and give her the chance to tell me if it was too much or too fast.
I drove inside, shoving through her tender tissue more quickly than I should, given what I knew. Even with the force of it, I couldn’t get far. Not with the way she was choking the life out of my cock. She groaned, bending her neck so that she curled in on herself as a startled scream caught in her throat. ‘Something you need to tell me, Beauty?’ I asked, pulling back and then pressing forward again. ‘Because this feels like something I should know.’
‘Fuck you,’ she hissed, baring her teeth at me as she reached down to grab my ass. She pulled me closer, impaling herself on my cock as I pressed through that barrier inside her, then yelped, leaning up to press her mouth to my shoulder. Teeth sinking into my flesh, she marked me in the way I wanted to mark her.
When she finally settled back onto the bed, I moved inside her with slow but firm thrusts, taking her in the way I wanted and touching my lips to hers. Our breath mingled as she wrapped her legs around my waist.
Slowly the pinch of pain on her face faded to something else entirely, shock flooding her features as she realized the depths of pleasure that could be found with me inside her. With one hand wrapped around to hold the back of her thigh, I slid the other beneath her neck and held her exactly where I wanted her. She took me deep, accepting the pounding pressure as her pussy spasmed around me with a coming orgasm.
I wanted it. Wanted to keep it for myself.
‘Eyes on me,’ I ordered, touching my forehead to hers. The intimacy of the moment was something I’d never dreamed to have, because it wouldn’t have made sense with anyone but Thalia. She’d always been meant to be mine.
Her breath caught in her throat as she came with nothing but the movement of my cock inside her, her amber eyes turning molten as her pussy choked the cum out of my cock and I followed her over the edge in a blinding release of my own and filled the condom.
She lay beneath me, panting for breath as I dreaded what came next.
Knowing she would walk away from me wouldn’t stop the sting when she actually did it.
