between them had melted away in his smile. How had she denied him this long?
He pulled her head closer, and bent down to capture her mouth. His kiss was sweet, hot, sending spirals of heat dancing through her body, making her come up on her toes to meet him. She let her hands trail up the tantalizingly hard ridge of his abdomen to his broad chest, reveling in the taut glory of his muscles.
He angled his jaw, and took the kiss deeper. Hotter. Lara felt the world fall away, spinning into nothing, and only belatedly realized he’d swept her into his arms. He kept kissing her as he moved, and she looped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Again and again, until she found herself on her back in the center of the wide, white bed, with Adel resting snugly between her thighs.
Was she really going to do this? Pretend nothing else mattered but this fire, this need?
“Adel.” she began, but he smiled at her, even as he moved his hips against hers. Lara gasped, and forgot.
She forgot she’d ever wanted to deny him, and instead opened to his every touch. He stripped them both naked with surprising finesse and long, drugging kisses, feasting on every inch of flesh he uncovered. He trailed fire from one breast to the other, then tasted his way down the soft skin of her belly to claim the heat between her legs.
And then he licked his way into the molten core of her, and she forgot her own name.
She shattered around him, caught in a wave of pleasure so intense, so perfect, she was not sure what would be left of her. She was not sure she could survive it.
When she came back to herself, he was poised above her, his hard face sharpened, somehow, with passion.
And she realized it was just beginning.
“You are mine,” he said hoarsely, and then he thrust within her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE summer wore on as the country settled into its new era, with its new rulers fully ensconced upon the throne, and Adel could not understand why—having finally achieved all he’d ever wanted—the only thing he seemed to think about was his wife.
Not the warring factions that forever threatened to sink the government. Not the leftover yet ever-thorny issues from the various world powers that had tried to take the strategically located Alakkulian Valley in their time. Not the need to protect and support the economy, nor the tendency of some citizens to live as if it were still the tenth century. It was not that he did not care about all of these things. It was just that his focus was Lara. Always Lara.
The way her skin felt against his, naked and soft, hot and delicious. The way her head tipped back in ecstasy, showing the long, elegant line of her neck as she cried out his name. The way her toned, athletic legs wrapped so tightly around his hips. The way she would smile at him, so dreamily, in those stolen moments after they had both reached heaven, her eyes that silver-blue that made his chest expand and ache.
He was enchanted by her, this woman he had loved for so much of his life, and the reality of her far exceeded his fantasies.
It wasn’t just the perfection of her body. He even enjoyed her when she argued with him—which was, he reflected as he took in the cross expression she wore as he entered their private breakfast room in the palace—most of the time.
“I don’t see the point of being called a queen when all I do is sit around the palace, staring out of windows and boring myself to death,” she threw at him with no preamble, her fingers picking at the pastry before her.
“Good morning to you, too,” he murmured, settling himself in his usual place opposite her while the servants bustled around him, pouring out his morning coffee and presenting him with a stack of papers for his review.
She ignored him. “I am used to working,” she said. “Doing something, not sitting around like an ornament attached to your lapel!”
“Then do something,” he suggested, picking up his coffee and eyeing her. She made his heart swell with what he could only describe as gladness. Most women cowered before him, or fell all over themselves in an attempt to please him. Never this one. She was bold. Brash. Unafraid. “You are the Queen. You can do as you like.”