ducked under my tunic.
I felt his fingers flutter over the heat of me and my entire length trembled beneath him.
He broke the kiss and groaned, “Soaked,” against my lips before he took my mouth again, his tongue demanding, mine acquiescing.
His fingers dipped into the gusset of my body stocking, dragged over my clit, and that felt so exquisite, I moaned against his tongue, bucking up.
He rubbed.
I rocked against his finger.
My stomach tightened.
My womb pulsed.
My nails tunneled into his back.
And eventually I broke our lips, my body bowing up into his.
“Elena,” he murmured.
My lips parted, my eyes closed, my arms wrapped around him to hold on as I melted into an explosion of stars and drifted in the midnight I’d seen in his eyes.
When I recovered from this splendor, I no longer bore his weight.
He’d fallen off to my side and his hand was not between my legs. Instead, it was an arm around me, it had turned me to him, and he was holding me close to his length.
His other arm was pillowing my head, but cocked, so it could also hold my face to his throat.
I blinked at its corded column.
By the mercy of the goddess, what had I just done?
I tensed and whispered a ragged, “I must go.”
He tensed, tossed a heavy leg over both of mine and returned gruffly, “You must stay.”
“That should not have happened,” I told his throat.
“Perhaps not in the garden where those in the palace can see us, but I hid you so there was naught to see but a couple embracing. Other than that, it should have happened because it was eventually going to happen. Definitely.”
The goddess showed no mercy because I hadn’t thought of that.
People seeing.
Bloody hell.
I noticed belatedly my arms were around him as well. I pulled them between us and flattened my hands against his chest.
“I must go.”
“Elena.”
“I must see to Theodora.”
His tone changed to coaxing. “Do you not think, my warrior, that this is good?”
“No.”
“I enjoyed that greatly,” he declared.
I went still and stared at his throat.
“And you could talk a millennium and not convince me you didn’t enjoy it…even more than me.”
By the goddess, this was mortifying.
“I would like to go.”
“There are other things I will do to you that you’ll enjoy even more.”
That gave me pause for that was an impossibility.
“Yes, Elena,” he murmured into my hair, and on a squeeze of his arms, finished, “Much more.”
“That was embarrassing,” I blurted.
“I cannot imagine why. You were glorious.”
I was?
I did not ask him to reiterate that or explain it.
But before I could say anything, he spoke again, fortunately changing the subject, unfortunately changing it to something pricklier.
“Shall we go see to Theodora together?”
“No.”
“She must meet me, Elena, and I’ll be in meetings for the rest of the day.”
“She’s not at her best when she wakes up,” I shared.
His arm at the back of my head relaxed but that was all he released of his hold on me.
At least I could tip my head back to look at him, a head which was still pillowed by his bulging upper arm.
It was not cushiony.
But it still was comfortable.
Bloody hell.
When I looked up, I saw he was looking down.
His eyes were again sky-blue.
I could not say if I preferred them that way or as midnight.
That said, the midnight was alarming, but not when one knew it came forth when he was feeling deep.
And he was feeling deep that Dora had been upset.
A girl he had not yet met.
“She would sleep the day away if she could,” I informed him.
“Children do this,” he shared. “A physician in my realm says it’s because they grow so rapidly. Their bodies are working hard. Therefore, they need sleep.”
“That makes sense,” I muttered.
“I still do not allow Aelia to sleep the day away.”
“As you shouldn’t.”
His eyes moved over my face and his voice grew quiet when he asked, “Have we reached an accord, you and I?”
One could say we had.
Though we hadn’t.
“Partially,” I allowed.
“I would very much like to meet your daughter, Elena,” he whispered.
Oh goddess.
There was nothing for it and not just the part where there really wasn’t.
The part where he clearly wished to meet her in order to know her.
“When you’re not engaged with meetings,” I decided. “And we’re not engaged with attending royal weddings. When you have time for her and I have time to see to her and assess how she feels about it after you do.”
“The day after the wedding. Mars will be occupied. No meetings will happen.”
I considered this.
He