Fit for a King (30 page)

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Diana
Palmer

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King

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daddy." She
smiled. "Tall and dark and handsome and gentle."

"Blue-eyed,"
he whispered, tilting her warm
mouth up to his.

"Brown-eyed,"
she whispered back, and drew his
lips over hers.

A long time later, he lifted his head.
"Elissa?"

"What?" she murmured dreamily.

"I think we have company."

She looked
up. Her father was sitting on one side of them, his knees drawn up under his
bathrobe,
watching the surf. Her mother was on the other side,
similarly clad, humming.

"Lovely night," Mr. Dean remarked.

"Lovely," his wife agreed.

King and
Elissa burst out laughing. "The marriage
license and the
rings are in my jacket pocket," King
told them. "All we
need is a quick blood test and a
quiet little ceremony, which we hope you'll
perform.
You, uh, might have noticed that we've rather jumped
the
gun," he added with a sheepish smile.

"She
likes kosher pickles in her corn flakes, and
he wonders if we've
noticed that they've rather
jumped the gun," Mr. Dean addressed his
wife.

"Yes, dear, I heard." Mrs. Dean grinned.

"And
in case it crossed your mind," King mur
mured, glancing
wickedly down at Elissa, "we've
been controlling those interesting
impulses that led us

to this delicious
complication. We've just been trying
to decide what color his eyes will
be."

"I like girls," Mr. Dean suggested.

"What's
wrong with a boy?" Tina asked inno
cently.

"Maybe
it will be both," Mr. Dean remarked.
"Her appetite
has been extraordinary."

"I'd
like twins," King murmured, his eyes shining
with everything he
felt as he looked at the slender,
beautiful woman in his arms. He
glanced up at her
parents, who were on their feet now. "I'm sure you'd
rather things had worked out a little more conven
tionally,
but I guess I had to learn how to love."

"You
seem to have the hang of it now, son," Mr. Dean said dryly.

"It's
not all his fault," Elissa muttered "I sort of
forced
him into it."

"You did not," King flashed.

"I
thought you told her the facts of life," Mr. Dean
murmured to his wife.

"I thought you did," came the dry reply.

"Well,
we might try again. Come on, children,
we'll have coffee and discuss some
details," Mr.
Dean said, sliding an arm
around his wife's waist.
"Nice
boy."

"I think
so, too." Mrs. Dean stopped, glancing be
hind as King gently
helped Elissa to her feet
"There's just one thing, Kingston,"
she murmured,
frowning. "I shouldn't really ask, but can you
support

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her, working in a
garage? If you need any help, we'll
do what we can."

King burst out laughing. He
drew Elissa close to
his side and fell into
step beside her parents. "While we have that coffee," he told them
dryly, "we'll have
a little talk
about the oil business."

Two weeks
later, King and Elissa were back in
Jamaica at his villa, Warchief
happily installed in his
cage while his owners set out for a new and
delicious
experience on the beach. It had been a learning period
for them both, getting to know each other without the
barriers of
uncertainty and mistrust.

Just
before they'd left for Jamaica again, Elissa had
even found a way to
tell King about his father, still
alive and in a nursing home. King had
listened to her,
then sat staring into space for a long time. Minutes
later, he'd gone off to use the phone. When he came
back, he'd looked
thoughtful and pleased. She'd later
learned that he'd spoken to the old
man and had
promised
to go and have a long visit with him after
the
honeymoon. It was a milestone, Elissa had
thought.

And
speaking of milestones... She hesitated as they
walked out onto the damp sand.

"Someone
will see us," she squealed as King
stripped her out of
her robe and nightgown, leaving
her bare and beautiful on the white beach.

"The only person who might lives in the cottage,

and she's away for a
week. I checked," he said,
chuckling and pausing to strip out of his
own robe.
"Come on. You'll love this."

He led
her into the warm, rippling water, and she
felt it swallow her
up like a satin embrace. She gasped
at the exquisite freedom of it while she swam and
floated and finally wound up close against a
smiling
King.

"Now
I see why you like it," she whispered.
"It's...incredible."

"Yes, isn't it?" But
he wasn't looking at the water. His hands were busy under its surface, doing
things
to her body that made her gasp and
cling to him and cry out.

He took
her cry into his mouth, taking full advan
tage of its position
to explore it in a silence that
quickly grew hot and hungry. He lifted her
into his arms and carried her out onto the beach, putting her down gently in
the center of a huge beach towel. He
stood over her, his body fully
aroused, his eyes, dark
and wild, devouring her as she lay there.
"I want
you," he whispered hoarsely.

"Then why don't you come
down here and do
something about it?"
she whispered huskily, stretch
ing in
a way that made her tremble.

He eased
down completely over her, his hands
gently tangling with hers, letting
her have most of his
weight, feeling the bare saltiness of his skin
over
every inch of
hers.

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"You
look like you did the first time,” she said
softly.

"I
was hungry then, too," he murmured, finding
her mouth.
"Starving for you, by then. I still am. But
it's...hard to
describe." He lifted his head, shifting
his hips to make her
gasp. "Patience," he teased
softly. "I want to talk
first."

 
“Talk
fast," she pleaded.

He nipped
her lower lip and teased it with his
tongue. His hands were on her waist
now, her hips,
moving her body against the hair-roughened contours
of his in
a kind of love play he'd never used with her before. She caught her breath,
clutching at the broad
shoulders above her, the fires kindling deep in her
body.

He looked
down the length of them, smiling at the tremors claiming her long, slender
legs, shudders that
he could feel along with her changed breathing.
"There
are hundreds of paths to fulfillment," he
whispered, moving his
eyes slowly back up to catch hers. "This is a new one." He bent,
putting his mouth
to her breasts.

"I
thought...you wanted...to talk," she gasped
when he took a hard
nipple into his mouth.

He
laughed huskily. "I'm not sure I can just now.
Oh, baby," he
breathed, positioning her, hungrily as
saulting her mouth,
dragging his body against her un
til she was on the verge of tears with the sensations
he was arousing.

Her nails
scored him, and she moaned. "I'm
sorry," she whispered shakily.
"I didn't mean to..."

"Bite,
claw, scream," he ground out against her mouth. "Whatever you need,
whatever you want, I'll
give you. Tell me."

She did,
astonishing herself with her own shameless whispers. She looked up at him
then, seeing his
eyes blazing with love, his face taut with passion but
tenderness,
as well. She threw back her head and
nearly wailed as the first wave hit her and she went into
spasms of hot, almost unbearable pleasure.

Somewhere
in its midst, she felt him move, felt him
still, heard him cry
out above her and then shared the
delicious echo of her own shudders.

It was a
long time before she could breathe again.
The stars came back
into focus over his shoulder, and
she felt the warm wind off the ocean on her damp,
bare skin.

"The
first man and woman—it must have been like
this for them,"
she whispered in his ear. "Alone in
the world, under the
sky, joining."

"Joining,"
he whispered. "Cherishing. Becoming
one." He lifted his damp head and
searched her rapt
eyes. He kissed her
softly, touching her belly. "Is he
all right?" he whispered. "I didn't mean to get so
rough."

"He's fine," she whispered back, smiling.

"It
excites me," he said quietly, "having my child
inside you,
knowing I helped create him." He

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breathed deeply.
"What I wanted to say to you," he murmured, resting half his weight
on his forearms
without moving away from her, "is that when we
make
love, it isn't just sex."

She
smiled. "Yes, I know." She adored him with her eyes, the excitement
growing again. "It's an ex
pression of love, isn't it, King? It always
was, even the first time."

"Reading
my mind again," he murmured contentedly. "I've noticed that even
your parents seem to do
that."

"I think they're pretty super," she said.

"So
do I. That being the case, it might not be a bad idea if we adopted them."
He toyed with her
lower lip. "What with his lizards and her crime bust
ing, they
need looking after."

"Mother
almost wept with relief when she found
out we were bringing
Warchief back with us, did you
notice?" She grinned. "She thinks
he's a giant green
mosquito."

He
grinned, too. "He bites, all right. But he's learn
ing to
sing lullabies—have you noticed?" he added
on a frown.

"I'm
teaching him," she confessed. "I expect to
have more than one
child, you know. He can sing
babies to sleep while I rock them."

His
powerful frame trembled a little. "I like ba
bies."

She shifted her hips very slowly, her lips parting,

her eyes
come-hitherish, feeling him begin to tauten.
"So do I,"
she whispered. "And this time," she
added, pushing at
his shoulders until she got him onto
his back and moved over him, "I'm
going to show
you
something new."

"Elissa..." He held her hips, hesitating.

"Just
relax," she whispered, looking like an imp,
her eyes sparkling. "I won't hurt
you."

She moved,
and he groaned harshly. And then it
was too late to protest. He felt his
body being flung
up against the sky, hearing her soft laughter, dying in
the
throes of a feverish struggle for control that even
as he fought, he
lost.

When his
eyes opened, her face was there, smiling
at him, loving him.
He sighed. "Well, I guess there
had to be a first time," he
teased, exhausted. "And we are married, and it's a new world."

"Prude,"
she whispered, putting her mouth softly on his. "You're just afraid you'll
get pregnant in this
position."

He burst
out laughing, holding her to him. "You enchant me," he whispered.
"Tease me, torment me,
burn me up. I love you so damned much, I can
hardly
breathe for it."

That was
the first time he'd actually said it Tears
burned her eyes, and
she buried her face against his
chest, hugging him to her. "I love you,
too," she
whispered. Her eyes closed. "I always will."

His arms closed around her, and he sighed. "Have