In the Flesh (12 page)

He forced himself to wait. “Your choice, Katie. You said you could take me. Do it.”

Katie’s lithe thighs were defined by the effort required to keep herself above him. The sight of her bared, toned body was so erotic it made Wulf perspire. It was such a provocative and tantalizing view. He couldn’t imagine ever growing tired of it.

“Will this satisfy you, Your Highness?” With a practiced swivel of her hips, she took him to the root, the denuded lips of her pussy kissing the base of his shaft. “Is this what you wanted?”

Wulf’s breath hissed out between clenched teeth. His fingers dug into the slick marble beneath him but found no purchase.

Her hands lifted to slide into her hair, thrusting her breasts forward wantonly. With narrowed eyes,
Katie licked her lips and rose, stroking his cock in a heated, intimate embrace.

“Katie,” he groaned, lost in her. “You are so beautiful.”

She began to dance then, her seductress’s body undulating over and around him, her hips rolling and lowering, her arms manipulating her hair into a graceful curtain of dark silk.

“Is this what you had in mind?” she purred, riding him with breathtaking skill and schooled elegance. “To steal your enemy’s lover and fuck her in your
seraglio
? To take his prized courtesan and add her to your stable as just one of many?”

“What?”
he choked, as she rippled her inner muscles along the length of his throbbing dick, stealing his wits.

“Are you thinking of him now?” Katie goaded, her throaty voice roughened by passion. “Wishing he could see you? Wishing he was watching me give to you what I wouldn’t give to him?”

With a growl of fury, Wulf tugged her flat against him and twisted, taking her under him again. “The king has nothing to do with this.
Nothing!
”

“You lie.” Her eyes glistened, and the sight made his chest tight. “Why else would you bring me
here?
To be with all of
them!”

“Because I’m an idiot.” He pressed the words into her throat with fierce kisses. “I lost the ability to think clearly the moment I saw you.”

“Wulf…” Her voice broke.

The wealth of emotion between them made him dizzy, but he welcomed it. He was alive. His heart beat strongly in his chest. His lungs breathed in air.
And in his arms lay a beautiful, desirable woman he admired. A woman who felt as he did—reckless and out of control.

He laced his fingers with hers and pulled their arms over her head. “Let me make it good for you.”

“It’s too good,” she whispered, her hands squeezing his.

His chest flexed against hers as he returned her grip. “It is. And it’s between us. No one else.”

She hugged him deep inside her, caressing him with those maddening little muscles. He dropped his head next to hers. “I don’t want to hold back, Katie. I want to ride you hard and deep.”

Her tongue delved into his ear, making him tremble. “Do it. Burn this out.”

With a grunt of pure lust, he wrapped himself around her and began to thrust. Wild, he drove into her with a singular madness, his buttocks clenching and releasing in rapid rhythm as he propelled himself as far into the heart of her as he could go.

It wasn’t enough. He wondered if it would ever be enough, if he would get deep enough…

Katie sobbed and cried out his name, rising to meet every downstroke. Scratching and clawing at his sweat-slick back. Trying to crawl into him, even as he was trying to pound into her.

The pleasure built, rising like a swelling tide until it spilled from his lips.

“Katie…yes, like that…you’re so tight…so hot…so fucking good…”

Snarls and savage groans rose in volume around them. Distantly, Wulf realized it was he who was
making those abandoned sounds of pleasure but he couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop.

His climax was wrapping around his spine and fisting his balls. He wanted to slow down, make it last, but there was no way. Not with her begging him as she was, pleading with him to fuck her harder and deeper. His knees were bruised from the stone floor, but the pain anchored him to the present, to this moment, to this woman. The woman who’d wanted him when he’d wanted to die.

Gritting his teeth, Wulf tried to will away the unbelievable pleasure. But Katie screamed his name, climaxing with a torrent of sound, her body clenching around him in exquisite inner convulsions. She dragged him with her into orgasm, yanking him under. He succumbed with an exultant shout of masculine triumph. He came violently, his tormented cock jerking with every thick spurt, his jaw clenched tightly as he emptied his lust into the quivering depths of her.

Shuddering with the devastating force of his release, Wulf fought to pull air into his lungs. Katie’s greedy body continued to grip him in aftershocks that stole his sanity. He pressed tender, grateful kisses along the side of her face and neck. Releasing her hands, he hugged her, then curled them both on their sides.

How had this obsession consumed him so quickly? Why did it have to be focused on this woman, a woman never meant for him? His mind was too fogged to think. His embrace tightened.

Katie was tucked into the crook of his shoulder, and Wulf knew by the extremity of her relaxation
that she was asleep. He left her only for the length of time necessary to stand and draw up his pants. Then he lifted her into his arms.

“Guardian, send for Sabine.” He carried Katie toward the exit. Within a moment, he heard a door open behind him.

“Yes, Your Highness?” Sabine asked.

Wulf paused and faced his chamberlain. As she straightened from a low bow, he noted the high flush on her cheeks and wondered at it. Then he remembered the abandon with which he’d taken Katie and his own face heated with unfamiliar embarrassment. Everyone would have heard them. Sabine eyed the sleeping Katie with new respect.

“I will call for you when she wakes,” he said. “You will attend to her in my chambers.”

He started to walk away.

“Y-you’re taking her with you?” Sabine was incredulous. “It will only take a moment to prepare a room for her.”

He shook his head. Like Katie, he was exhausted, and all he wanted was his own bed and Katie curled up beside him. “That will be all, Sabine.”

“I apologize for being unprepared, Your Highness.” The chamberlain hurried after him. “Her room will be ready shortly.”

“No need to apologize. And you misunderstand. She will share my rooms.”

Wulf didn’t have to turn around to know Sabine was dumbfounded. He felt the same. He likened the feeling to blunt force trauma to the head, which was dangerous, considering how he’d need sound reasoning to explain his actions to his father.

Stealing the King of Sari’s prized concubine for ransom was one thing. It meant returning her was intended and a war unlikely.

Intending to keep her, despite all the risks, was another circumstance altogether.

Warmth and comfort were the first two things to register in Sapphire’s mind when she returned to consciousness. Keeping her eyes closed, she relished those sensations before she was bombarded with others—the feel of a man’s hard leg between her thighs, a thickly muscled pectoral beneath her cheek, warm lips pressed to her crown, and Wulf’s scent clinging to her skin.

She opened her eyes and saw totally unfamiliar surroundings. A large red velvet canopy loomed overhead with matching drapes tied to each of four bedposts. An inlaid seating area scattered with multicolored pillows was several feet away. Beyond that was a massive bank of windows that were nearly the size of transport bay doors.

Curious, Sapphire disentangled from Wulf’s embrace despite his sleepy protests, and walked to the windows to take in the view. Set high atop a mountain, the D’Ashier royal palace overlooked the thriving cities below. The sun was setting, bathing the vista spread out before her in a reddish golden glow.

She jumped when Wulf’s warm arms surrounded her from behind. His chin came to rest atop her head with a silent exhale.

“It’s breathtaking,” she whispered in awe.

His embrace tightened. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

Sapphire leaned into him, then winced at the bruising she felt in her right buttock. She remembered their encounter on the tiled floor by the pool, and reached for the spot. Wulf brushed her fingers aside.

“Let me,” he murmured, knowing exactly where to rub to soothe the ache.

“You can’t keep me a prisoner here.”

He groaned, as if he were dealing with a difficult child. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”

“What else can it be like? My father is the General of the Sarian Army. I have been a concubine to the King of Sari—
your enemy
—for the last five years, and he’s reluctant to forget me. When they discover that I’ve been taken against my will…”

Wulf turned her to face him. “Why does it have to be against your will? Stay with me by your own choice, and your father would become your advocate. Without the general’s full support, the king would have difficulty acting.”

His emerald eyes glittered in the shadows created by the setting sun. “I can make you happy. I can give you things you never knew you wanted.”

Sapphire’s heart stopped, then raced. “What are you offering?”

“A place in my life, in my bed. I will spoil you, shower you with gifts, take you places you’ve always wanted to see.”

“For how long?”

“For as long as it pleases both of us.” He cradled her cheek in the palm of his hand. His thumb brushed across her skin.

“It would never work.”

“I saw the way your father is with you,” Wulf went on. “He won’t risk you.”

“The king doesn’t need my father’s approval.”

She slipped free of his embrace and moved back toward the bed. It wasn’t what he said, but what he didn’t say. “You have many beautiful women who you can enjoy with far less risk. Instead you imperil an entire nation for temporary pleasure.”

He was silent behind her.

She waited, but as the moment drew out, Katie looked over her shoulder. She kept her facial expression carefully neutral.

Wulfric stared at her, then ran a hand through his dark hair. “What do you want me to say?” He looked away. “That my cock is overruling my reason? I told you it’s more than that. This isn’t easy for me.”

“I know.”

Just as she knew that she couldn’t stay. She would have to leave—
soon
—before the direness of the situation escalated. Wulf had given her a week of his time in Sari. She might be able to manage a week in D’Ashier. Then she would go, before her desire for Wulf turned into something deeper and more painful to lose.

“I’m hungry,” she said. “And I want a bath. Then I want to see my
mästares
.”

“So you’ll stay?” Wulf came to her and searched her face.

“For a time.”

“How long is that?”

“As long as it pleases both of us.”

She moved away, creating the necessary distance
between them by walking through an archway into a private bath beyond. The massive room was stunning, the walls covered in jeweled tiles. Fountains sprayed a steady stream of warmed water into the bathing pool. Bubbling jets pulsed from the depths, releasing a subtle fragrance into the humid air. The ceiling was made of low emissive glass, revealing the night sky above them, while simulated candlelight shimmered along the colorful walls.

It was a voluptuary’s paradise; therefore, it suited Wulfric perfectly. He had a ravenous appetite for life and lived on the extreme end of every spectrum. He was wild and unrestrained, which both lured and repelled her. What would it be like to tame such a man? She doubted it was possible or that she would like the result if it was.

Stepping into the warm water, Sapphire dove beneath the surface and swam to the opposite side. When she came up for air, she noted Wulfric’s frown. He slipped into the water. She waited until he neared, then she moved willingly into his arms.

“Katie…”

She silenced the inevitable questions with a kiss, tilting her head to better seal her mouth over his. Her tongue caressed his before she caught him between her lips and sucked.

When he moved to pin her to the edge, she slipped under the water and went to the semi-submerged ledge where various bath oils and soaps waited in fluted glass bottles. As she reached for a container that was less full than the others, she felt Wulf’s hands glide over her hips.

“I can bind you to my bed and keep you,” he threatened.

Pouring the liquid into her hand, Sapphire tossed an arched look over her shoulder. “If you make me a prisoner, I’ll deny you and fight you. Never doubt it.”

She built up the richly scented lather, then turned and worked it over his chest. He watched her with dark, hooded eyes. “I can hold you without chains.”

“Will you enslave me with this magnificent body?” She caressed his deeply bronzed skin with soap-slippery hands.

“Can you be enslaved?”

“Why would you want such a thing?” Her fingertips stroked over his broad shoulders and down his well-defined arms. She admired the hard ripples of his abdomen, then stepped around him to wash the corded length of his back. The skin of her palms tingled and burned from touching him. The force of the attraction shortened her breath. It was insanity, but she couldn’t fight it. “Isn’t my desire and admiration enough?”

As she kneaded his muscles, he groaned, his head tilting back. “No.”

Soaping her hands again, she ran them through his hair, massaging his scalp with her fingertips. “Would you prefer I wail and wring my hands over you while you’re away? Then cling to you when you return because you’ve been gone too long? You don’t strike me as the type of man who’d appreciate drama from a lover.”

Wulf turned and caught her, tugging her beneath the water and pressing his mouth to hers. With a powerful lunge, he propelled them upward, breaking
the surface with an explosive splash. She sputtered and pushed her wet hair out of her eyes. He chuckled before kissing her again. “I risk a war for you. I want more than your desire in return. A little drama wouldn’t hurt.”

“I didn’t ask for this.” Sapphire wrapped her arms around his shoulders, which pushed her breasts against him. His gaze darkened.