To Protect a Princess by Jess Michaels

Chapter 14

Even though nothing had changed between them—the future was still coming and it would end this soon enough—when Jonah kissed her again, Ilaria no longer felt his desperation. She wrapped her arms tighter around him, sinking into the taste and feel of this man and tried to forget that this was all they could ever share.

“I want to see you,” he whispered against her mouth.

She nodded, cupping his face as they sat up together, following him to his feet. She only broke away to turn her back so he could unfasten her gown. He did so slowly, letting his fingertips graze her skin as he parted the buttons. She shivered as he pushed the dress forward. She pulled it from her arms, then turned to face him as she slowly lowered it and gave her hips a shake to allow the silk to pool at her feet.

She only wore a chemise beneath and he shut his eyes with a quiet curse before he reached out a hand and touched her bare shoulder. He looped a finger beneath her chemise strap and she gasped. Together they watched as he lowered it, draping the thin scrap of fabric at her elbow and letting it fall away from one breast.

He stared. “You are so beautiful.”

She shrugged from the other strap and pushed the chemise away so she was naked but for her stockings and slippers. “I hope I’ll not be the only one naked tonight.”

He was still staring, and he blinked as if coming back to reality. “Whatever you wish.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and watched him as he undressed. He did so slowly, almost as if he wanted to drag out this night as long as possible. She didn’t blame him. If this was their fantasy realm, their dream world, she didn’t want to wake up.

He threw his jacket behind him, unwound his cravat, removed his shirt, and she caught her breath.

“Wait,” she whispered, rising to move toward him. He was beautifully made, with a defined chest and shoulders and a flat stomach. A line of red, curly chest hair trailed into his trouser waist, and she had the strongest desire to follow it with her tongue.

One she refused to resist. She placed her hands on his chest, reveling in the increased thud of his heartbeat when she touched him. In the way his eyes fluttered shut as he let out a long sigh. She pressed her lips to the side of his neck, tasting the hint of salt to his skin, like the sea he loved and had lost. Her mouth trailed lower, and she sucked and licked a path to one pectoral. She swirled her tongue over his flat nipple and he dragged a hand into her hair, cupping her scalp with a rumbling groan from deep in his chest.

She smiled against his skin and trailed lower, sinking back to the edge of the bed and tugged him forward so she could nuzzle his stomach with her cheek and then drag her mouth against the placard of his trousers, where his cock was clearly outlined.

“God’s teeth,” he muttered.

She glanced up at him. “I don’t use teeth, Captain. Never fear.”

His eyes went almost impossibly wide and she laughed as she unbuttoned his fall front, dropping the placard away to free his cock. And a fine cock it was. She shivered as she gripped his considerable length and stroked him once, twice, smoothing the droplet of his essence across the head with her thumb.

“Enough of that,” he grunted, his voice harsh as he backed away, sat down on the settee before the fire and removed his boots with what had to be record speed.

He pushed out of the remainder of his clothing, but she had no time to admire the muscular lines of his thighs because he came across the room toward her, chest forward, shoulders back, like a hunter stalking prey. She yelped in surprise as he pressed her back to the bed, his mouth finding hers with increasing hunger and purpose.

She raked her nails across his back gently and he moaned into her mouth, his tongue driving all the harder. “You are making it very difficult to go slowly,” he murmured, his voice muffled by their continuing kiss.

“Then don’t go slowly,” she whispered back, letting her hands drift lower to cup his hips, pulling him tighter against her so that his hard cock nudged her stomach.

He lifted his head and glared at her playfully. “My entire plan involves a lack of speed.”

She arched a brow, giving him the best powerful princess face she had learned over the years. “And mine involves having you inside of me. So who wins?”

He laughed and she reveled in the sound. He was often such a serious person that she loved softening him.

He leaned his forehead against her shoulder and sighed. “I suggest a compromise,” he said, and then gave her a wicked wink before he pressed one last kiss to her mouth.

Then he dragged lower, just as she had a moment before. He tasted every inch of her flesh, pausing at her breasts for a moment. He pressed them together, flicking his thumbs over her sensitive nipples to harden them, and licking them to soothe the sharp thrill of pleasure that followed. She arched beneath him, surrendering a shuddering sigh.

He switched to the opposite breast and repeated the action, scraping gently with his teeth, sucking and licking until her whole body felt like it was tingling and her hands were gripping the coverlet until she feared she might rend it in two.

He glanced up at her, as if he was checking her response as he moved lower down her body. She circled her hips as he neared them, knowing what he would do, already well aware of the pleasure he could bring with that wonderful mouth.

“Seems a bit unfair to get this twice from you when you have yet to take any pleasure yourself,” she gasped as he parted her thighs and settled between them.

“Oh, trust me, Your Highness, I get a great deal of pleasure from making you come undone,” he growled, his voice rough and breath hot on her flesh before he parted her folds and licked her. “Just as pretty as I pictured in that dark hall,” he murmured.

She lifted into him, and he didn’t speak again as he dove into his work. He gave with gusto, watching her so he would know when he’d sucked and licked her to the edge and backing off to allow for further torture. She was sweating and panting after he’d done that a few times, and she sat up on her elbows and glared down at him.

“Please!” she gasped.

He smiled. “There’s the magic word.”

He began to focus his tongue on her clitoris without stopping, increasing the pressure as she flopped back on the pillows with a harsh moan. And just as she reached the climax and began to fall, he pressed a finger, then another, inside of her.

She gripped him as she came, her body twitching and writhing against her will as wave after wave of deep and powerful pleasure overtook her. As she gasped for relief, he withdrew his fingers and crawled up the length of her body, pressing his mouth to his. Once again, she tasted herself on him and it made her even hungrier for more.

She caught his hand, still sticky with her pleasure, and lifted it to her mouth. He drew back a fraction, their eyes locking. Together they licked his fingers clean, their tongues brushing and tangling around them.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

She opened her legs wider, offering a place there for him. “Please,” she whispered a second time, knowing now what it meant to him when she said that little word.

He shook his head. “You are a wonder. I’m going to be ruined for anyone but you.”

She knew he meant it as a teasing compliment, and yet it stung. If this was to be their only time together, she did want it to be memorable. It already was, it always would be.

But she didn’t want to ruin him. She didn’t want to be ruined, either. She didn’t want to think of Jonah any time her future husband—probably the poor Earl of Bramwell—touched her. That seemed so unfair to them both.

And yet she feared that was exactly what would happen. But she couldn’t stop this. She needed it more than she needed to be wise.

She caught Jonah’s toned hips and pulled. He followed that physical order and eased closer, rubbing the head of his cock through the wet evidence of her pleasure before he slowly began to ease into her waiting body.

It had been a while since she did this. Years since she’d wanted someone enough to surrender her body to them. This was different than any of those meaningless times when the attraction had been purely physical, a pleasant way for a bored woman to pass some time.

With Jonah it was something else when he filled her inch by wonderful inch. When he fully seated himself inside of her, it was like she truly became one with him. She stared up into his face, which was as bright with amazement as she knew her own to be, and one truth became desperately clear.

She loved this man. It wasn’t a surprise to recognize it. It was just…true.

So when he thrust gently, then harder and faster, she lifted into him, pouring that feeling she could never say out loud into him. Hoping he would feel it, that they would somehow make some tiny part of this permanent, even if the world would intrude and far too soon.

She wrapped her legs around his hips, she met him stroke for stroke. She drew his mouth to hers and tangled their tongues just as they tangled their bodies and her body, still on edge from release a moment before, quickly found its way back there again.

When she came, she keened, jolting her hips hard against his, trying to bring him with her. He didn’t resist. His neck flexed, veins suddenly outlined against the muscle. He drew her out as far as he could and then pulled away, splashing his seed across her belly as he murmured her name against her mouth.

He collapsed across her, his arms tightening, like he could cradle her here forever and not let this night end. And for a brief moment, she wondered if that were true.

She pressed a kiss against his neck, her fingers flexing against his back. “Does it have to only be tonight?”

He had been relaxed against her, his face buried in her shoulder while his breathing slowed, but now he tensed and lifted his head. “Ilaria…”

She pursed her lips at that tone to his voice. “I’m not saying there aren’t barriers.”

He pushed away from her, leaving her arms. From his expression, it was clear he didn’t believe there was another way. Or perhaps he simply didn’t want to pursue it. She wasn’t certain of which, and that cut her to the bone.

“You say barriers like it’s simple. This isn’t simple.”

“Couldn’t it be?”

“Your family has plans,” he snapped, and ran a hand through his hair. “You know this, it’s been drilled into you since the moment you arrived in London. This isn’t a normal circumstance and we can’t pretend it is.”

She followed him from the bed and caught up her clothing. She dressed as she spoke, shoving the chemise over her head. “Why not? How many families in this country look to make advantageous matches? And why couldn’t we find an advantage to ours? You are a landowner, a gentleman—”

He threw his head back, his frustration plain. “No, I’m not, Ilaria. I’m not a gentleman. I’m a bastard. Do you understand? I’m a bastard son of a third son. The only reason I’m a landowner, as you put it, is because he…he couldn’t ever see me for what I was.”

She stared at him in surprise as he walked away from her, padding naked to the fireplace where he stared into the flames. She saw the tension in every part of him. The pain she had never fully understood existed at the core of him.

“Jonah,” she whispered.

He shook his head and faced her, then sighed and came back. “Put the dress on,” he said softly. He held her hand as she stepped in and then put her back to him as he buttoned it. “There’s no reason to go into particulars that will only make this more difficult,” he said, his tone gentler, but firm. “Your family is already well-aware of my background, I’m sure. They might accept me as an acquaintance…even a friend. But as a husband for the only sister of the King of Athawick? No.”

Her shoulders rolled forward. He wasn’t wrong. “But if we talked to them…”

He turned her to look at him and sighed. “Or we can accept what we already knew coming into this room tonight. All we have is what we just shared. And it was wonderful, Ilaria. I regret nothing. But this is all it could ever be and it has to be over now.”

She flinched. “Do you say that because you believe it…or do you say it because you don’t want to fight for me?”

His eyes came briefly shut and his mouth twisted like that question was a knife to his heart. But when he looked at her again, there was a hardness to his expression. “If it will help you to believe I don’t care, then I have no choice but to allow it.”

She backed away, staring at him in disbelief that he would surrender. This man who had fought in actual wars, this man who had stood up for a worthless lay about of a prince…but he would not fight for her. Not even try.

“I…” She shook her head. “I understand. I need a moment.”

With that she grasped her mask, slid it back over her head and hurried from the room. She heard him calling, knew he couldn’t follow right away because of his state of undress. And that was good because she couldn’t take any empty platitudes in that moment.

She re-entered the great hall with all its erotically charged energy and passionate revelers, and for the first time, being there was like a cruel taunt. She stumbled through the room, trying to find a place where she could breathe for a moment, but she kept being jostled by laughing revelers.

She staggered and stumbled against a person. He turned, and she gazed up and immediately recognized his bright, piercing eyes. It was the same man who had come to talk to her during her last trip to Donville.

He gripped her arms with a wicked smile. “Good evening…Ilaria,” he said quietly.

For a moment the rest of the room faded away and only this man’s harsh voice saying her name remained. He knew who she was. He knew what she was. This encounter, the one before…it had all been part of some plan. It had to be.

She yanked back, struggling to escape the hard grip of his fingers against her bare arms, but he didn’t release her. Without thinking, she slammed the heel of her slipper against his boot as hard as she could. He released her and she tumbled to the floor, her head bouncing off the wood.

The world began to go darker and the last thing she was aware of was her attacker rising up over her, a knife in his fist. And then…nothing.