In the Flesh

  “What the hell are you doing?” Her chin lifted.

  His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “My father thinks you’re a spy or an assassin.”

  “I don’t care what he thinks.”

  “I do.” His tone had an edge that stilled her. “And yet I’ve defied him, embarrassed my brother, and placed D’Ashier in jeopardy. For you. Yet you don’t seem to feel as I do. You remind me often that it’s easy for you to throw me aside.”

  Sapphire was unable to move with Wulf’s hand at her throat, his leg between hers, and his body pinning hers to the wall. She cursed and bit his ear hard enough to draw blood, but he held her fast. “What do you want from me?” she demanded. “My love? My devotion? Knowing that we must part and that it would kill me to do so if you meant more to me than you do right now?”

  “Yes,” he growled. “For all that I’ve risked for you.”

  He released her throat. Slipping his hands around the back of her thighs, he lifted her up—

  “Wulf!”

  —and with a tortured groan, dropped her onto his rampant cock.

  Sapphire moaned as the thick head forced its way through tissues not yet ready for him. She was moist, but not wet. He held her to the wall and pumped his hips, working his way into her, fighting for every burning inch he claimed.

  “You’re hurting me,” she whispered.

  Wulf froze.

  Her hands drifted to his shoulders and felt the thick muscles clenching beneath her palms. She arched against the intrusion of his body into hers, pressing her breasts into his chest.

  Shaking, he pressed his damp forehead to hers. “You’re destroying me. You give me no quarter. You could stay or go. You don’t care.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You won’t let me in.”

  “If I didn’t care, things would be different. They must be this way because I do care.”

  “I am unmanned by my lack of control with you,” he snarled, his tone filled with self-disgust. “I almost killed my brother for hurting you, then I do worse. Trying to get inside you the only way you let me.”

  “I forgive you.” Sapphire cupped his nape and pressed her temple to his. He held her with effortless strength, poised with only half of his cock throbbing inside her. “You almost died. I was the first thing you saw afterward and—”

  His grip on her waist tightened. “You understand nothing, if you think this”—he punctuated the word with a flex of his cock,—“is gratitude. I wish it was. I could gift you with jewels and other trinkets, and be done with you. I could have left you as you asked and considered your freedom recompense for your hospitality.”

  With shaking hands, Sapphire turned his head toward her. She could feel his teeth gritting through his cheeks. His pupils were dilated; the emerald green mere rims around the black center. His large frame shook against her, belying his claim that he lacked control. He was in rut, yet managed to hold himself at bay.

  His gaze was fever-bright when he said, “I have never wanted to be anyone other than who I am. Until now.”

  “I would never change you. Never. I adore all that you are, just the way you are.”

  You won’t let me in…

  Reaching between them with one hand, Sapphire began to rub her clitoris with slow, gentle circles of her fingertips.

  “Katie…?”

  “I want you in me.”

  His breath caught, then he lowered his head to her breast. His tongue curled around a jeweled nipple and stroked the underside. He aroused her swiftly, with breathtaking expertise. She became hotter. Slicker. Enabling her pussy to slide over his cock like a custom made glove. He seated to the hilt inside her and the tension left him in a harsh exhale that puffed hotly over her damp breast.

  For her, the sense that she’d connected to the interlocking half that made her whole was profound. The sensation was becoming as necessary as breathing. Too swiftly. Too frightening.

  She hadn’t known. No one had told her that sex could give more than physical pleasure. She’d thought the enjoyment would be greater and the need more acute, but there’d been no way to prepare for the feeling of oneness that came from making love to a man on an emotional level.

  Sapphire knew it was the same for Wulf—a voluptuary so locked into his role as crown prince that only the prospect of death had freed him.

  “I knew it would come to this,” she breathed, balanced on the point between physical pleasure and emotional pain. “I knew we would be forced to choose between the rest of our lives and each other. And I knew how we would both decide. I tried to be strong…”

  “I love your strength.” He kissed her, long and slow, a melding of lips and tongue that made her pussy clench around his hardness in hunger. Breathing harshly, he spoke against her mouth, “But I need to know that you have a soft spot for me.”

  Locking her ankles at the small of Wulf’s back, Sapphire lifted up, tightening her inner muscles so that she hugged the length of his cock from root to tip.

  He groaned. Sweat dotted his brow. “Take me. I’ve already taken too much from you.”

  She lowered back onto him, hissing with pleasure at the feel of him gliding endlessly into her. “I like it when you take me.”

  When she was with him, she could be a creature of passion. No thought or calculation. It was a sort of freedom she had never known and had already grown addicted to.

  Leaning back against the wall, her arms fell away from him, knowing his strength was such that he could bear her weight with ease. She opened herself to him in every way, showing him with her eyes and defenseless posture that she was his. If only for now.

  Wulf began to fuck her. First, with short and shallow digs. Then, with greater force and speed, his arms straining in time with his hips, pulling her down as his cock tunneled up.

  It was savage and wild, and she loved it. All of it. From the hasty and desperate beginning to this rampaging drive to the finish.

  Rocking her hips, Wulf ground her onto him, his thick cockhead so deep in her that her toes curled and cramped. He stroked over and over the spot deep inside her that made her insensate with pleasure, made cries spill from her lips that only spurred him further.

  “The sounds you make,” he growled. “I hear them even when you’re not with me.”

  The smell of his skin, musky and exotic, intoxicated her, as did the feel of his waistband rubbing rhythmically against her inner thighs. She moaned, her eyes closing.

  “I’m coming,” she gasped, everything tightening up inside her. The tension broke in a violent pulsing climax. Her pussy clasped at Wulf’s thrusting cock and rippled along its length, milking the thick shaft in ecstatic clenches.

  Wulf cursed and crushed her to the wall, his chest heaving against hers as he pumped his semen into her in hard, fast spurts. It was delicious. Decadent. The feel of him erupting inside her with such ferocity.

  Rubbing his sweat-slick forehead against her, he panted, “I am crazed for you like a youth with his first woman.”

  “I wish I was your first,” she breathed. “Your only.”

  A half smile uplifted one corner of his mouth. “I’m grateful for the experience I have, or I would doubt my ability to please you.”

  “You please me too well.” Her hands covered his where he held her hips. “I always want more.”

  His features grew solemn, losing all levity and taking on a bleakness that constricted her chest. “How much time can you spare with me?”

  “A week. Maybe. If I can speak with my father and allay his concerns.”

  Wulf nodded. “Will you give me that?”

  “If I can.” Sapphire pressed her lips to his brow. “If I could, I would stay with you until you tired of me.”

  “Or you tired of me.”

  “I doubt that’s possible.”

  His smile was grimly determined. “I have a few days. I intend to make it impossible.”

  Chapter 11

  Sapphire stared at the smear of blood that marred Wul
f’s bed, and a painful knot formed in her stomach.

  Her courses had started. On time, as usual.

  You knew this was coming. But forewarned didn’t mean forearmed.

  She wouldn’t be able to accommodate Wulfric tonight or for the last few days before she left. She knew from Sabine and her own personal experience that Wulf was a man of voracious sexual appetite. A few days ago—before the horrid scene with Prince Duncan in the courtyard—she might have believed Wulf would want her with him anyway, that he would be willing to spend their last days together without sex. Now, she didn’t know what to believe.

  He no longer kissed her, no longer cuddled her, no longer smiled. Their lovemaking was as passionate as ever and at times she felt as if she’d reached him, touched him. His eyes would glitter down at her in the semidarkness and she would imagine longing there. Yearning. Her lips would part in hunger for the taste of him, the feel of him drinking her in as if he’d never have enough.

  Then he would retreat and become the distracted prince she didn’t know at all. A reserved stranger who wasn’t cold, but wasn’t warm either. Distancing himself emotionally before he had to physically.

  Moving into the bathing chamber, Sapphire went through her morning ablutions by habit. Then she traversed the long stone hallway to the seraglio, where she spent her daylight hours for her safety. The sounds of various conversations and women’s laughter were familiar to her after the five years she’d spent in service to the King of Sari. Reading or talking with the concubines helped to shorten the hours while Wulf was occupied.

  Today, however, Sapphire wished time would stand still. The other women came to her, smiling tentatively, trying to draw her into conversation, but her gloomy mood soon drove them away. She couldn’t eat or lose herself in a book. She could think of nothing but the moment Wulf would return and the choice he would be presented with. Would he call a concubine to serve the needs she couldn’t? Perhaps he would send her home early? She couldn’t fight the hope that he would emerge from his isolated shell and return to being the man who set her blood on fire. A man willing to fight for her and claim her, despite the costs.

  “Mistress.”

  Turning her head, she watched Sabine approach.

  “It’s time to prepare you,” the chamberlain said.

  Releasing her pent-up breath in a rush, Sapphire blurted out, “My courses have begun.”

  “Oh…” Sabine frowned. “I see.”

  “I thought you might,” Sapphire muttered bitterly.

  “Well…” the chamberlain began hesitantly. “Under usual circumstances—”

  “Under usual circumstances, you wouldn’t send a concubine to His Highness who was unable to perform her duties.”

  Sabine offered an encouraging smile. “This is a different situation, Mistress.”

  “We don’t know that. I would prefer that we follow protocol.”

  “You want to provoke him.” Sabine took a seat on the padded chaise opposite her.

  “Perhaps. It would be a relief to see some fire in him.” She rubbed at her stinging eyes. “He’s distracted to the point where I think he sometimes forgets I’m here. I feel like a piece of furniture. He refuses to discuss anything personal. He—”

  “Calls for you every night and keeps you with him until morning,” Sabine interjected dryly.

  “Because the sex is fantastic. It’s certainly not for our sparkling conversation. He only talks about military maneuvers. Last night I fell asleep before he even came to bed.”

  “And you slept until morning?” Sabine asked with a teasing smile.

  “Well, no, but that proves my point. If I can’t service him, what use will I be? We did nothing else. We ate. He worked at his desk. I slept. Aside from the sex, I served no other purpose.”

  Wulf had shut her out, as he’d once accused her of doing to him. He shared his body freely, but everything else was locked away.

  “His distance is bad enough. I refuse to be rejected…” Sapphire shuddered.

  “Mistress, I suggest—”

  “I’m sorry, Sabine,” she said with quiet authority. “His Highness told you to obey me in all things. Please do as I ask. Follow protocol.”

  Sabine stood and bowed. “As you wish.” She gestured for a willowy redhead to follow her.

  An hour later, Sapphire watched as the flame-haired concubine followed two of Wulf’s guards out of the seraglio. It was obvious the woman had slept with Wulf before; her eager anticipation was evident in the lightness of her steps. She was lovely, tall and slender with a wide mouth and a ready smile.

  Sapphire turned away, her stomach roiling. She began to circle the pool restlessly. Clarke fell in step beside her.

  “I think this was a bad idea,” he grumbled. “Idiotic and ill-conceived.”

  “I have to know.”

  “It’s a woman’s wile, designed to drive men insane. It will only lead to trouble.”

  She stopped abruptly. “You think I like this? I hate this. I hate that I care. I hate that my chest is so tight I can’t think straight for lack of air. I hate that he made me care.” Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I hate this.”

  His dark eyes softened. “Then why?”

  In her mind’s eye Sapphire saw Wulf pulling the redhead into his arms. Gifting the woman with one of the devastating kisses he no longer gave to her. Caressing the length of the concubine’s slender frame with his skilled hands…

  She shook. How long had the concubine been gone? Too long…far too long…

  The doors to the seraglio slid open. She pivoted. As Wulfric entered the room with concubine in tow, Sapphire reached for the support of Clarke’s massive arm. Pausing just inside the threshold, Wulf gripped the redhead’s shoulders and pressed a swift kiss to her forehead. Then he urged her toward a waiting Sabine.

  Sapphire’s hand lifted to her chest. The sight of Wulfric kissing the concubine was painful, despite the chasteness of the gesture. Needing a moment to collect herself before facing him, she spun blindly away, darting toward the room Sabine had readied for her use. She didn’t get far. Wulf overtook her, stepping nimbly into her path. He was casually attired in loose trousers and sleeveless tunic, the latent power of his body visible in every line of his tall form.

  “So,” he drawled, his gaze burning. “I can fuck her, but kissing her upsets you?”

  Her chin lifted.

  Catching her by the waist, he tugged her closer, his biceps flexing with the movement. “From the very beginning, Katie, I have most admired your honesty. Why start playing games now?”

  She stared at the golden expanse of his chest revealed by the V of his tunic. “My—” She sighed. “I’m menstruating.”

  A muscle in his jaw ticced. “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.” Wulf lifted her chin with his finger and studied her. “Did I pass the test?”

  She jerked her head to the side, her face heating.

  “Is this where I tell you how wrong you are?” he asked hoarsely. “Where I allay your concerns with protestations of my undying affection?”

  “You’re cruel to tease.” She glanced at him, unable to resist. The sight of him made all they risked worth it.

  His mouth curved in a tender smile for the first time in days. “It worked. You have my undivided attention.”

  Sapphire’s breath caught. “I do?”

  “When I was told the concubines’ annex room had been prepared, I was surprised, but thought maybe you meant to role-play or tease me in some way. I was aroused by the mere thought. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to find another woman there. A cold shower would have been kinder.”

  The rigid tension in her shoulders released. She sagged into his strength, clinging to his beloved body.

  He held her firmly against him. “Sweet Katie. I would kill any man who touched you. Don’t you feel the same possessiveness toward me?”

  “Yes…” She buried her face in the crisp hair of his che
st. “But you’ve been so distracted. I assumed your feelings had changed. I’d hoped you would prove me wrong. I should have asked, but—”

  “Shh,” he soothed, his hands molding her curves into him. “Yes, you should have asked. But then you’re menstruating, which seems to mess with women’s minds.”

  Sapphire gave a mock growl. He laughed.

  “You haven’t smiled at me in days,” she noted. “I’d almost forgotten what it does to me.”

  “I’m under a great deal of stress.” The lines of strain that had begun to bracket his mouth in recent days deepened.

  “But you don’t share any of it with me.”

  “I don’t want to burden our time with it.”

  She snorted. “Every moment is spent keeping me distant with talk of stratagems and—”

  His head dropped to hers, his hot, open mouth covering her lips and silencing her effectively. His hands cupped her shoulder blades, pressing her breasts into his chest, as his tongue swept inside with teasing flicks. She surged into him, holding his lean hips to keep from losing herself in his unexpected display of passion.

  An hour without a kiss from him was too long. The last two days had been torture.

  He pulled away with a groan.

  “I am not keeping you distant,” he denied gruffly, resting his forehead against hers. “I speak of military matters, because you’re so adept at them. I admire your reasoning and respect your viewpoints. I discuss those things with you because I want to show you how much I value your knowledge.”

  “Liar. You’re shutting me out. Now, kiss me again.”

  A faint smile teased the corner of his mouth. “You won’t let me save myself, will you?”

  “Save yourself for what? Another woman? No, I won’t. I gave myself to you completely for a week. It’s not fair when you won’t give me anything of yourself in return.”

  “Save myself from you,” he corrected with a resigned exhale. “It’s not lack of interest that affects me. It’s too much interest.”

  “Wulf.” She wrinkled her nose. “We’re acting like idiots.”