Page 10 of Reclaiming His Ruined Princess

Surely she would gather herself up and walk away now. He couldn’t wait.

But instead, while he gazed at her in expectation, Amalia—until recently the Crown Princess of Ile d’Montagne—closed the distance between them. She swept the wrap she wore aside, dropped it between them, and while he watched, gracefully sank to her knees.

Again, everything in him...roared.

And this was far more intense than any piddling victory.

Joaquin felt stripped down, as if she’d cut straight through him when all she’d done was obey. The way she’d always done, that summer, because it had brought all of that wildfire pleasure to them both.

“Are you trying to call my bluff, Princess?” he managed to grit out, though he was having trouble focusing on anything but the need in him. Blistering hot, all-encompassing, and, if he wasn’t careful, catastrophic.

“Not at all,” she replied, looking up at him, a half smile on her perfect mouth and feminine mystery in her gaze. “I currently have the freedom to do anything I want. So why not do this?”

“This is what you want?” he challenged her, from between his teeth. “To debase yourself before me?”

“It’s only debasement if I feel debased,” she retorted, with a flash of something he could not read in her gaze.

Maybe he was too far gone to read it.

And then, as he stood there, every muscle in his body alight with the effort to keep himself in check, she leaned forward. She put her hands on his legs, then ran her palms up his thighs, and everything in him went from a roar to a howl.

Not just need, but a kind of bone-deep possessiveness he’d told himself, in these five years, he had only ever imagined.

She ran her hands up higher and tipped her head back as she found his belt.

And all he could see was that shining blue gaze and the way she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. She worked the belt open, unzipped him, and then pulled him free.

Her hands around him like a celebration. A homecoming.

There was a breath. A moment. It was electric.

He still thought,She will get up now. She will walk away. She will try to turn this to her advantage—

But the advantage was all his, even if she thought she was taking control here.

Because Amalia, his princess, tipped herself forward, still holding his gaze, and sucked him in deep.

Just the way he’d taught her.

CHAPTER THREE

LATER, AMALIAWOULDlikely think this through a bit more closely. Possibly beat herself up a little, because surely when a man vowed revenge, she shouldn’t throw herself on her knees and take him in her mouth as if that was the only thing she’d ever wanted to do.

But she couldn’t think about that now.

Because finally,finally, she had Joaquin in her mouth again, and she couldn’t think of a single other thing she would rather do just now than this.

Having dreamed of this at a desperate fever pitch for five long years, she did not intend to waste a single second doing anything at all but enjoying it. Enjoying him.

The taste of him, salt and man, like the sea. The thick heat of him in her mouth and the thrill of it, to see if she could stretch her mouth that wide. To test herself against his relentless length. To feel that prickle of concern that this time, she might not be able to do it—until she did.

And she knew what he liked. He had taken such care to teach her, that long-ago summer. She dropped her hands from his thighs to clasp one wrist behind her back, circling it with her other hand, well aware of the picture that made for him. And she might have worried that even that had changed, but the moment she did it his hand came to her face. He smoothed his hand over her jaw, her temple, then over her hair. Then sank his fingers into her chignon, so that he was what held her head in place.

Right where he wanted her.

And already she trembled, because she knew what would come next. Memory seemed to twine with the moment, making her burn too hot, too quick. She concentrated on the stroke of her tongue against the warm steel of him and the way he began to move, thrusting gently in and out of her mouth.

And with every thrust, he increased his pace but held her still. He set the rhythm, surrounding her with all of that heat and control, so all she could do was deliver herself into his hands and surrender to the tumult of this. The rough, raw joy.