Page 45 of Claimed By the Crown Prince

He led her over to the bed, pulling back the net curtain. She climbed onto the bed.

‘Lie back,’ Dax instructed.’

She did. Her hair swung around her head in a dark silken tangle. Dax reached forward and tugged the dress down over her hips and off. Now she just wore her underwear. Lacy and flesh-coloured. Provocative. For a moment he almost imagined she was actually experienced, silently laughing at him taking so much care of her.

When had he become so infected by cynicism?

He came down alongside her and spread his hand on her belly. He felt her muscles contracting.

She put her hand on his. ‘Dax, you don’t have to treat me like spun glass. I won’t break.’

If she had any sense of how much he wanted her and how much it was costing him to contain it she might not be so eager. But Dax let his hand drift up to cover her breast, cupping its weight, teasing first one and then the other, before bringing his mouth to one pebbled nipple and pulling it into his mouth.

He almost lost his life there and then, at the first taste of her flesh. The first feel of that hard nub in his mouth.

Her hands were in his hair and he could feel her moving her hips impatiently. He kept his mouth on her breasts, one and then the other, teasing and tasting mercilessly, as he brought his hand back down over her belly to the top of her underwear.

Sliding his fingers under the front, he felt springy curls. She opened her legs and Dax lifted his head. He looked at her face as his hand delved deeper, between her legs, his fingers finding the hot, wet centre of her body.

His erection twitched in reaction as his brain registered how she felt. She was biting her lip again, eyes huge. On him. He explored her body, moving his fingers in and out, the slickness of her body sending Dax perilously close to spilling without even entering her.

He covered her mouth with his as his movements became faster, harder, mimicking what would come when she was ready. When he had prepared her.

She was making little moaning sounds. Her back started arching off the bed. Dax urged her on, breathing into her mouth, ‘It’s okay...let it go, Laia...let it out.’

She did. With a big, keening cry as her body convulsed around his fingers and the waves of her pleasure spread outwards.

Dax had to tense every muscle in his body not to come right then. He let Laia absorb what had happened. And after a minute she opened her eyes again. She was perspiring slightly, and it made her glow. The scent of her arousal was in the air and Dax had never smelled anything sexier or more potent. If he didn’t sink inside this woman soon, he might just die.

‘Okay?’

She looked at him. Dazed. She nodded. And then she looked embarrassed. ‘I’ve... You know... Before...myself...’

Dax nearly groaned out loud at the thought of her exploring herself. Making herself come.

She continued, her voice slightly hoarse, ‘But it never felt like that.’

Dax kissed her slowly, thoroughly. Tongues tangling. He put one of his thighs between her legs and moved his hands over her, exploring every dip and swell and inch of her silken body. She was lithe and firm and soft all at once. He felt as if he’d never really touched a woman before.

When Laia was breathless again, Dax couldn’t wait any more.

He pulled back. ‘Are you ready?’

Laia nodded. But he could see her trepidation. He said, ‘It might sting...hurt a bit at first...but it’ll pass, I promise.’

‘I trust you.’

For a second Dax couldn’t breathe. And then he pushed the emotion out. No room for emotion here.

He encouraged her to lift up, so that he could pull off her underwear. And then he put himself between Laia’s legs. Smoothed a hand up one thigh.

He wanted to taste her. Wanted to taste where she’d fallen apart in his hands. But he was too desperate.

He reached for the protection, sending up silent thanks that she’d had the sense to think of it. She was royalty. Soon to be a Queen. The stakes were too high for her to be careless. If she got pregnant by the wrong person—

Dax shut his mind down, because that thought precipitated others, of Laia getting pregnant with therightperson. And that was not what he wanted to think about right now, when she was spread on the bed for him like his most wicked fantasy...

Dax rolled the protection onto his erection and winced at how sensitive he was. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt such anticipation to join with a woman.