The Once And Future Prince (Castaldini Crown 1)

It was that please. It made him a beast. One that wanted to wrestle his mate to submission, mount her, pound into her until she disintegrated around him and he erupted inside her.

Growling, out of his mind, he bundled her over his shoulder, strode to the bed, threw her down, watched her as the last pillars of his restraint were reduced to wreckage as she arched like a wave, breasts jutting in the air before the undulation traveled down her body, offering him herself in a thrust that blanked his mind with carnal rage.

He descended on top of her, impacted her, would have torn her legs apart if she hadn’t wrenched them wide, maddened for his invasion. He didn’t need to make sure she was ready. Her readiness steamed his lungs, scalded his skin, slashed him down to his primal elements.

He tore inside her. Her answering scream tore at the tethers of his soul. The scream of woman, of long pent-up needs bursting. He penetrated her essence, the molten flesh that poured around his shaft. It was like forging through lava, as he invaded her to the womb, as she accommodated him in a liquid vise of flame.

This flesh. This being. This. He’d been without it for so long, had thought he’d be without her forever. The despair had worn away at him with each breath. And with each exhale, he’d braced himself, for her absence, the impossibility of her return. For the next inhalation when it would all start again. And again. Until he stopped breathing. And stopped yearning.

But she was here. He could breathe again.

He withdrew then drove back, all his power behind the lunge. Her scream this time deafened him with its unbridled provocation, its lashing challenge. More, it shrieked at him. Harder. All. She was a twisting pillar of fire beneath him, more destructive than the blaze they’d barely walked out of hours ago. She was bent on consuming him, and he was bent on pounding her out.

As pleasure rose, and rose, like the flames had, the smoke of the past—the bitterness and the pain and the separation and aloneness—gathered, suffocating, a cloud that needed the gust of a release that might leave them too damaged to dispel it. He rode her hard, felt her folds clinging to him, wringing him, her scent intensifying with her pleasure, her cries sharpening, lengthening, until they became one long wail interrupted by tearing intakes of breath.

He bellowed, over and over, with every lunge, forging deeper inside her. She augmented his force, arched, driving her heels and shoulders into her support, struggled against him in a reverse tug of war, as if striving to make their two bodies one. His movements grew frenzied, giving her the friction she needed to unravel, nerve by nerve.

Then he felt the orgasm tear through her. Its force forked through him, ripping at him in turn, wrenching on his shaft until he felt as if she would take his entire body into herself. Her paroxysm was the final stimulus. His body detonated, his buttocks convulsing as he unleashed himself into her, jet after jet of searing liquid propelled deep into her womb. His body quivered with the recoil as he filled her, poured his pleasure into hers, attempting to put out the fire before it reduced them to ashes.

It only raged hotter. His groans echoed her sobs as pleasure hit a plateau, left them straining at each other like two electrocution victims, helpless to break the circuit of destruction. It felt as if they wouldn’t survive it. He didn’t mind…

At last, the brutality of sensations leveled, declined. Had mercy. He melted into the puddle of enervation she’d become.

His heart pressed to hers, banging to the same drummer’s madness, the pain of it telling him this encounter could have easily been fatal.

As it should be. Nothing less could have been fitting after all this waiting, all this craving. All this…love.

Yes. Love. But…no. Not love. He needed a new word, a new language to convey the magnitude of his involvement, the magnificence of melding with the mind and spirit of a being so kindred. But until he formulated the words, he’d use love. For real this time. He’d thought his past feelings for her had embodied life’s most powerful connection, but compared to what he felt now, they had been juvenile, reeking of infatuation, lust and possessiveness.

This new feeling, while it possessed even fiercer coveting and carnality, was also selfless, pure. Total.

It also wreaked total havoc. If another fire broke out now, he wouldn’t be able to move—not if it meant moving away from her. He could only adjust their positions so that she lay on top of him.

Her eyes reflected his devastation, his surrender. Then they faded, dragged him into another dimension of oblivion…

Thirteen

“A re you ready to be surprised?”

Phoebe kept her eyes closed as Leandro’s murmur flared through her.

She sank in the luxury of sensations he evoked, in the beauty of his presence. Lying face-down, she felt ever more boneless. “Keep talking.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

She felt the bed dip under his weight, like her world did at his approach, sighed. “The kind of answer your contradictory question deserves. Now just talk. If you run out of things to say, get the phone book. Not El Jamida’s, though. It’s too short.”

He said nothing. She moaned her impatience. Then gasped. His teeth sank gently into her left buttock. Her moan deepened as she pushed back at him, giving him a better bite. He rumbled something wordless then mounted her, all that glorious bulk and maleness.

She dug her knees into the mattress, thrust her hips up, inviting his invasion. She’d thought after three weeks of marathon lovemaking, her in-heat state would level out. Instead, it was escalating. She had only to breathe to want him. She breathed all the time.

She wanted him to take her now, from the back, so she couldn’t see his face as it seized with the savage pleasure of possessing her except in her imagination, feeling nothing but the force and size of him dominating her, stretching her to that point where pleasure and pain became howling mindlessness.

Then she’d turn on her back and beg him to take her again. Like she had that first night.

That night she’d overcome her fear, had made the leap of faith that what they shared this time wouldn’t be consumed by the flames of passion. And she’d been right. Everything had blossomed instead, evolved. Beyond her misguided notions of perfection.

If the world ended tomorrow, she’d only feel thankful for having experienced so much with the one and only man she could ever love.

If only he would hurry up and let her experience more. She writhed her hips against him, opening herself over his clothed erection. He lunged, pinning her down, his teeth anchoring her by the neck, like a lion in a mating frenzy. He still said nothing.