In the Flesh Read online

  She supposed she could turn her back to him—the muscle relaxant she’d been given made her languid, not immobile—but the aphrodisiac was driving her crazy. She forced herself to remain as still as possible, because the slightest movement caused a prickling sensation to burn across her skin, heating her flesh and laboring her breathing. She was completely naked, but she didn’t reach for the silk sheet that she’d kicked off earlier. The feel of the fabric against her overly sensitized skin had been too much to bear and her modesty was not worth the torture of it.

  “If I were you,” she managed in a drug-slurred voice. “I would turn around and run for my life.”

  She heard a seductive chuckle that drifted across her body like smoke, inflaming every nerve ending. She gritted her teeth as the buzzing sound worsened.

  “Crown Prince Wulfric will come for me soon.” She hoped that was true. “He’s a very possessive man. If you touch me, he might kill you.”

  “Do you belong to him?” The man’s rich, deep voice echoed through her mind.

  Sapphire meant to say one thing, but what came out was the truth. “Yes.”

  Through the maddening noise in her head, she thought she heard bare footsteps approach.

  “From what I can see,” he murmured, “a few moments in your arms would be worth the threat of death.”

  “Don’t do this,” she pleaded softly, her chest too tight to speak any louder. “I—I love him. I couldn’t bear to be touched…”

  She sensed his sudden stillness and the tension that radiated from his frame.

  When he spoke again, his voice was deeply husky. “The prince? Is that who you love?”

  She sighed, filled with deep longing. Rolling her body away from him, she moaned with the pain of unnaturally evoked desire. “He’ll come…It’s not too late…to go…”

  The filmy drapes parted and the mattress dipped with the man’s weight. He was so close, she could feel the heat of his skin, but he didn’t touch her.

  “Does he love you in return?”

  Sapphire groaned against a wave of lust brought on by his close proximity and the evocative scent of his skin. “Go,” she gasped.

  “Does he love you?” he repeated.

  “No…but he wants me…he’ll fight for me.”

  “He’s a fool, then. To have your love and not return it.”

  His hot, open mouth pressed against her shoulder, sending sensations radiating outward in a flaring sweep across her flesh. She pressed into the kiss against her will, her body anxious for relief from its drug-induced torment. As her heart pumped blood rapidly through her veins, the buzzing in her ears worsened. His tongue flicked across the side of her throat. “I want to love you,” he whispered.

  Sapphire laughed with soft mockery. “I’m certain you do or you wouldn’t be in this bed. Eager to die.”

  The crisp hair on his chest brushed her back, making her breath seize in her lungs. “I want to make love to you.” His tone was ardent, despite being muffled against her shoulder. “From the moment I first saw you, I had to have you. I’ll take you slowly, deeply. I’ll cherish you. Pleasure you until the sun comes up.”

  “W-what?” She arched into the aroused length of his body, feeling the heat and hardness of his erection against her buttocks.

  “You’re in pain. Let me help you.”

  Raised voices outside the door penetrated her dazed mind and sent her into a panic. “Please go,” she urged. “I—I’m drugged. I don’t want this.”

  His breath fanned across her cheek. “Just imagine that I am the man you love. Give yourself to me as if I were. I’ll make you forget about the prince who doesn’t deserve you. I’ll wipe him from your memory so that all you can think of is me—a man whose only desire is to service you.”

  His tongue traced the shell of her ear and she purred with forbidden pleasure. “I need you.” The voice was achingly familiar now that it was so close. “I need you like I need to breathe.”

  Her heart stopped.

  How she had dreamed of having her passionate Wulfric back, the one who had hidden in the obsidian darkness of her bedroom in her home and taken her breath away with the totality of his possession.

  With a hushed cry of surrender, Sapphire turned in his arms and pulled him against her.

  “Wulf.”

  Wulf groaned, a low, deep sound of welcome and relief as Katie rolled into his embrace. How marvelous she felt, tucked close to him after the day’s tormented search and worry for her.

  She loved him. He couldn’t help but squeeze her tightly and vow never to let her go.

  Tonight he would share his affection with every press of his lips, every caress of his hand. He would promise her the world and spend the rest of his life striving to give it to her. His life, once an endless stretch of duty-filled days, and nights of meaningless sex, would become a life augmented by joy and love and sweet, breathtaking passion.

  His mouth descended to hers and he pulled her tighter against him, until the ripe softness of her breasts was crushed against his chest and her lithe thigh was thrown over his. From somewhere deep inside, Wulf could feel the connection between them. From the beginning, he’d felt the link and had followed his passion for her into forbidden, frightening territory. He didn’t regret it, regardless of the many difficulties ahead.

  Katie struggled against him. Her flesh was so hot and sensitive from the aphrodisiac that she was trying to crawl out of her skin.

  “Please.” She rubbed her pussy against his thigh and left a slick trail of moisture behind. It had been days since he’d had her. To feel her melting was an irresistible lure, swelling his cock painfully.

  “Wulf, I need you inside me.”

  “Easy.” Rolling, he tucked her beneath him and spread her legs. “I’ll give you what you need.”

  With a quick thrust, he was deep inside her and she was coming, her back arching off the mattress, the slick walls of her pussy rippling greedily up and down his length, her throaty cry of relief filling the room. Filling his mind. Heating his blood with the knowledge that he could do things to her body that no other man could, take it places she hadn’t known it could go.

  “That’s it,” he crooned, gritting his teeth against the devastating pleasure. He withdrew and she gripped his hips with steely fingers and yanked him back into her. She was scorching, dripping, and he groaned at the unbelievable sensation of her sweet pussy eagerly suckling his cock.

  At her desperate pleading, Wulf began to pump between her thighs, riding her gently at first, then faster, more furiously as she begged for more, always more.

  The drugs drew out her orgasms. He’d never felt anything like it in his life, her body milking his cock as he shafted her hard and deep.

  “Katie.” He gasped as his balls tightened up, his cock throbbing violently. He needed this. To be joined with her, to be deep inside her.

  “Yes,” she sobbed, her hips rising to meet his every thrust. “That feels so good…so good…”

  Throwing his head back with a fierce roar of pleasure, he spurted thick and hot, his climax prolonged by hers, the convulsions of her delicious cunt coming one after another around him. He clung to her, pressing grateful open-mouthed kisses against her shoulder and tearstained cheeks, finding a joy in lovemaking he never knew existed. Until he’d found her.

  Sapphire moaned as Wulf’s cock withdrew from the trembling depths of her pussy. “Don’t leave me.”

  “Never.” He stretched out alongside her, the fingers of one hand pushing into the sweat-dampened roots of her tangled hair. His hand caressed her hip, sliding down in a callused glide.

  She spread her legs wantonly, her hot face pressing into his neck where the spicy scent of his skin was so strong. She breathed him in with desperate gulps of air, her raging hunger only mildly appeased by the orgasms he’d wrung so skillfully from her tormented body.

  “You’re here,” she whispered, her hand pressing against his chest. “So glad you’re here.”

&nb
sp; “Shh…I’ll take care of you.”

  Her spine arched as his fingers parted the bare lips of her pussy. He cared so much for her pleasure and needs. He made her feel as if she was the only person in his world, a woman he treasured and worshipped.

  His thumb brushed over her clitoris and she gasped. Without the aphrodisiac, his touch was electric. With it, it was nearly painful, the rush of sensation overloading already tender nerves. His fingertips glided over the spasming opening of her pussy, teasing her.

  “More,” she begged. “I need you.”

  His head lowered to her breast, his tongue curling around an erect nipple.

  “Yes.” Sapphire lifted onto her shoulders, pushing the straining tip into the haven of his talented mouth. “Suck me.”

  With a soothing murmur, Wulf pushed two long, thick fingers into her. She whimpered, her hands fisting in the sheets. Every pulling draw on her nipple echoed in her pussy, her tissues clenching tight around the welcome intrusion.

  His head lifted. As his fingers thrust inside her, he eyed her with a possessive glimmer. “You’re drenched with my come. Filled with it.”

  Sapphire licked her parched lower lip, her throat working as he finger-fucked her slow and easy. “I love it when you finish in m-me. You get thick and hard, you push so d-deep.”

  Wulf growled, the rough sound rumbling through the room.

  “You lose c-control.” She gasped, her hips grinding into his hand. “You pound into me until I think I c-can’t take any more. The sounds you make…as if it feels too good—”

  “It does.” His tongue thrust into her ear, making her cry out. “I wonder if I’ll survive it. Then I wonder how quickly I can do it again, experience it again.”

  “I feel it when you come. So hot. Thick. Endless. I love it.” Sapphire climaxed at the memory, coming around his fingers.

  “You destroy me.” He pushed three digits inside her, in and out, his tongue fucking her ear as he kept her taut and breathless in orgasm. “Tear me apart. I can’t get enough.”

  “Wulf…” She released the linens and reached for him, needing to feel him over her, against her. Her palms pressed flat to his perspiration-slick back, her head lifting to connect her hot forehead to his shoulder.

  “Inside me,” she panted. “I need you inside me.”

  His forearm propped his weight while his fingers continued to stroke through her spasms.

  “This is for you, Katie.” His voice was dark and hoarse. “Not for me.”

  Tilting her head, she pressed her lips to his. Her nipples, so hard and sensitive, puckered tighter as they brushed across the hair on his chest. Her pussy rippled with the resonating delight, her entire body enamored with his. “Do it for me, then,” she urged.

  He loosened his grip on her hair and mounted her. She bit back a sound of protest as his fingers left her empty and greedy. She waited, breath held, as he moved against her, the thick crest of his cock gliding through their commingled fluids.

  Poised and aching for the feel of him throbbing inside her, Sapphire was painfully aware of her vulnerability. The drugs made her crave sex. But her craving for Wulf came from inside her, independent of anything she could control. Nothing would be the same in the morning, while at the same time nothing would have changed. She couldn’t keep him.

  Wulf reached down and cupped the back of her thigh, dragging it over his own, opening her more fully. His hips rolled, pushing the barest inch inside her. When she put her other heel to the mattress and lifted for more, he made a chastising noise and caught that leg, too.

  “Slow and easy,” he purred, rising to his knees. Draping her thighs over his, he kept her angled upward, her pussy splayed wide and desperate to be filled. Stretched.

  Her nails raked across the sheet. “Hard and deep.”

  His large hands moved to her breasts, the heated palms kneading the swollen flesh. “You’ll get sore. We have hours ahead of us.”

  “I need you.”

  “Trust me.” He thrust gently, working another wide inch into her. “I’ve got you.”

  She moaned, grateful for his care and attention, loving how he knew what she wanted and needed before she did but hating that he was right to be cautious. The desire was agonizing, goading her to writhe beneath him, to beg and plead, to cry and curse as he rocked his way into her with painstaking leisure.

  “You’re so damn hot,” he bit out, sweat dripping from the long, dark strands of his hair. “I love fucking you. I love the look on your face when you come. Whenever I see you, I ache to see that look.”

  “I ache to show it to you.” She locked her ankles at the small of his back and tugged, hissing in pleasure as he hilted.

  Then the ride began. The sweet, slow glide. The push and pull. The exquisite feel of the furled underside of his cockhead as it stroked deliciously over hypersensitive nerves. She could swear she felt every pulsing vein, every gush of pre-come, every frantic beat of his heart.

  Instinctive, needy cries spilled from her lips. Primitive sounds of surrender and hunger that stirred the dominant male in him. She saw it in his eyes, in the clenching of his jaw, in the way his chest heaved with effort despite his rigidly timed pace.

  “Deeper,” she begged. “Harder.”

  Wulf resisted the latter while indulging the former, moving her legs to his shoulders and coming over her. Her hips tilted higher, his dropped straight down, pumping his cock into her farthest depths. He bottomed out on every plunge, pulled out to the tip on every withdrawal. The feel of that long, thick penis pumping its full length into her brought her to orgasm swiftly and kept her churning in the climax like a sandstorm.

  His arms wrapped beneath her shoulders and held her pinned as he worked, his breath gusting across her ear. Sapphire felt the growl before she heard it, sensed the tension that gripped him in the moments before orgasm. He kept to the tempo that had to be killing him, but his fervor grew. The slap of his tight sac against her buttocks grew sharper, spurring her pleasure.

  Her fingertips clung to his straining back and she breathed, “Come in me. Fill me with you.”

  “Katie,” he snarled.

  He grew thicker, harder. She climaxed again at the stretching of her inner muscles and he exploded with a hoarse shout of her name, his large frame straining against her in the way she loved. The way that told her he was as helpless as she to the force of their need.

  Wulf held himself still at the deepest point of her, grinding into her, emptying his lust in fierce, fiery bursts.

  With his temple pressed to hers, he gasped, “I love you. God, I love you.”

  He came apart in her arms. She held him through the torrent that raged through them both.

  Wulf held his torso aloft to look down at her. “Tell me what happened to you today.”

  She inhaled deeply. Her dark eyes were luminous and beautiful. “I don’t want to talk. I just want to hold you.”

  He nuzzled the fragrant valley between her breasts. “We have a lot to talk about. Plans for our fut—”

  “No. For the next few hours you are not a prince, you are simply my lover. There is no tomorrow or any other day after that. There is only tonight and this bed.” Her pussy clutched at his cock, stroking it until he began to stir inside her.

  “Duncan told me what he said to you. None of it is true.”

  “I know.”

  He took her mouth, his tongue sweeping inside and caressing hers, gratitude for her trust a deep ache in his chest. When she arched impatiently against him, Wulf rolled onto his back, tucking one arm behind his head. “Ride off those drugs.”

  “You are my fantasy.” She smiled and everything knotted up inside him. “Did you know that?”

  Straddling his hips eagerly, Katie took him to the root, whimpering with pleasure as she seated fully onto him. He held her gaze, his chest tightening at the sight of her outlined by the faint moonlight entering through the small window behind her.

  “Never leave me again.” His voice turned th
ick and unsteady. “I’ll chase you to the end of the universe if I have to. I’ll never let you go.”

  As she began to move over him, she bent at the waist and claimed his mouth with her own. She rode him slowly, tenderly. He savored the press of her body atop his—the feel of her breasts brushing against his chest, the velvet moistness of her body gliding up and down his cock, the gentle brushes of her hair across his shoulder.

  Except for the soothing caress of his palm on her thigh, Wulf forced himself to remain still. His jaw clenched and he gripped the pillows as he felt her endless string of orgasms clench around him. Her lush body was tortured, tormented, wracked with artificially heightened sensations, and this was the only thing he could do to help her. To allow her to use his body to ease her pain. He wished he could do more.

  She gasped, her body shuddering over and around him. The touch of her hands upon his skin was reverent. She made him feel special and important. She told him every day in countless ways how much he pleased her. The way she looked at him, kissed him, talked to him—all of it made him feel. He had never felt so much as when he was with her.

  His eyes slid closed, and he held on to her with the thought that he would never let her go, never allow her to be farther away from him than he could touch.

  Katie rode his body for hours, but finally sweat and activity burned the drugs from her body. Their final coupling was slow and tender. Just the two of them, alone in the world. Her body spread beneath his, her head tossing restlessly while he loved her leisurely and deliberately.

  He took her with gentle desire, keeping her pinned and helpless beneath his lazy, rhythmic thrusts. He whispered endearments against her sweat-slick skin, praising her beauty, her passion.

  How different it was to make love to her with his heart. He had never experienced sex like it before, a joining of more than mere bodies.

  As the sun began its measured rise, he tasted a tinge of melancholy in the flavor of her kiss, but exhaustion prevented him from investigating further. His eyelids weighed heavily and he sank into sleep with Katie held tight in his arms.