Royal Protector. Dana Marton

to bind her to him in every way.

      She’d led them to that alcove, tucked away out of sight in a far-off corner of the ballroom’s second-floor balcony while the rest of the assembled throng moved about far below, reveling in Rihad al Bakri’s lavish hospitality. Kavian had stared down at her when they were finally alone. He hadn’t smiled. He’d been trying to see inside her, trying to match her exquisite beauty in person to the image he’d carried around with him in his head. He’d been trying to process the fact that she was well and truly his already, no matter how he approached her.

      It had felt like sunlight, deep inside him, warm and bright. He hadn’t known what to make of it.

      “Well,” she’d said with false brightness. “Here we are. Officially betrothed and still total strangers.”

      “We are not strangers,” he’d corrected her, with far more gruffness than he’d intended. He hadn’t meant to speak. He’d found those intricate braids that she’d worn like a crown of her own glossy hair an enchantment, and he’d been deep in their spell. He’d felt her gaze like a caress, an incantation. “I will soon be your husband. You are already mine.”

      “I’m not yours yet,” she’d said, and then she’d lifted her chin in a kind of challenge that he’d only understood, in retrospect, had been a bit of foreshadowing he should have heeded. Back then, he’d simply enjoyed it. “And you should know that I can’t marry a man with a harem. A betrothal for political purposes is one thing, especially if it helps my brother, but a marriage under such circumstances? No. I refuse.”

      Kavian had only continued to watch her, as if it was a deep thirst he felt and she the only possibility of ever quenching it. Most people caved under his regard, and quickly. Amaya had only squared her shoulders and held his gaze.

      He’d liked that. Far too much, truth be told.

      “For you,” he’d said, as if she had any choices left, as if she hadn’t just signed herself over to his keeping in full view of two countries and by now, the better part of the world, “I will empty mine. Is that what you require? Consider it done.”

      He’d stopped restraining himself then. He’d looked at her with all that fire, all that dark longing, right there on the surface. He hadn’t hidden a single bit of the beast inside him. He hadn’t tried.

      And Amaya had done the most extraordinary thing. She’d flushed, hot and red and flustered—but not frightened. Not horrified. Not even particularly scandalized—all of which he’d expected, on some level. Just...hot. Then she’d looked away as if the heat was too much. As if this was too much. As if he was.

      As if she felt exactly as he did.

      Everything in him had roared, approval and acknowledgment.

      Mine, he’d thought, with every cell in his body. With every breath.

      And he’d taken her head between his hands, those braids warm and soft beneath his palms, and he’d tasted her for the first time. It had changed everything.

      It had blown them both up, right then and there.

      That flame had only intensified in all the months since, while he’d had nothing to do while he chased her but imagine her right here, naked before him in his very own bed, the way she was right now. Finally.

      “Why are you staring at me like that?” Amaya asked, and he could hear the nerves in her voice. The hunger and the heat.

      He’d been right about her—about this magnificent chemistry between them—six months ago. He was right now, too.

      “I keep telling myself I am going to take this slow,” he said, dropping his hand from her chin but moving closer to her. “Act like the sophisticated gentleman I am not. But that is unlikely, azizty. Very, very unlikely, the longer you look at me with those big, innocent eyes of yours that are nothing but a temptation.”

      “My eyes aren’t innocent.” It was as if she couldn’t help herself, when she must know he knew she lied. “They’re wicked. As dirty and debauched as the rest of me. I keep trying to tell you.”

      He only gazed back at her until he saw that flush again, warming her skin, prickling over all the soft flesh on display before him. Just as he recalled it. Then he smiled. Slightly.

      “I want you to take it slow,” she whispered.

      “No,” he said, gathering her into his arms and pulling her against the wall of his chest, exulting in the way she slid against him, then melted into him, as if she really had been made to his precise specifications. “You do not.”

      And then he settled his mouth over hers, at last, and let the fire break free, searing both of them.

      * * *

      Kavian consumed her.

      There was no other word for it.

      His kiss was a slick addiction. A wild, impossible ride, and she couldn’t get enough. He held her against him and he angled her head where he wanted it and he simply feasted.

      And Amaya loved it.

      The more he took, the more she gave, meeting every slide of his tongue against hers. She arched into him, pressing her aching breasts against the dizzying wonder of his hard chest, reveling in the sensation of that strong hand of his on her bottom, kneading her. Guiding her.

      Driving her crazy with need.

      He pulled his mouth away from hers, letting out a very male sound of satisfaction at the small, disappointed noise she couldn’t keep herself from making.

      “Be patient, azizty,” he said in that dark way of his, and she didn’t know how she knew that he was teasing her. That he was deliberately drawing this out to make that ache in her intensify.

      Or that he would continue to do it until he felt like stopping; that what she wanted would have nothing to do with it.

      She loved that, too. She had the sense he’d known she would.

      Kavian took his time, lazily tracing a path down her neck to taste every inch of her collarbone. Then he dropped his head to play with her breasts again, making her moan and shake against him as he tested the plumpness of each of them, then tasted and tugged each proud peak.

      This time, he didn’t let her topple over that edge. This time, he had more on his agenda. He swept her up and then he laid her out on that big, wide bed, stretched himself out beside her, and kept going.

      He licked his way over her navel, then lower, laughing as she bucked against him, lost somewhere between desire and delirium, and she didn’t much care which as long as he kept touching her. Tasting her. Making her feel more beautiful, more precious, than she’d had any idea she could feel.

      “Kavian.” She didn’t mean to say his name. She hardly knew what she was doing as he took her hips in his big hands and held her there before him as if she truly were a feast and he was nothing but hungry. “Please.”

      “I like that,” he said approvingly, and she could feel his voice against that most private part of her that was molten and aching and already his. It made her shudder, deep within, the feeling radiating out everywhere, coursing in her veins and washing over her whole body. “Beg me.”

      And then he licked his way straight into the core of her.

      Amaya exploded.

      She thought she screamed his name, or maybe that was only what it felt like inside her, and either way she was lost in the storm of sensation. Lost completely. It swept her away. It altered her very being.

      It was like dying, and the crazy part was how much she loved it. All of it.

      She felt like someone else entirely when she came back to that bed with a jolt and found Kavian propped up above her and entirely naked, holding his weight on his elbows while the hardest part of him probed at her entrance.

      He