Capturing the Crown Bundle. Nina Bruhns

I gotten to you or are you just trying to shut me up?”

      “Yes, and yes,” he answered, a kiss to either side of her neck separating the two affirmations.

      He’d been without her too long. It felt like a lifetime, even though logically he knew that by the calendar, it had only been a matter of a few days.

      His blood heated to an almost unbearable point, Russell found that he didn’t want to waste any more time, not with words, not with delays. Though nothing had really been resolved to his satisfaction, though he still felt hurt by Amelia’s initial flash of distrust, he couldn’t resist these demands storming through him any longer.

      Still kissing her, he moved his hands to the back of her dress. He had only one goal in mind: to separate the heavily beaded gown from her body as quickly as humanly possible.

      His goal was thwarted almost immediately. Instead of a zipper, his fingers came in contact with what felt like a army of tiny round buttons, marching up and down the length of her back in single file. They extended from her shoulder blades to well past her waist. There had to be over a hundred of them, he thought in utter frustration as he moved his head back to look at her.

      Despite the fact that her skin felt as if it were sizzling, Amelia had to bite down on her lower lip to keep from laughing. The mystified look on her new husband’s face was almost too adorable to withstand.

      “You’re bundled up like a national treasure,” he complained. And then the frown left his lips. A look entered his eyes that would have completely captured her heart—if it hadn’t already been his. “In a way, I suppose that you are.”

      It took effort not to simply melt into his arms at that point. “The royal dresser helped get me into this,” she told him. There was no way she could have fastened all the buttons on her own.

      “Well, I’m not calling her to help get you out. If I can’t manage this on my own, I don’t deserve to be the next King of Silvershire.” With desire vibrating through him, growing in urgency by the moment, he had to focus in order to hold himself in check and not to rip the gown right off her body. “Turn around,” he instructed.

      “Yes, Your Majesty,” she curtsied, a gleam in her eyes, before she turned and offered her back to him.

      “Not yet,” he reminded her. “I’m not king yet.” His breath teased her spine as he removed one tiny button after another from its loop. It was slow going. Far slower than he was happy about. “This is worse than a chastity belt,” Russell muttered under his breath.

      She felt his hands along her skin, felt her body tightening and humming in anticipation. She found it difficult to breathe. Difficult to remain where she was instead of throwing herself into his arms and kissing him with abandon.

      Standing as still as she could, her hands on her waist, Amelia glanced at him over her shoulder. “And just how many chastity belts have you removed?”

      Why did there have to be so many buttons? A half-dozen would have been sufficient. His fingers were growing thick and clumsy as he kept repeating the procedure over and over again. “What?”

      “You just said that the buttons were worse than a chastity belt. I was just wondering how many princesses you’ve liberated in your time.”

      “You would be the first,” he told her.

      And, he added silently, in a way, Amelia was liberating him. Freeing his soul with her sweetness from the solitary cell where it had been confined.

      Nothing had changed. He still didn’t want to be crowned king, still didn’t want the attention that went with this very public role he was being forced to take on, but he did want this woman. Wanted her with the last fiber of his being. Wanted her more than he had first initially realized. And if that meant enduring public scrutiny beneath a blistering spotlight, so be it. He would find some way to deal with it.

      So long as he could have her. All he cared about was having her, now. He was consumed with desire, with need.

      It felt as if the space of time between when they had first made love and now was several decades instead of merely several days. His body longed for her. More, his soul longed for her, for the feel of the safe haven that existed in her arms, in her kiss.

      “Done,” he declared with no small note of triumph as he finally pushed the last tiny button out of its confining loop.

      Rather than turn her around to face him, Russell slid the dress slowly from her shoulders, down her arms. All the while he had her against him and was kissing the slope of her neck, the soft expanse of her back. He heard her moan and it only served to fuel the fire that had already begun to rage inside him.

      The fire that only she could quench.

      This was amazing, Amelia thought. Russell was giving her goose bumps even as he was heating her body with his oh-so-clever mouth. She felt as if she were being consumed by both fire and ice at the very same time.

      How was that possible?

      When he cupped her breasts, still weaving a network of kisses that ran along her back, Amelia turned within the circle of his arms so that she could face him. Face him so that she could begin removing the formal uniform that he had worn to their wedding.

      He’d looked so tall and brave, standing there at the altar in his uniform. Her soldier. Now all she wanted was to have him standing there without it.

      Eager, wanting, Amelia tore aside the dress sash, pushed the jacket from his shoulders and all but ripped the shirt from his body.

      All the while, her body cheered her on, silently crying, “More.”

      “Princess,” Russell teased, a wide grin on his darkly tanned face, “are you attacking me?”

      “With every fiber of my being,” she breathed. “And it’s Amelia. Amelia,” she emphasized breathlessly for what felt like the umpteenth time. When would he stop thinking of her as a title and start thinking of her as a woman? His woman.

      “Amelia,” he repeated, his voice low, husky with unspent passion.

      She could almost feel her name dance along her skin, encased in his breath. It drove her crazy.

      Everything that came after was a blur, like the events in someone else’s dream.

      The rest of the clothing, both hers and his, wound up in a tangled heap of brocades, silks and beads on the floor—as tangled as their bodies swiftly became.

      She couldn’t get enough of him.

      The more excitement rose within her body in an ever-heightening crescendo, the more Amelia found herself wanting more. Wanting him. She desperately wanted the sensation he had created within her to continue forever, or as close to forever as was humanly possible.

      Russell did his best to accommodate her. His pleasure in part derived from the way Amelia moved beneath him, from the moans that escaped her lips as he familiarized his hands and then his lips with every inch of her body. With swift, clever, promising movements, he brought her to climax upon climax. To joy upon joy. Joy that, only a short while ago, had been completely unimagined for both of them.

      Within the shelter of an evening, she became his kindred soul. He could read or sense everything she was experiencing. He could literally see it in Amelia’s face. With little effort, he wrapped himself in it, experiencing the moment vicariously with her.

      He’d forgotten how almost tooth-jarring falling in love—making love—could be.

      Finally, unable to hold back any longer, feeling as if he would burst, Russell laced his hands with hers and raised them over her head. His eyes on hers, he lowered his body slowly until the imprint of hers was indelibly pressed against it.

      And then he entered her.

      This time, there was no small, almost imperceptible protest at the merging. No muffled whimper of pain that she tried to keep from him. This time, there was nothing but joy—for both of them.