The Drakon Baby Bargain(23)

This much emotional seesawing was going to make her go up in flames one of these days, Eleni thought, staring at Gabriel’s now completely naked, and utterly sexy, chest.

“Your mother lives in Barcelona?” she somehow managed to also ask.

“Yes. We don’t speak to each other so Isabella is kind of the go-between. And now I would really like to end our domestic drama and go to bed.”

Eleni nodded, feeling her mouth dry completely. Had they resolved anything? She knew now that he would not cheat on her. But he still had deep trust issues. Issues that he wouldn’t talk about easily.

Knees feeling like rubber, she walked toward the bed.

One look at the dark blue sheets sent her scuttling back to the sitting area. Did he want to share the bed with her? Did he expect to make love tonight?

Just the thought of it was enough to send her body into a spiral of longing. Could she make the first move?

She had to be the only woman in the world who could command a palace staff of two hundred and yet worry over her husband coming home to bed at night.

Every beat of her heart seemed to take forever as she heard the shower go on and then off far too soon. In the end, she waited near the window, far too keyed up to sleep.

A towel tied to his waist, his chest still damp from the shower, Gabriel walked out. Any remaining air in her lungs went whoosh.

Dark olive skin stretched over lean muscles. A smattering of dark hair, wetly stuck to his skin now, made a dusky path from his chest to his navel, and then disappeared downward into his towel.

He used another towel to wipe his back, drawing her attention there. Smooth, gleaming skin and broad shoulders... Eleni couldn’t stop staring. She only barely remembered to keep breathing.

He plopped onto a chair in front of her and pulled her hands onto his shoulders.

Eleni jerked, the heat of his body singeing her fingertips even through the fabric of his shirt. He was pure steel under her fingers, the span of his shoulders so broad that he encompassed her petite frame. Simply, he took her breath away.

A bird cawed somewhere in the distance. A gentle breeze ruffled in through the French doors. Silence around them thickened until Eleni was sure the thundering of her heart could be heard all around them.

“What...what is it that you expect me to do?”

“I worked for too long in the same pose on the flight. My back aches like hell.”

She bristled at the command in his tone. “So?”

Tilting his head to the side, he devoured her with his gaze. “So be a good wife, Princesa. Your husband has come home after a long, hard day at work and he needs some attention.”

The very devil twinkled in his smile. “Poor Gabriel...”

“This is what marriage is about, you know. Ensuring your husband has everything he needs.”

Her mouth twitched, the long-suffering look on his face sending a bubble of laughter up through her throat. “I didn’t know you were such an expert on marriage.”

He shrugged. “I don’t do anything by halves. And Princesa?”

Eleni didn’t think she’d ever known a moment so filled with utter joy. “What, now?”

“I would have you not work so hard either.”

Stunned, she looked down at him. “What?”

“You...are not just the Princess of Drakon anymore, Eleni. You are my wife. You could soak in a diamond-filled tub all day if you wanted. You could give up each and every one of your palace duties. We could...”

“But you accepted my request to stay in Drakon.”

“I did. But I still wish for you to make a life outside of the palace. Anything you need, it’s yours for the asking, Eleni.”

Is your heart available? she wanted to say, but kept the silly question to herself. One step at a time, Eleni, she told herself, and right now, all of her energies were consumed by her husband’s gloriously naked back.

Pondering his request, she went to work on his muscles. He was right. There were painful knots all over his shoulders and upper back. Even damp, his skin was still warm to her touch.

She kneaded the stiff muscles in silence, working through each knot. Heat flew from her fingers to his skin and back until her own fingers were tingling from it. She didn’t know how long she continued like that, but in that small, quiet moment, there was a tenuous connection between them.

The silence went from comfortable to tense, back and forth like the swing of a pendulum. In the next breath, Gabriel turned and lifted her up in his arms.

Eleni could only stare.

He deposited her on the high bed and stood in between her knees. Holding her gaze, he pushed the thin straps of her nightie down, baring her breasts to his slumberous gaze.

“I did you a disservice that night.”

“How?”

“In the dark, I could only feel and touch. I couldn’t worship you with my eyes.”

Rough fingers kneaded and played with the bared flesh, setting her nerves on fire. Her spine arched, her upper body leaning toward him of its own accord, demanding he give her that same spine-tingling pleasure.

With a husky laugh, Gabriel complied. His tongue flicked and played with her nipple, until it was painfully sensitive. Sinking her fingers into his hair, Eleni moaned just as he closed his mouth and suckled deeply.

Sensations flew to the apex of her thighs like molten lava. Her silk nightie slithered soundlessly to the floor. Gabriel pressed a reverent kiss to her soft belly, his breath a harsh rhythm in the silence.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, mi princesa,” he whispered, and looking down at her flushed skin, her trembling muscles, Eleni could well believe it.

How could anything that gave her so much pleasure be anything but?

Pushing her back into the bed, his mouth went on a lazy trail from the valley between her breasts to her abdomen.

Eleni stretched on the bed like a cat, the cool sheets doing nothing to help her overheated skin. When he joined her on the bed and pushed a lazy hair-roughened leg between hers, she moaned at the pressure. He pressed at the spot hungering for his touch with his thick muscle and a soft pulse shuddered there.

“You’re already damp for me.”

Blushing, she turned to him. Bronzed skin gleaming with vitality, he reminded her again of the marauders that had tried to capture Drakon again and again. She ran her fingers over the spikes of his shoulders, curled them in the crisp smattering of hair on his chest. Heard the hitch of his breath.

She hadn’t touched him at all that night. She had only been a receptacle for his mindless caresses. She had waited an entire lifetime for passion like Gabriel had showed her that day, but she’d barely participated.

It had taken her thirty years to take her life into her own hands. It was high time she took the matter of her pleasure into her own hands too. And today, her pleasure was in learning all she could of this hard man who had driven her to the mindless edge that night. Today, she wanted to know what would drive him crazy like he did her.

Today, the Plain Princess of Drakon wanted a little power over her husband.

With a boldness that surprised herself, she pushed him back on to the mattress.

“Eleni?”

She bit her lip, staring at the masculine beauty that was stretched out in front of her. How she wished she’d been a painter like Andreas, so that she could forever memorize the bold, intensely masculine lines of his body. There was such honed strength in him and yet, when he touched her, he was capable of a gentleness she would have never thought possible.

“I want to do this, Gabriel. I want to pleasure you. Will you let me?”

Hands folded behind his head, he raised his brows in a taunt. “I’m all yours, Princesa.”

Her eyes darkened, her silky hair falling like a curtain around her face. Candlelight flickered over her lush body, bathing it in a golden glow. She swept that golden gaze over him thoroughly, from his hair to his toes, lingering over the tent the towel made at his groin.

Gabriel had never met a woman quite like his wife. Determined, even in the darkest of times. Never backing down if she thought it right. Reaching for what she wanted, even when he’d behaved like an ass.

And now she stared at him as if he were a delicious feast. He wanted to push her plush body down and thrust into her, and yet, he had already misused her that way.

Today, he would go slowly if it killed him, and with the way she eyed him it probably would.

“You have to unpack me first, Princesa,” he taunted, and she blushed again.

Fingers swift and sure, she pulled his towel from under him. Her eyes widened, her breath held as she eyed his erection.

Then slowly, gently, she took him in her hands and squeezed. Her grip was tentative but firm as she studied him with such focus that Gabriel turned into stone in her hands.

“I don’t know what to do.” She licked her lips with a silky innuendo she wasn’t even aware of. “Teach me, please.”

His eyes closed, a low growl rumbled out of his mouth. “You’re going to be the death of me.” He closed his hands on top of hers and showed her how to stroke him. How to drive him out of his own skin.

Sweat broke out on his skin, pleasure balling up in his groin as she pumped him with her hands, just as he showed her.

He felt the silky slide of her hair over his chest, teasing his nipples, turning his abdominal muscles into hard rocks. Her tongue licked the shell of his ear and he bit out the filthiest oath he could think of. “What do you want, Gabriel? All you have to do is tell me.”