The Drakon Baby Bargain(24)

“Take me in your mouth,” he growled without hesitation.

When her heated breath fell on his erection, he opened his eyes. Just in time to see her lush, pink mouth close over the head of him.

Eyes rolling back, Gabriel groaned. His hands plunged into her hair, guiding her to take him deeper. Pleasure built up along his spine. With another oath, Gabriel eased her away.

“Gabriel, wait...”

But he was too far gone now. With one flip of his hand, he pulled her on top of him until she was straddling him. He wanted to feast his eyes on her like this—her breasts with those plump nipples moving, her belly contracting, her spine arching, every inch of her lushness only for his eyes.

“Take me inside you, wife,” he said in a voice hardly recognizable as his.

The most beautiful smile flared over her face as he nudged her thighs apart. Tension corkscrewed in his pelvis as she edged the tip of his shaft inside her sheath. Hands on her hips, Gabriel waited for her to get used to him again. Fought the urge to ram upward into her slick warmth.

Slowly, she lowered herself into him, her brow tied in focus, her tongue peeking out to lick at her lips.

Beads of perspiration dotted her upper lip.

Inch by inch, she impaled herself on him in slow torture. When she had sheathed him completely, the tightness was incredible, gloving him like a fist. Slow tremors began in his muscles, desire a knife arching through his spine.

He would have bucked his hips up into her. Except the whimper of discomfort that fell from her mouth stayed him.

Somehow, he leashed his own lust, felt the twitch of his hardness inside of her in protest. Gritting his teeth, he looked at her and his heart thudded against his rib cage.

The stiff arch of her spine reminded him that she was new to this. That her body had been untried until only a week ago.

The slow shift of her hips sent a bolt of pure pleasure through his groin. And yet she was still rigid. He molded her hips in his hands, feeling powerless in the face of her hurt. “Does it hurt, Eleni?”

She opened her eyes, her mouth pinched. “Not hurt, but not quite okay.” She wriggled her round bottom and gasped again. “It...it feels like you are everywhere, Gabriel, like you have cleaved me in half. And I’m afraid to move.” Sudden tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry for... I just need a few seconds to get used to you.”

“It’s okay, Princesa. We have all night. We have months to learn each other, years to do all the things I want to do with you.”

For some blasted reason that he couldn’t fathom, that made tears roll down her cheeks.

She wiped at them roughly. “I wanted to be sexy and alluring with you. Not turn up the waterworks.”

Had his trysts with other women been anything like this? At that moment, Gabriel couldn’t remember another woman’s face, much less any sweet words he’d whispered to one after sex.

Sinking his hands in her hair, he pulled her down, uncaring that he slipped out of her warmth. Uncaring that his body coiled tighter with unspent frustration. “You are the most fascinating woman I’ve ever met, Princesa. And it’s not your fault. I...didn’t quite prepare you. You’re tiny and I’m...a big brute.”

She laughed against his mouth. “I can’t verify that so I have to take your word for it.”

He smacked her bottom playfully and nudged her closer to him. “You will, if I have anything to say for it. Don’t worry, querida. Once we do get used to each other, I’m going to devour you. You’re not going to get out of bed for a week.”

Eyes wide like saucers looked up at him. “Yes?”

“Yes. Now shut up and kiss me, wife.”

Her breasts were lush and a delicious weight, her belly soft as she nuzzled into him. He took her mouth in a soft kiss, tenderness cutting the hard bite of his lust. Using every bit of his skill, he stroked the recesses of her mouth until she was moaning against him.

Slipping his hands in between them, he touched every inch of her—from her taut nipples to the folds of her sex that were silky wet. Only when she was rubbing against him again, only when he could feel her readiness, did he enter her again.

He kept up the pressure of his fingers, brought her to the peak. The moment she leaned forward and kissed him, he thrust up into her. They groaned, their bodies finding an easy rhythm this time.

As if they knew how to create the magic.

They moved together like some wild things, their mouths kissing and licking, their hands clasped together. When he showed her how to move with him, Eleni followed his instruction, arching her back, trusting her body and his, reveling in Gabriel’s hoarse grunts of pleasure, the fact that she had brought this powerful, breathtaking man to such undefinable pleasure.

Pleasure burst on them in tandem, and Eleni fell forward on his broad chest. Curling into him, she closed her eyes. Their bodies were damp, their breaths still labored.

The silence was a blanket over them. Yet every beat of her heart said she had irrevocably fallen in love with her husband. Every pulse in her body, every bead of perspiration on her skin wondered at the hard flesh beneath her. The loud thud of the thundering heart beneath her own—she would know it even in the dark, always.

And with the realization flooded in panic. For she knew Gabriel would never give her his heart. Would never love her as she’d love him whether they were together or not. Whether they had a child or not.

For the rest of her life.





CHAPTER TEN

OVER THE NEXT month Drakon celebrated the fact that their beloved Crown Prince Andreas was back from his mysterious expedition.

It was all Gabriel heard from Eleni, whom he barely saw. She was overjoyed that her older brother was back. The one time he had seen Andreas, Gabriel had gotten quite the shock.

Andreas Drakos had always been a hard man, yet it felt as if there was nothing but a fierce, cold rage in his eyes these days. Now Gabriel had information sitting on his desk that he knew Andreas was looking for, information he had acquired because Eleni had begged him to help her brother.

And he was coming to learn he could not deny his wife anything.

Yet, something in the other man’s gaze had held Gabriel’s hand back.

The Royal siblings appeared everywhere for a few days, Nikandros leaving his pregnant wife’s side with the greatest reluctance. Whispers of a great alliance between the House of Drakos and a cabinet minister’s daughter abounded but if there was a man who was less suited to be anyone’s husband, it was Andreas Drakos.

The portentous niggle that had beset him from the moment Andreas had returned came true when he was informed that the Crown Prince had requested an audience.

Without Eleni’s presence.

Gabriel entered Andreas’s office after a short knock.

Any civil greeting he had rehearsed disappeared when he spied not only Nikandros but another man in the room.

Spiros Kanellos, if his sources were right. And they always were. The man his wife had once loved. The man who had disappeared from the face of Drakon for close to a decade. The man who had suddenly reappeared the night of their wedding.

Suddenly, everything fell into place. The man’s unhindered access to the palace, his outrageous confidence that Eleni would receive him—he was going to throttle Andreas.

Gabriel refused to acknowledge the man’s presence. But of course, he couldn’t help noticing the defiance in his expression, the perfect symmetry of his features.

Cold fury filled him and beneath that, for the first time in his life, a sense of doom. “What the hell is the meaning of this, Drakos?” he said, refusing to corral his temper.

Andreas didn’t even blink at the menace in Gabriel’s tone. “From your expression, I gather you know who Spiros is.”

“Yes, since he’s been scuttling around the palace and sniffing around my wife’s skirts, I had to alert my security force that he was a threat to Eleni and that they could shoot him on sight.”

The blond man paled while Nikandros muttered, “Damn it, Marquez.”

Andreas held Gabriel’s gaze, something moving like shadows in his. “Nik, Spirios, leave us.”

Muttering something to himself, Nik escorted the man out.

Gabriel waited maybe two seconds before he gave into the rage building inside him and punched Andreas in his jaw.

The celebrated Crown Prince of Drakos clutched his jaw, nary a curse rising to his mouth.

Gabriel shook his hand, savage satisfaction filling him. “Keep your crooked games to yourself, Drakos. She’s not your sister anymore. She’s my wife. If you don’t want me to sink Drakon, if you ever want to see her again, you will stay out of our lives. I will ruin everything before I let you interfere with us.”

Andreas continued as if Gabriel hadn’t threatened everything dear to him. “She deserves to be loved, Gabriel. She waited for him for eight years. My damn father lied to her all that time. He intended to tie her to a man of his own age, just so that he could have control over her. So that she would be his willing servant for the rest of her life.

“Spiros loves her. He’ll give her what she needs. I know you, better than anyone does. In the end, you’ll break her heart. You’ll crush her. It’s not too late, Gabriel.”

“She doesn’t need love. She entered this marriage with her eyes open,” Gabriel protested, yet there was a hollow ache in his gut. “And what she did want out of it, I can damn well give to my wife.”