That she’d gotten her wish.
And now she would pay the price.
Oh, she craved that price.
He freed himself from the rest of his garments while she undid her bra, drew her panties down her legs. While she kicked her shoes off.
“Yes,” he said. “There you are. Not a Queen, are you? Just mine.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
And she did not know why she found such a great comfort in that. In being his. Except he would never take her to a dungeon. He would never lock her away. He wanted to make her feel good.
As long as she belonged to Maximus, she would be safe.
Suddenly, she wanted to weep. Safe.
She could not remember ever feeling safe. Safe.
Safe with him. If she was his, that was how it would be. And he could be hers. She could...
And then she couldn’t think anymore, because he closed the distance between them and kissed her. Hard and fierce and long. Kissed her until she couldn’t think. Until her world was reduced to the way his hard body felt naked against hers. Then he lifted her up and carried her to the bed.
He was over her, those eyes gleaming and intense. The eyes of a man who had sat there with his finger steady on the trigger, waiting to take a life. Who had done so to save lives. Who claimed he had no conscience and no soul but held her like she mattered.
And he positioned himself at the entrance of her body, and when he thrust into her, she gasped.
For there was no control, no finesse. All the things he’d said he needed were gone. And she reveled in it. Gloried in it.
For this was what she needed.
This. This moment of abandon. Each thrust was so intense it was nearly painful. Pleasure. Pain. Lights flashing across her closed eyes. Every sensation she could possibly have hoped for cascading over her in the moment. Her need building to such heights she didn’t know if she could withstand it.
And yet she would. Because she knew what true hell was. Having nothing. Having no one. Feeling nothing.
Not even knowing what to dream for, so you had to dream of what you might do for your country, and nothing else.
For thinking that the only reason you might matter was to serve the greater good, and not to simply be.
But in his arms, she could be.
In his arms, the years of deprivation, the years of nothing, melted away.
And when she shattered, she was the stars again. Every starry night she hadn’t been allowed to see, as the dungeon ceiling had been her view. She became all she had lost.
When it was over, she lay with him. Let him hold her. Until the sounds of their hearts beating quieted. Until she could breathe again.
“No more prisons,” she whispered.
“I do not seek to put you in a prison,” he said.
“You may not seek to,” she said, tracing a finger over his forearm, “but the end result is the same. By denying me... It is the same.” She breathed out slowly. “It is not the same. I know it is not. But sometimes I feel full to bursting with these emotions... I don’t ever want to go back. To being nothing and feeling nothing. When I saw my parents... My brother.”
He tightened his hold on her. “How did you escape?”
She spread her hands. “I didn’t escape, eh?”
His lips curved upward. Only barely. “You lived.”