Elliot remained silent for a moment while he considered her words, and then he nodded, his shoulders sagging as he surrendered. “I will not disappoint you. I will do what you ask. I will be the man you want me to be.”
“You’re already that man.” Despite her reservations, she pulled back the sheet and straddled his naked body. She gave a coy smile, knowing what he needed to help soothe his spirit. “Perhaps you could show me again how much I mean to you.”
His mouth curved up into a wicked grin. “It will be my pleasure.”
Chapter 13
As soon as Ivana’s carriage rattled over the castle’s cobblestone bridge, her solemn mood improved. Just knowing she would spend the night encased in Leo’s strong arms was enough to chase away all morbid thoughts of the children and the Bruhns.
Leo rushed to meet her in the courtyard. His shirt was untucked from his breeches, open at the neck to reveal bronze skin and a dusting of dark hair. His sinful brown eyes devoured her. She drank in the splendid sight knowing she had but a day or two left with him. Her heart sang only to his tune; her soul yearned for his touch. After years of fighting her feelings, years pretending she felt nothing, she wanted to release the trapped emotions, to give life to the words she longed to say.
She ran to him, threw herself into his arms, and kissed him frantically as she clawed at his muscular body. “I love you,” she whispered. “I have always loved you.”
It didn’t matter that he did not declare his feelings. There were huge gaps in his memory. She sensed his confusion, knew his heart was racked with guilt for betraying his friends.
Desire burst forth. The need to sate their ravaging hunger took hold.
He scooped her up into his arms, kicked the wooden door open with his boot. “I need you,” he growled. “I need you now.”
Leo held her tight to his chest as he marched through the corridors and up the curling stone staircase. She knew his eagerness to join with her also stemmed from a need to suppress all sombre thoughts. As soon as he set her down near the bed, they were tearing at clothes, stripping away layers, desperate for the comforting touch of warm skin.
“Make me remember,” he whispered as he sucked on the soft fleshy lobe of her ear, rained kisses down the column of her throat.
“Let us not think of the past anymore,” she replied breathlessly. They could not look to the future, either. “We will think only of this moment. We will make a new memory, one that will never be forgotten.”
Their last coupling had been urgent, fast and frenzied. They had drunk each other’s blood until their bodies tingled and thrummed. They had cried loud and long during their release.
“Wait,” she muttered as he covered her naked body, pressed her down into the plush mattress. “I want to savour this moment, Leo. I want you to imagine this is the last time we will be together.”
Ivana did not have to imagine. This would be their last time together. The memory would have to last her for a lifetime.
He propped himself up on one elbow, caressed her cheek with the palm of his hand. “You want it slow,” he said in the languid drawl that made her core pulse. “You want to feel every movement when I fill you.”
“Yes.” The word drifted through the room a
s though carried on a gentle breeze.
Sporting a wicked grin, he trailed the tips of his fingers along her collarbone, down the valley between her breasts. When he brushed lightly back and forth over her nipple, she arched her back as the sweet spot between her legs throbbed.
A soft moan escaped from her lips.
As he continued to stroke and tease her, she realised it was not what she needed. It was not pleasure she sought. She needed to feel at one with him. “I want to join with you. I don’t want to wait.”
Without needing any other prompt he nudged her legs apart, settled between her thighs and pushed home. Her soul sang in celebration. She hugged him tight, clamped around the solid length never wanting to let him go. With each measured thrust, he filled her full, the sensation causing waves of pleasure, waves of pure love to ripple through her body.
His heated gaze locked with hers. “Is this what you want, Ivana?” The words caressed her, the slow rhythmical rocking creating a more intimate, more emotional coupling.
“I … I want you, Leo. For now … for always.”
She drank in the sight of his full lips, parting with a groan as she drew him deeper. She memorised the golden flecks in his brown eyes, how they twinkled when glazed with desire. She inhaled his earthy masculine scent, let it surround her and seep into her skin.
They were as one — one body, one heart, one soul.
Nothing else mattered.
Feeling a sudden urge to claim him, to heighten his pleasure, she wrapped her legs tightly around his thighs and forced him to flip over. Straddling him whilst he sat up, she pressed her body close until her breasts were squashed against his chest. She rolled her hips, ground against him, the movement causing him to moan against her neck as he sucked and nipped the sensitive skin.
“God, Ivana, I can never get enough of you.”