A little before two thirty in the morning, I leaned against the giant bay window of the den of the cabin Ashur and I would share for the next few days and watched the last of the agents conduct their final check of the building before closing the door behind them.

Even though I hated the constant protection, I understood it was a necessity. The media had swarmed the Austin–Bergstrom International Airport, wanting a glimpse of the president and first lady. Some had even gone as far as jumping the fences and triggering the remotely activated cameras and security monitors in the hanger we were supposed to use. Thankfully no one outside of our Secret Service was aware we had a planted decoy who led them to Jacinta’s mammoth estate instead of the large cabin where Ashur and I would spend our honeymoon.

It wasn’t considered remote by Texas standards, since it was just an hour and a half outside of Austin, but it was far enough removed to provide the security needed to enjoy our time together without the worry of a camera taking a picture of us. For the next few days, there would be no state visits, no official duties, and no media.

For me anyway. Technically, I was jobless.

Ashur would still have to attend a daily briefing with Veer and Tyler.

The clank of ice in glass had my gaze moving from the closed front door of the cabin and across the den to where Ashur stood at the bar. He was barefoot in only his suit pants and a button-down shirt.

He was sexy down to his toes.

How could a man’s toes look appealing?

The muscles of his broad back bunched and moved as he picked up a crystal decanter. He poured a few fingers of his favorite scotch, dropped in an orange peel, and then swirled the aromatic liquid. He took a deep gulp and closed his eyes, savoring the taste of his concoction.

He was fascinating to watch. His movements were so calm, as if he hadn’t a care in the world and was ready for a relaxing evening in. When in fact he carried the weight of our country on his shoulders.

Would we ever get to a place where we’d share everything? It scared me that I wouldn’t have the type of relationship my parents shared. Could a relationship survive if we both kept secrets?

Slowly, Ashur set his empty glass on the bar counter and turned to face me. His eyes were filled with desire, but there was also a glint of something else I couldn’t put my finger on but made a throbbing pulse deep inside my core.

My heart pounded into my ears and my breath grew shallow.

This was it.

Goosebumps prickled my skin.

Why was I so nervous? We’d technically consummated our marriage the other night, and the interlude aboard Air Force One wasn’t any less intimate.

Maybe it was because the world had watched me marry Ashur in the gardens of the White House. Effectively turning us into an American royal romance. Or the fact there was no turning back now. I was his wife for better or worse.

There was no turning back the moment I’d agreed to marry him.

Now, here we were, about to have our wedding night.

“Tara,” Ashur said as he came up to me, setting his hands on my waist.

My nipples immediately responded to my name and pebbled into hard buds.

He lifted my hair and set it on one shoulder as he grazed his evening stubble on the side of my neck.

“We can be good together. Give us a chance. I meant what I said on the phone today. I want to make this real.”

I swallowed, holding in the desire I felt as tears prickled the backs of my eyes.

“What about our history?”

“Leave it there. I don’t want anything in the way of our future.”

There was no way he’d feel the same once he learned that I’d lived a double life for the past ten years. That I was still living a double life.

“I wish it were that easy. It takes time.”

“I know.” He sighed. “Then will you pretend for our time here that we are ordinary people who are in love, who want to spend time together just learning each other. I need this, Tara. I need you. The moment we get back, all hell—”

I turned in his arms, cupped his face, and covered his lips with mine, silencing anything else he had to say. I couldn’t hear it. The longing in his words was destroying me.

This hard man felt so much. The least I could do was give him what he asked, if only for a few days.

I only hoped my heart would survive.

Ashur gripped my bottom, lifting me against him and deepening the kiss. The hard, thick ridge of his cock pressed into the juncture of my cleft, and my core drowned with desire. His tongue invaded my mouth, rubbing against mine in a seductive rhythm that made my clit swell and ache.

I dug my fingers into his hair and pressed even closer. I wanted him to consume me in whatever way he desired. I wanted him to make me forget about anything other than him and what we shared in this cabin.

My back hit a wall, allowing me to wrap my legs around his waist.

“Ash,” I murmured, trying to work my hand between us so I could undo his shirt buttons. I was desperate to feel him skin to skin.

“No, not here.” He pulled back, grabbing my hand and placing it on his chest before gazing at me through a desire-filled haze.

“Why not?” I whined, wanting nothing more than the delicious feel of his cock bare against my pussy.

With breath coming in hard pants and eyes dilated, he said with a gruff voice, “The windows aren’t covered and I’ll be damned if I let anyone see you naked but me.”

Immediately, I glanced to the side and glimpsed our security monitoring the perimeter of the area.

“Well, that’s inconvenient.”

“Immensely.”

I unclasped my ankles from around him and dropped them to the floor, stepping out of his hold. Confusion crossed his face and I couldn’t help but smile.

Did he think I wanted to stop? Hell no.

I offered him my hand. “Let’s go, soldier. I want to get naked in private.”

He slid his palm over mine and tugged me toward him, sealing our lips for another circuit-breaking kiss. Once he had his fill, he whispered, “I’m an airman, not a soldier. Air Force, not Army.”

“My mistake.” I hummed, sucking his lower lip into my mouth and then popping it free.

“You said that on purpose.”

I grinned and turned, guiding him toward the master suite.

With each step, my arousal grew and the pulse between my legs felt like unending torment. I was almost positive that if he barely grazed my clit, I’d go off. The orgasm on the plane had done nothing for the low pulse of desire that seemed to burn inside me whenever he was near.

God, I was addicted. The need for him flowed in my veins and the only way to settle my ache for him was to fuck him senseless.

“Tara?”

I glanced over my shoulder, noticing him adjust his thick erection. “When we enter that room, you’re no longer boss.”

My steps faltered.

He caught me before I fell, pressing my ass into the hard ridge of his cock.

I gripped his hips, leaning into his heat. “When have I been the boss?”

He laughed against my ear. “Tara, I’ve let you control every aspect of our relationship since we made our agreement. I’ve gone two years without sex because of your no-sex rule.”

How could that be?

“But we’ve only been together a year and a half.”

“Let’s say I knew I was going to marry you and didn’t want anyone else’s cunt on my cock but yours.”

His crudeness should have pissed me off, but for some crazy reason, it made the need burning inside me intensify.

“Ash.”

“Ashu,” he countered, walking us toward our bedroom door.

“Why is it so important I call you that?”

“Because when you say it, I know what it really means.”

How could he know what it meant, when I had no clue?

I turned in his arms as we passed through the doorway.

Not caring to study the room, I focused on the sexy-as-sin man before me and the statement he’d made.

“What does it mean?”

“You’ll figure it out soon enough.” The lock clicked and a wicked glint entered his eyes.

“We don’t need to lock the door. The only people in this cabin are the two of us.”

“It’s to keep you from escaping.” He took a step forward, as I took one back.

“Why does it feel like I’m prey and you’re stalking me?”

He began to unbutton his shirt, and my throat dried up.

“Am I stalking you, Tara?” His shirt fell to the floor, revealing a soft cotton T-shirt.

I took another step in retreat as the need coursing down my pussy threatened to soak through my underwear.

The simple white shirt shouldn’t have looked so appealing but on him, it did, revealing chiseled arms and a chest that one would never expect on a politician, broad and defined, perfect to hold on to.

Before I could reach out to touch him, the backs of my knees hit the baseboard of the bed, stopping my backward trek.

Ashur took hold of my ribcage. “I want you on the bed, but not just yet.”

I swallowed at the intensity of his gaze.

His palms slowly slid upward until he reached my aching breasts. Then, instead of cupping them, he circled his thumbs along the tips, forcing my nipples into stiffer, harder peaks.

“That’s better.” He continued his lazy caress, and just when I was ready to ask for more, he pinched.

I cried out, letting the sting and the desire flow through every nerve in my body. I’d never thought I’d enjoy any pain with my pleasure, but with Ashur, it was a heady mix.

“Take off your clothes, Tara. I want to see you. I want to touch what is mine.”

“Yours?”

“Yes, mine.”

“What about you? Are you mine?”

Why had I asked him that?

“I’ve always been yours for over fifteen years. Time and distance never changed that.”

“Ash, why do you say things like that? I don’t know how to handle this.”

“Let it happen. This time here is ours, Tara. Don’t let the outside world interfere. Remember there is no past or anything beyond each other.”

I studied him for a second. Could I risk it?

Who was I kidding? I was completely caught in his web and I couldn’t think of anything better than to be with this man.

Stepping onto my tiptoes, I bit his bottom lip and said, “Okay. Here. In this cabin. There is only us.”

He fisted a hand in my hair as he ate at my mouth.

“Now back to what I said before, get naked. I want to touch you.”

I shifted out of his hold, giving him my back. He lifted the strands of my hair, laying them on one shoulder, and kissed the hollow at the base of my ear. He grasped the zipper of my dress and tugged down. The soft fabric slid to the floor, leaving me in only a bra, panties, and a pair of thigh-highs.

Goosebumps prickled my skin and I let out a low moan.

“Now this is unexpected.” He traced the henna-style tattoo that ran from the back of my shoulder to the left curve of my bottom. “I don’t remember seeing this before.”

“That’s because we were too desperate to fuck yesterday to even think about getting me naked.”

“I remember that weekend at Jacinta’s estate you wore a bikini.” There was a tinge of possessive irritation in his tone. “And it did very little to cover your assets.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “That weekend I wore a sheer cover-up in a similar pattern to my tattoo so you wouldn’t have noticed.”

Nearly two years ago, Ashur had crashed a weekend gathering at Jacinta’s family estate. It was supposed to be my place to recover from the fallout of my work in the No Bride project. Jacinta and Samina had rallied around me and forced me to relax and recuperate. We’d barely spent an hour relaxing by the pool under the spring sun, when Ashur had shown up to join the festivities.

It was during that weekend I learned I wasn’t truly over him.

Ashur followed the design in slow, soft glides of his fingers. “When did you get it?”

“Ten years ago.” I hoped he wouldn’t ask me why I’d gotten the ink or why I’d chosen the design.

If he knew I’d wanted the tattoo to feel closer to him after he’d gone missing while deployed, he’d know this was more than business between us. He’d know I’d…I wasn’t ready to go there.

“It’s beautiful. It reminds me of that drawing I made you when we went to Galveston for a picnic.”

I kept quiet, just focusing on his touch and not his words. Galveston, Texas wasn’t one of the prettiest beaches in the world, but for me it was a special place, reminding me of a time before I’d lost my innocence.

“Now face me and then take off your bra.”

I followed his instructions, reaching behind me, unclasping my bra, and dropping it to the ground.

“God, you’re fucking gorgeous.”

His praise gave me a sense of happiness I hadn’t expected.

“Cup your breasts. Offer them to me,” he ordered.

Without thought I followed his instructions, holding my large mounds in my palms and lifting my chest toward him. He bent his head and closed his lips around one taut nipple, biting the tip, in an exquisite pleasure-pain. The soft, wet heat of him engulfed me as he rolled his tongue around the aching nub, laving it and teasing. Sensations shot through every nerve in my body.

I gasped, closing my eyes and throwing my head back.

He slipped a hand behind my back, leveraging me toward him, and repeated the delicious torture on the other breast. I gripped his shoulders, writhing in bliss.

When had my breasts become so sensitive? I was on the verge of coming. This had never happened to me before.

“So responsive. I knew you’d be this way.”

“Ashur, what are you doing to me?”

“I’m making love to you, baby.”

I opened my eyes and reached out to touch him, but he shook his head and stepped out of my reach.

“Ask.”

I bit my lip. He’d been serious about the boss-in-the-bedroom thing. But wasn’t that what had attracted me to him in the first place? His control, his dominance, his knowledge of what I needed.

“May I touch you?”

He pulled his white T-shirt over his head, revealing his perfect ink-covered torso and pecs.

Dear God. I wasn’t the gorgeous one, he was.

Lifting my hand, he placed it over his heart. The heat of his skin seeped into my fingertips.

He stared into my eyes and the emotion I saw there destroyed me inside. “Do you want me, Tara?”

How could any sane woman not want him?

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Good.” He lifted his hand, freeing mine. “Touch me.”

He wouldn’t need to repeat himself. I ran my hand up his shoulder and along his arms in feathered strokes. Up and down, letting my fingers memorize every plain and valley.

Goosebumps prickled his flesh, and it satisfied me to know he had the same reaction I had whenever any part of him connected with my body.

I stroked his pecs and abdomen, enjoying the quickening of his breath. I followed the winding tattoos covering the left side of his body. They were so intricate, so unique, so similar to the one covering my back. There was meaning behind all of it, one filled with history and pain, something I wouldn’t bring up to mar the moment. I tried my best to ignore the slightly puckered skin hidden under the long tongue of a winding cobra but the need to comfort got the best of me and I kissed one of the long, jagged marks.

Ashur inhaled deep and clenched his fists at his sides.

Immediately I pulled back. “Am I hurting you?”

He cupped my face. “No, baby. I’m just sensitive there.”

“Will you tell me about it one day?”

“Yes, but not tonight. Tonight is about us. Not the past.”

I continued my exploration of his upper body, enjoying every little flinch of his muscles and the increased rhythm of his breath.

Just as I moved to cup his straining cock, he grabbed my wrist.

“No more petting. I want to fuck you. My cock has barely gone down since I watched you come apart in the lavatory, and any more of your gentle torture will drive me insane.”

“Then fuck me, Ashu.”

Ashur smiled, lifting me into his giant arms, and crawled onto the bed. He set me down with a gentleness that was a sharp contrast to the need radiating from him. Rolling to his side, he unfastened his buckle and pants. He pulled them down his long legs one at a time and then dumped them on the floor. His boxer briefs did nothing to hide the cock bulging against the cotton material. Next went his underwear, and he was there in all his naked glory. His cock glistened with pre-cum, curving past his belly button.

How he kept all that delicious manhood in his pants was a wonder.

I licked my lips. I couldn’t wait until I got a taste of his velvety hard length in my mouth.

“Stop staring at my cock. I’m barely holding on as it is.”

“I can’t help myself.” I came up on my arms. “I want to suck you off.”

He groaned. “Not helping. Next time.”

He came toward me, grasping my ankles and tugging me in his direction. He took hold of my underwear and ripped it from my body, making me gasp.

He spread my thighs, opening me to his heated gaze. His arousal spurred mine. I cupped my breasts to ease my need but all it did was make me crave him more.

He rubbed his cock up and down my cleft, mixing our juices together. The engorged head of his erection rimmed my weeping pussy. I lifted my hips to engulf him but Ashur held me in place.

“I say when I fuck you. If I tell you to wait, then you wait. From this moment, I own your pleasure. No getting yourself off unless I give you permission.”

He rubbed his cock up my folds again, circling my swollen, sensitive clit.

My back bowed and I growled. “Ashu, please.”

“Do I make myself clear, Tara? Do you accept every moan, every contraction of your pussy belongs to me?”

“Yes. I belong to you. No one but you.”

He slammed into me, and immediately my mind clouded with an insatiable need to come, and a guttural cry of desperate hunger escaped from my mouth.

Ashur’s knee dipped onto the bed and his weight and body surrounded me. I wrapped my legs around his waist, tilting my hips to meet each thrust.

My nails dug into his back, and he let out a hiss. The next thing I knew, he’d captured my arms and pinned them above my head in the tight grip of one palm.

He loomed over me, panting and pounding in my aching core. We kissed as he thrust, letting our bodies slide against each other.

He kept a hard, steady pace that had me shattering moments later. I convulsed and contracted around him. Clenching my eyes tight, I reveled in the intensity of my release.

My focus had barely returned before he brought me up again.

For a man who was supposedly hanging on by a thread, he had impeccable control. I orgasmed another two times, and with the last one he followed, calling out my name and pumping his hot cum deep inside me.