He hesitates, but his lips fall onto mine after a moment. It isn’t the hard kiss of reckless passion I need from him, though. It’s soft, almost…caring.

Impossible.

I know what he wants from me. I’ve seen it in his eyes since our wedding day. And though I may not want the same things he does, I can’t deny that at this point I need this. I haven’t been with a man in a very long time—and he was the only man I’ve ever been with. And even though my stomach twists with a nervous energy I can’t remember having felt in some time, I remind myself again… I need this. A night of passion is exactly the cure for what is ailing me at the moment. Considering sleep may never find me tonight, this is the next best thing.

I just don’t want it to mean anything.

His hand finds the back of my neck, and he holds me, kissing me with a tenderness he’s never shown me before now. He pulls his face away from mine after a moment. “Justine…”

My hands find the bare skin of his back and I pull him into me. “Don’t talk. Just…do.” I press my lips to his again.

He pulls away from me after only a second. “Justine…”

“I mean it, William. If you deny me… If you do something like you did on our wedding night, I’ll never forgive you. And you’ll never have this opportunity again.”

He shifts away from me, sliding his arm around my waist. “It isn’t that I don’t want the opportunity. It isn’t that at all.”

I groan in frustration, looping my leg over his and trying to pull him to me again. “There is far too much talking going on then—”

“Justine… I just don’t want it to be like this.”

I shove against his chest and find my way over to the other side of the bed. I let out a long breath. “Fine. Never mind.”

He touches my back, and I flinch away. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant.” I pull myself up to sit on the edge of the bed. My eyes still haven’t quite adjusted to the darkness, but I pull my robe tightly around me and stand, feeling my way over to the wall.

“Justine…” He turns on the light on his nightstand.

I’m already at the bedroom door, and I pull it open before I turn to him. “I’m going out.”

“Dressed like that?” He slides off the bed and strides toward me. “If you would just—”

“You know what? Go to bed, Your Highness. I’ll find a way to release this tension one way or another.”

His eyes narrow for a moment and he looks me up and down. “It isn’t that I don’t want you. I do. More than you can imagine.”

My eyes roam over his body, but I see no sign that he’s dying to have me. “I’ll figure things out on my own. I always do.”

He frowns. “Please… Just come back to bed. I’ll hold you all night if you like—”

“I already told you that isn’t what I need.” I wait for him to respond, but he doesn’t. “Do I really have to say it out loud?”

His frown deepens and lines form between his eyebrows. “Justine—”

“Fine. I need you to fuck me, William. That’s all I need. I don’t need you to give me a song and dance. You don’t have to woo me. You just have to fuck me.”

He says nothing, just stares at me with those damn blue eyes of him.

“I suppose if you refuse, that is your right. As I said, I’ll figure something else out on my own—”

“You’re going out to have an affair? After only four days of marriage?” His brow lifts along with the corners of his mouth, though he doesn’t quite grin. “And you believe that after this storm, you’ll be able to walk right into town and find some man to please you—”

“I never said anything about a man needing to please me, Your Highness. I only said I needed you to fuck me.”

He lifts a brow and stares at me, as though he doesn’t quite understand my words.

“I don’t need you to do anything fancy. Believe me, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my own needs, Your Highness. I just need you to…fuck me.”

He gives me a small shake of his head. “This is not exactly how I pictured our first time together, Princess—”

“We can do it however you like. If you’d prefer not to look at me while you do it, that would be fine. I don’t…I just need—”

“Me to fuck you. Yes, I gathered as much.” He rubs at his chin for a moment. “Again, I pictured our first time together much differently—”

“I’m not sure what sort of romantic notion you had for our first time, Your Highness. I’ll admit, I never pictured us even having a first time.”

He grins. “Well, that would make having four heirs quite a bit more challenging.”

“I don’t want four heirs. I don’t want any heirs. I can’t say I want any children at all anymore, which you might have known had you bothered to speak to me before our wedding day.”

His brow furrows again. “And if you’d married my brother, Andrew? You wouldn’t have provided him with his requisite heirs?”

“That is a different matter. I’m saying if I’m given the choice—”

“I fail to see how you have a choice. We have to produce four male heirs, Princess. If we were wise, we’d get started on them as soon as possible—”

“And I’m giving you the opportunity to do just that, Your Highness.” My stomach does a strange flip that I recognize immediately as guilt. “Fuck me full of your seed and put a male heir inside me tonight if that’s what you need to tell yourself for you to agree to join with me tonight—”

“Join.” He shakes his head, chuckling. “I suppose I was the one who told you to just say what it was you were thinking. You were certainly clear with me, weren’t you, Princess?”

My cheeks burn. “I’ve had enough, Your Highness. I’ve put up with your insults, your invasions of my privacy, your refusal to treat me as a human being, let alone your wife—”

“I hardly think that my refusal to… How did you so eloquently put it? Fuck you? I hardly think that counts as me insulting you, Princess. On the contrary—”

“I give up, Your Highness.” I shake my head at him. “I give up on trying. I… I know I’ve been difficult. I know…” I look down, realizing my robe has come undone and he’s probably getting an eyeful of my breasts again. I pull it shut, grabbing the top of the robe to hold it closed. “But do know, Your Highness—”

He’s standing in front of me again after what seems to be a single step. “What? What is it you want me to know so desperately, Princess?”

I lift my chin with indignance. “Know that you will never—and I do mean never—have this opportunity again.”

“I should hope not.”

My jaw tightens, and I desperately want to reach up and slap him.

“And what I mean by that, Princess, is that I have no intention of fucking you. Not yet. Perhaps someday, if we’re both feeling so passionate about the other that it’s what we both want—”

“It is what I want, Your Highness. I’m not sure how I can throw myself at you any harder—”

“You couldn’t. And that’s the problem.” He places a hand on my shoulder, pulling the sleeve up so it better covers my exposed skin. He lets out a low whistle. “You have no idea how much I want you right now.”

I don’t bother to glance down at his midsection this time. Not that I want to—I think I might kill him if he dares to touch me now.

“I think… I think perhaps we should have done this all differently. We should have at least come to know each other a little before we were pushed into this situation. But we’re here, and I think I do know enough about you now to know the last thing you need tonight is to be fucked, Justine.”

I close my eyes, shaking my head slowly. I’m not even certain how I’m supposed to respond to his words.

He stands there with his hand on my shoulder, saying nothing for a long moment.

I finally open my eyes and look up to meet his gaze. “What is it you think I need then, Your Highness?”

He lifts his shoulders in a small shrug. “I can’t say with any certainty, of course. But if your poetry is any indication, my gut says you don’t need to be fucked. You need to be loved.”