I’d been dreaming about this kiss for so long. At least since that moment in the FBI office when he’d stared down at me and I’d silently prayed that he’d ask to kiss me. Maybe since the first moment I’d seen him on the plane.

It was everything I’d dreamed it would be.

His lips came down on mine, hard and possessive. Not just wanting me but needing me as I needed him. I could feel days of lust stacked up behind the kiss like an invading army. He pressed, twisted, brutal against my softness. He tasted me and his growl of satisfaction rumbled right through me.

I was panting, lips together but nostrils flaring. My whole body was quaking against him. God, the feel of him, the hardness of his body, made me go weak. He was all around me: his denim-clad leg, thick as a tree trunk as it pressed against my bare thigh. His broad, curving chest, mashing against my breasts. Those big hands, cradling my back and tugging me even harder into him. His lips were rhythmic, now, each press slow and deliberate but sending an earthquake of raw pleasure down through me. My legs trembled and I went limp in his arms, the pleasure turning hot and scarlet-black as it reverberated up and struck my groin. The kiss was the drumbeat of a conqueror’s army, a thunderous hammering on my gates.

I opened and his tongue traced the soft ‘O’ of my lips, teasing me, luxuriating in my submission. Then he plunged inside and I moaned: nothing mattered except the kiss. Every press of his lips sent another wave of pleasure shuddering down my body, so strong it might break me apart. I felt as if I was riding him, my whole body moving with his as we twisted and pushed and entwined together. My hands found the muscles of his back and I clung to him.

He grabbed my ass through the robe and crushed me close. My breasts pillowed against his chest, nipples rubbing against the hard muscle but the sensation tamed by the soft fabric between us. My whole body had suddenly gone burning hot: I was a writhing, twisting, naked mass beneath the robe, desperate to shed it and be naked against him. He was forceful, almost brutal, in the way he pinned me in place. But what overwhelmed me was my own reaction. Everything I’d been feeling for him, these last few days, was rising up inside me in a hot, dark gusher, filling my muscles and stealing control. If I hadn’t been so firmly held, I would have been tearing at our clothes.

His lips parted from mine and for the first time I could hear my own urgent panting. His hands roved up my back, then down my front. Down to the belt of the robe. Does he realize I’m naked underneath?

He hooked his fingers under the ends and jerked the knot open. The robe fell apart a little way but that wasn’t enough for him. He grabbed both sides and rammed it apart, so wide that it folded back on itself at the shoulders, trapping my arms. I was bare all the way down my front, the warm night air whipping across my skin.

His eyes tracked down my body and then came back up more slowly. I squirmed, turned on but shy. What if he doesn’t like me?

But when his eyes met mine again, the furnace heat there told me everything I needed to know. His face was glowing with unrestrained, lustful joy that sent a hot wave of pride through me: I’d never been so simply, gloriously appreciated before.

His hands slowly lifted my breasts, thumbs working to squeeze the pale flesh just a little. Then he brushed the nipples, his huge hands more gentle than I’d have thought possible. He was almost reverent in the way he touched me...but I could see that powerful chest rising and falling as he panted. I was being worshipped...but by a man who any second was going to—I flushed—fuck me and pound me and ride me and all those other things a princess was not supposed to think about.

He moved closer, so close his big body blocked the wind that was starting to gust across the rooftop. So close that I could feel the hard bulge at his groin kiss my inner thigh, the warm denim rasping over my soft skin and then—I caught my breath—brushing across my soft curls of hair.

He stared straight into my eyes. His hands came up to cradle my cheeks, thumbs brushing over my lips. When he spoke, I felt it through the vibration of his chest against my breasts as much as I heard it. “Beautiful,” he rumbled, his accent pure Texas gold.

His hands slid down my neck, over my shoulders and traced the shape of me as if sculpting me from clay, his eyes on my breasts. “Beautiful.”

He crouched, his eyes locked on my groin, his mouth so close to me that I felt the word on my folds. “Beautiful.”

I drew in a shaky breath. My eyes were half-closed, hooded with lust. I was only distantly aware of the lights of the city and the storm clouds overhead, didn’t care that I was naked on a rooftop, or that someone might see. All I cared about was him.

He put his hands on my hips, then used his elbows to nudge my legs apart. That’s when I realized what he was going to do and the thought of it, of those hard lips there, sent a ripple of heat straight down to my groin. I spread my legs, the concrete warm against the soles of my feet. He moved closer and then, as if he couldn’t resist, he stood for a second, towering over me, reminding me of his size, and laid a trail of kisses. He started at my lips and moved in an S down my body, snaking from breast to breast, over my stomach, my pubis, my thighs. Then, when I was gasping, he knelt between my open legs and—

Ah! I instinctively closed my legs at the first brush of his tongue against my lips, only to find them blocked by his hulking shoulders. He went slowly at first, teasing me, caressing each millimeter of sensitive skin with the tip of his tongue. I closed my eyes and for long seconds there was just my panting and the feel of him licking along my lips, following them up and inward to the hidden nub at their apex, running his tongue around and around and across—

I sunk my hands deep into his hair as thunder rolled overhead. He went back and across and then in an X. My hips were following him, now, dancing and swaying, urging him on. I could feel my lips growing heavy and soft, could feel myself opening to him as I got wetter and wetter. But he held back, teasing with just the tip of his tongue. The pleasure was strumming through me, my whole body writhing with it. I was soaking, aching...but still he teased, prolonging it, savoring me. Only when the pleasure climbed all the way up inside me to my throat and I begged, “Please!” did he give me what I needed.

I cried out as his lips pressed hard against me and his tongue thrust up inside. I rocked and twisted, my thighs clamping tight on his shoulders, the pleasure rocketing skyward. His upper lip found my clit and his hands squeezed my ass, his tongue rough and hot and perfect. I rose up on my toes, rocking there as he fucked me with it. I was panting helplessly, the pleasure lashing and pulling at me, the dark core of it growing and tightening.

The realization hit. He wasn’t going to stop. He wasn’t going to stop until I—

His lips rubbing over my throbbing clit, the pleasure tightening and tightening—

Until I—

That hard jaw pressed up between my thighs, his tongue splitting my folds, diving and twisting—

Until I—

He sensed I was close and his growl of victory vibrated right up through me.

Oh God!

I screamed and arched my back, rocking and shuddering against him. My legs failed and I had to grab hold of the air conditioning duct behind me as I panted out my climax, my fingers twisting in his hair.

When I was finally still, he stood and kissed me. Then he eased me away from the duct and slid his hands under the robe, pushing it back off my shoulders so that it fell to the floor. I was still so weak and sensitive from pleasure that just the feel of his rough hands on my skin made me tremble. I could barely stand. But that wasn’t a problem because he bent and scooped me up, naked, and hoisted me into the air. I hung there naked in his arms, still panting.

He grabbed the robe in his free hand and walked to where there was a clear area of floor. He spread the robe out and gently laid me down on my back. I lay there looking up at him, stars twinkling in the darkness behind him.

He began to unfasten his shirt as more thunder rolled overhead. Each button revealed more of him: the curving slabs of his hard chest, the pink, dime-sized nipples I’d only imagined until now. Then the hard centerline leading down between the ridges of his abs. I wanted to touch him more than I’ve ever wanted to touch anything: my fingertips tingled with the need to strum across those hard peaks and valleys. I was already thinking about how they’d feel under my lips.

He unbuckled his belt and kicked off his boots. Shucked down his jeans and with it his shorts and—

My eyes locked on his cock as it rose up against his belly, the head thick and gray-purple, silky smooth, the shaft the same rich tan as his body. I swallowed, fear and shameful excitement twisting together, staring at it as he rolled on a condom. I’d known he was big, of course: he was big all over. But it was thick and long and heavy and God could I really—

He knelt slowly between my ankles. Moved higher, nudging my legs apart. I looked up at him, suddenly breathless. This is really happening.

His eyes were clouded with lust. He moved higher still and I felt the first touch of his cock, hard and God so hot against my inner thigh. God it’s really going to happen—I was panting, crazy for him, but my eagerness was edged with nerves.

He must have seen it in my eyes because he slowed. Stopped. Frowned cautiously at me.

I tried to brazen it out. My hands grabbed his shoulders, fingers tracing his muscles….

But it was too late. “Your—” He broke off. He’d almost called me Your Highness, out of habit. “Kristina. You’ve—Wait—”

We both stared at each other for a second. I could see the growing certainty on his face.

“This is your first time?!” he asked.

I flushed scarlet and looked up at the stars. “It’s...the tradition. I’m meant to wait for my prince.”

When I dared to look at him again, he was shaking his head in shock. “Suddenly, a lot of stuff Emerik said makes sense,” he muttered.

I blushed even harder. And then to my horror, he started to sit up. “Wait!” I grabbed his shoulder again.

“Kristina…” God, that honeyed rumble. It got me every single time, that one man could be so big, so gentle and so powerfully sexual, all at the same time. “You’re meant to wait for—”

“My prince,” I said seriously, looking right at him.

Now he flushed. “I’m not…” He looked down at himself. “I’m just—”

“You’re not just anything, Garrett.”

He met my eyes, shocked.

“I want it to be you,” I said firmly. “I want to be—” I felt my face redden and I sort of nodded: you know.

That last part had an unexpected effect. The lust of a moment ago came back into his eyes. He knelt back down. “No,” he said. “Say it.”

Say it? I’d never once said that word, my whole life. It’s about as far from a princess’s vocabulary as it’s possible to get. “I want to be...fucked...by you.” My cheeks blazed as I said it.

But it worked. Something about hearing my accent wrapped around that dark, forbidden word. His whole body seemed to go hard with excitement. He roughly spread my thighs, his cock heavy and rock hard against me. “Say it again,” he growled. “Princess.”

I gulped. I was shocked to find I liked saying it, too. The filthiness of it was like rough iron chains tightening around the pleasure and squeezing it so it glowed even brighter. “I want you to fuck me,” I panted. This time, the words spilled out easily. “I want you to fuck me, Garrett.”

And with a growl his hands pushed my shoulders down to the floor and his cock parted my folds and—

I drew in my breath as he pushed...and slid inside me. Not deep. Not yet. But God, the feel of him, thick and hard inside me, every tiny movement sending fresh ripples of sensation through me. My fingers played over his back, nervous, uncertain. Knowing I wanted more but afraid.

He was supremely gentle with me, his self-control incredible. He moved so slowly that it was almost a rocking, just a millimeter more of him at a time. The deeper he went, the better it got: my whole body seemed to be clutching at him and everywhere we touched there were new explosions of pleasure. I could see the aching lust on his face: he wanted to go fast, wanted to full-on ravish me but he was holding back for my sake.

And then, with a final slow push of his hips, he drove all the way inside me. I lay there gasping, staring up at him, and he gently brushed my hair back off my forehead, leaned down and kissed my lips. “Okay?” he asked.

I swallowed, still getting used to it. To the feel of him, so hard, so deep, so hot. “Um-hm,” I managed.

And he began to fuck me.

It was a slow rhythm at first, gentle waves that made me close my eyes and bite my lip as the pleasure built and built and I got hotter, wetter. Then faster, his strokes getting longer and I gasped: the pull and drag of him sending streamers of silver pleasure crackling through me. He groaned and I realized I’d begun to circle my hips around him. He lowered himself to his forearms so he could touch his hands to mine and our fingers interlaced. I arched my back up off the robe, meeting his body as he moved against me. Each forward stroke made his chest stroke against my upraised nipples and we gasped at the contact. We were both panting, our bodies gleaming with sweat.

The heat inside me was gathering, tightening into a glowing center, throwing off streamers that made me gasp and jerk. My eyes opened: I needed to see him. The sight of his tanned ass, rising and falling between my legs, was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. Right up until I looked into his eyes and saw how much he wanted me.

He was slamming into me, now, our bodies slapping together. The heat inside me tightened, cinching tighter and hotter with every thrust. I felt the first drop of rain hit my cheek, deliciously cold against my heated skin.

He propped himself on his elbows and took my breasts in his hands, squeezing, rubbing his thumbs over my nipples. He was being careful not to hurt me, not to let his muscled body crush me, but a little more of his weight started to rock between my thighs and God, I loved it. I loved that he was so big, pinning me down on the roof. I pressed myself up to meet him, gasping, just as another drop of rain hit my leg.

His head came close to mine, his ear to my mouth and suddenly I was saying things, words spilling out in fevered pants. “God yes. Yes, like that. Fuck me like that.” I shut my eyes, caught my lower lip with my teeth but it was no good, it had to come out. “HARDER!”

I felt my face burning but Garrett growled, loving it. His hands grew rough at my breasts, sending dark ribbons of heat shooting down to my groin. His body rose and fell, his cock pounding me, owning me. Making me his. God, this was so much better than the pleasure I’d coaxed my body to, alone under the covers. The heat tightened down to a pinprick inside me, as hot as a star, then expanded, rushing out to fill me. My hands went wild on his back, sliding over his muscles, clutching him to me, “God, yes!” I wailed.

The sky released the rain and it bathed us, washing away who we were and the gulf between us. All that mattered was how much he wanted me and how much I wanted him. His thrusts became a blur, his cock silk-wrapped steel inside me. I wrapped my legs around him, arching my back and shouting my climax as I spasmed and shook around him. He rode me through it, the pleasure stretching out and out, and then groaned and shuddered atop me as he released.

I remember lying there for long minutes, the rain hammering down on his back, me safely sheltered beneath him as I panted and trembled and finally lifted my head to kiss his chest. I remember him picking me up and carrying me to the stairwell and then down the stairs to our suite. I remember being laid down on soft sheets. And then nothing.