Breathless. That’s the best way I can describe it. Breathless because it happened so fast. Breathless because neither of us wanted to stop to breathe. Our mouths were panting and desperate, our lips finding each other so easily, trained by countless hours of fantasy. Our tongues explored each other, finally free, and then danced joyously together.

All of my focus was on the kiss, on the way his lips sought and demanded, on the way they pressed and spread me just right. So it took a while for anything else to sink in.

I was up against the door. Up against the door. As in, my feet were actually off the ground. Those big hands were on my hips, just below the hard ridge where my corset finished, and they were pinning my ass to the door. My feet dangled but I didn’t slip: I was held there as securely as if I was sitting on a seat.

He was pressed against me from groin to chest, his hard body pressing me tight against the wall and even tighter each time he inhaled. But it wasn’t uncomfortable: I felt gloriously safe and protected. And... small. There was something about being held there so easily. After being The Queen non-stop for days, after all those huge decisions, to be... manhandled and kissed and just be passive was exactly what I needed.

My head was rocking against the hard wood of the door as he kissed me: luckily, my pinned-up hair at the back was a perfect cushion. He finally broke the kiss and drew his head back just a few inches so that he could look at me. He lifted one big hand to my face and took my chin firmly between finger and thumb. To keep me pinned there, he pressed his groin hard against mine and I swallowed as I felt the hard bulge of him through his uniform pants.

I searched his face. What had changed: what had finally broken through all the reasons why not?

His thumb and forefinger flexed in slow rhythm where they gripped my chin. I could feel the sexual heat, throbbing through him, almost beyond control. “Can’t fight it anymore,” he growled. “Not when you’re….” He inhaled, his chest expanding with lust and pressing me even harder against the wall. His eyes flicked over me, telling me what he couldn’t put into words.

When I’m so buttoned up and corseted and formal and imperious.

When I’m a queen.

He was the opposite of Belliani. That bastard had resented a woman in power. I threatened him. The only thing I was good for was being a trophy: he wanted me so he could strip me down to nothing, to make me come begging to his bed, to show that I wasn’t really a leader.

But Garrett had wanted me when I was in jeans in a rib shack and when I was bruised and dirty and shivering in a sewer. He wanted me. Yes, all the formality turned him on and yes, he wanted to strip it all from me. But not to weaken me, like Belliani. To release what he knew was underneath.

I hesitated for a second. There’d be others like Belliani. There was my mother, there was the media, the people. None of them would like the idea of me with a commoner.

Garrett saw it in my eyes and his eyes grew stern. “Kristina,” he rumbled. “For once in your goddamn life, do what you want.”

I looked into those clear blue eyes...and kissed him as hard as I could.

He groaned in pleasure and pushed his body even harder against mine, freeing his hands so that he could run them up and down my sides. Then he suddenly grabbed my waist and lifted me, carrying me across the room. We were still kissing and the feeling of being carried, floating, almost, my feet kicking in the air while I hung from his hands, was heady and amazing. He walked me over to a wall and pinned me there, still kissing me. His hands roamed over my body, over my hips and thighs and breasts, until I was squirming and panting.

He broke the kiss and stared at me, eyes hooded with lust. My lips were throbbing, hungry for him.

He reached for the fastenings at the back of my dress. My eyes widened. “Here?”

“Yes, dammit,” he growled “Here.”

And he undressed me. Or tried to. The dress wasn’t designed with quick exits in mind. “First you need to open the catch at the top,” I panted. “Then there are pearl buttons that unhook, right down the—”

His big hands grabbed the fabric at the front of the bodice on both sides. Oh.

The sound of tearing filled the room. The cloth was thick and heavy, but in his hands it ripped apart like tissue. He tore it right down to my waist and then, with a shrug of my shoulders and a twist of my hips, the whole thing slithered down to the floor.

I stood there in just my cream-colored corset, panties and heels. And the crown, of course. My whole body was tingling and throbbing. The exhaustion had dropped away completely: adrenaline was flooding through every vein. I looked down at the dress on the floor. It was wrong and yet having it ripped off me felt so right.

He lifted me again and then laid me down on the table on my back. The polished wood was silky smooth and cool against my heated skin. He smoothed his hands over the lines of the corset: it was a fully-boned one in glossy cream, with gold trim. It started just at the waistband of my panties, scooped in at the waist, then blossomed outwards a little as it lifted and squeezed my breasts. I was covered... just. But without the dress there was a great deal of cleavage on display and that was where Garrett’s eyes were now locked. His gaze was just feasting on me and I pressed my thighs hard together at the feeling.

He grabbed my ankles and pulled me to the edge of the table. He grabbed my panties and jerked them down my legs and off and I gasped at the sudden shock of the cool air. Then he was stepping between my legs, lowering his uniform pants and—

I swallowed. Stared at the thick length of his cock, heavy as it brushed my inner thigh. He rolled on the condom and—

I groaned, arching my back as he plunged into me. He grabbed my waist to stop me moving and looked down into my eyes, then pushed his hips forward. I drew in a shuddering breath as he hilted himself in me.

As my head rocked back, I glimpsed the huge oak doors. They didn’t lock. And we were right in the heart of the palace, with servants and officials all around us in the hallways. What if someone knocks? What if Aleksander just walks in?

Then Garrett began to move and I just didn’t care anymore. Each silken stroke of that hard flesh inside me sent ripples of pleasure right through my body. I grabbed hold of his wrists, squeezing him, needing to feel him. Our bodies were locked together, our breathing in time.

We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. I gazed up into those clear, Texas-sky eyes and I knew how he felt about me. Knew that we were together, now: rules and traditions didn’t matter and neither did his past. Both of us had let go of something.

He drove into me again and again, strong hips and muscled ass making him unstoppable. I gasped and clawed at his arms, heady from his size, from the feeling of being so completely filled, but wanting more of him. Both of us were breathing in quick, heated gulps as sensation took over. The delicious strength of his forearms under my fingertips. The hardness of his hips between my soft inner thighs. The hot stretch of him inside me, the glorious push of each thrust and the silken pull of my walls against him.

I caught our reflection in one of the room’s big, gilt-framed mirrors. The rough, muscled soldier between the thighs of the princess. The image made me go weak. Each pump of his hips, each stroke of his cock inside me, sent another wave of heat rippling up through me to coalesce into a hot, tight ball at my center. Soon, I was twisting and squirming around it, frantic. I could see the pleasure in his eyes, too, hear it in his growls each time he plunged into my liquid heat.

“I never knew anyone like you,” he rumbled.

His thrusts increased in force and pace, his strong thighs and tight core powering him into me. My back arched up off the wood, my ass and shoulders bearing all my weight. He hunkered low over me, his hands on my shoulders to hold me in place as his thrusts became faster and—God yes! —almost brutal.

The tight ball of heat inside me contracted and tightened and—

I knew I mustn’t scream. So I grabbed his hair, pulled him down to me and kissed him, letting out my orgasm in a  shuddering groan that vibrated against his lips. His hips kept pumping and it was a long time before I finally slumped down to the table.

When I opened my eyes, he was grinning down at me. Then he carefully picked me up again, his cock still inside me. That was when I realized we weren’t done.

He used his foot to push a chair out from the table and then sat, carrying me down with him and—

Oh! God, I was on him, impaled on him, my ass against his muscled thighs. We were face to face and I sat there astride him, panting, eyes wide. He gave me a moment to get used to it, satisfied to just run his hands up and down my body for a while. I gradually settled, getting my legs under me and tentatively allowing myself to slip lower... right down to his root.

I put my hands on his shoulders. Even now, even after all this time, I still marveled at the size of him, at the breadth of those shoulders, at the hardness of his muscles under his uniform. I pressed down experimentally, pushing myself up…

... and down. Both of us caught our breath. I started to move again, but he put his hands on my shoulders to stop me. He reached behind me and found the bow where the laces of my corset were tied, and pulled it free. Then he hooked his fingers around the edges of the corset and pulled. The cords protested, holding firm... but his strength won out. The whole thing loosened and I drank in a huge, grateful gulp of air. Then it slid down and suddenly my breasts were free.

He leaned forward and I dug my fingers into the muscles of his back as he devoured me: first teasing licks, then using his whole mouth to engulf my breast. My eyes closed and I began to ride him, rising on my toes and then sinking down. Each stroke sent streamers of silver heat up inside me. They twisted together with the ones coming from my breasts, curling into a hurricane that spun faster and faster.

He reached up into my hair and pulled out the pins that held it. My hair spilled down my shoulders and back and he ran his fingers through it, delighting in it. He covered my lips and throat with kisses and then returned to my breasts.

I started to buck on his lap, my movements turning urgent. He could feel how close I was: his tongue lapped and flicked at me, then his teeth teased my nipples. I was out of control, now, twisting and circling my hips as I bounced on him, the heat inside twisting faster and faster, the huge room echoing with the sound of my pants. His mouth followed me, his lips and tongue always on one breast while his hand roughly squeezed the other. I moved harder, faster, desperate—

I gasped and cried out, tilting my head back as the heat exploded inside me. My hands clawed at his back and then buried themselves in his hair, pulling him to me as I rocked and shuddered against him for a second time. He gave a deep growl that vibrated against my wet breast...and then I felt him release deep inside me.

I slumped on top of him and we sat there, my head on his shoulder, until I started to cool down. Then he took off his uniform jacket and wrapped it around me, and we called Caroline.

* * *

“I don’t understand,” said Caroline, when she arrived and Garrett met her at the door. “Why does she need a new dress? Did she spill something or—” Then she noticed Garrett’s missing jacket. Then she caught a glimpse of me as I sheltered behind the door, naked except for jacket and panties. “Oh!” She handed over the dress she’d brought with a huge grin. I flushed... but I couldn’t stop grinning, either.

* * *

When I’d dressed and done my best to make my hair look neat and formal and less... wanton, we hurried upstairs to my chambers and collapsed on my bed. After everything we’d been through that day, we were both exhausted, especially now the adrenaline had worn off. But neither of us could sleep. We stripped off and lay there naked in the darkness with the window open, looking out at the stars.

Garrett drew in a long, deep breath and let it out. “I like the air here.”

“I thought it was too cold for you,” I said. He was lying on his back and I was using his chest as a pillow.

“It is too cold. And wet. But... that’s kinda nice, sometimes.” He sighed. “Like now. It’s different.”

“To what?”

He drew in another long, slow breath. “To the desert.”

I tensed, twisting around to look up at him as I realized what he was going to do. “You—Wait, you’re sure?”

He nodded and reached down, wrapping his arms around my body. Not with a sexual touch, just smoothing his palms over my shoulders and arms and then my stomach. Drawing calm from me.

“You don’t have to,” I whispered. I could feel how his whole body had gone hard with tension.

“I want to.”

I didn’t want to hurt him... but the pain was inside him, just like mine had been. Getting it out would hurt... but it might be the only way he could heal. I rolled over onto my stomach and lay atop him so that I could hug him.

And he told me.