Was that a beautiful life?
It was a beautiful life to him. She knew it with the way he said it, the words still echoing in her head. He’d muttered them, quiet, sated, but the way he said it was the way you’d say the sky was blue, that grass was green, the earth was round.
Like they were just plain true.
Then again, for him, they would be.
King Callum had a sure thing at his side at all times until the day she died. He might not want her but he was a man and men, it was Sonia’s experience, didn’t quibble. They’d take it as they could get it, whenever they could get it and in whatever form that took (most of the time).
And, worst of all, her parents wanted this for her. They were honored she’d be his queen.
They knew his culture. They were friends with his people. They had to understand Sonia’s sentence and they wanted her to be their queen, planned for it, even when she was a child.
Which meant, even though she was certain Callum would never allow otherwise, she had no choice. She was, indeed, sentenced to be his queen, trapped in this life, forever.
She wished, however, that she was with Desdemona on her way to be sequestered… whatever that meant.
Instead, she was lying in her bed aching in a way that didn’t feel at all bad (even though she told herself it did). She could still feel the delicious specter of Callum seated to the hilt between her legs. And she was praying that she could spend her years focusing on the good and being able to tolerate the bad without going completely mad.
But she wasn’t certain she could do it.
However, she had no choice but to try.
Fighting back the tears that threatened and the mortification that consumed her, Sonia dragged herself from under the covers. As she did she noticed belatedly that Callum, unlike any lover before him (all of whom thought her attachment to the stuffed wolf as an adult was a little bit strange), had tucked her wolf in her arms.
Strike one for the good.
Still, the scale was tilted to the bad side as if the good side had a thimble full of cotton and the bad side held a gosh darn brick (or two).
By the time she’d showered, made herself up and dressed, she had a pounding headache caused by stress, embarrassment and the constant futile churning of thoughts in her head trying to find some way to escape.
The headache persisted even though the hot shower eased the ache in her muscles though not entirely. And it didn’t do the first thing to alleviate the gently pulsating reminder of the feel of Callum between her legs.
She heard (and ignored) the voices all through getting ready and continued to ignore them as she made her way down the stairs, into the kitchen and straight to the coffeepot. She poured herself a mug with a splash of skim milk and went to her vitamins, taking the cocktail of supplements with the addition of two capsules of ibuprofen.
Then, because she was their queen and queens should probably not be rude, she walked around the staircase that separated and hid most of the kitchen from the dining room. She knew, from the voices she counted, that Callum, Caleb, Saint and a voice she didn’t know sat at her dining room table.
The minute she appeared in the opening between dining room and kitchen, Callum, seated at the head of the table, turned his head to look at her.
When his clear blue eyes hit her and her mind again registered his intense masculine beauty, her belly wobbled (but she told herself it wasn’t in a good way, when it was) and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks as memories of the night before (and that morning) invaded.
Ignoring the wobble and the second wobble she felt when, the moment after his eyes hit her, she watched them grow soft in a very sexy way, she leaned against the doorjamb.
She tore her eyes from Callum and glanced about the room, saying, “Morning guys.”
Everyone greeted her with warm smiles.
She heard the legs of Callum’s chair against the pile of her rug as he pushed it back and twisted it toward her and her gaze went back to him.
“Come here, baby doll,” he said in a rumbling, tender voice that was so intimate, so knowing, she felt the pulsing between her legs escalate.
Good goodness.
Now he only had to speak to her and her body betrayed her.
If she didn’t get herself together, she was never going to find a way out.
She took in breath to calm her system and walked to him. The minute she got close, he leaned forward and hooked her about the h*ps with his arm, drawing her nearer while being careful of her full coffee mug. He settled her, as ever, in his lap.
This time she wasn’t seated there because it was her duty or that was the way he liked it. This time, it was a clear, affectionate cuddle.
Sonia tried to ignore her audience as she looked into his soft, sexy eyes.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
She did. She slept the sleep of exhausted, abandoned contentment both after he took her last night and after he made her cl**ax this morning.
With her thinking hindered by her headache, she decided it best just to be truthful.
For now.
“Yes,” she whispered and his eyes grew even softer and way, way, way sexier as the tawny slowly began to seep out of his pupils, erasing the blue and that made her belly wobble too (and her ni**les get hard besides).
Even though she fought it, she didn’t win.
His head dipped down, he slid his temple along hers which was, when he wasn’t doing it to be ugly to some poor madwoman, another thing in that thimble on the good side of her scale.
At her ear he said, “Me too.”
Her body, betraying her again, caused her to feel some sort of triumph at the knowledge that he liked the way they slept last night and she shivered with delight in his arms.
Those arms tightened and, as if giving her a reward for her response, he ran his lips along the curve of her ear.
She shivered again.
She felt him smile against her ear.
“Callum,” she mumbled.
His lips still at her ear, he whispered low, “Right now, I want to carry you upstairs, take those f**king clothes off your sweet little body and f**k you on your hands and knees like last night.” Her heart stuttered to a halt, her body took over her brain completely, her legs shifted unconsciously as the pulse between them quickened and he flicked her ear with his nose before he finished, still whispering, “Just like last night.”
She turned her head slightly and tilted it down so her cheek was pressed to the now far thicker whiskers of his and her lips were at the hinge of his strong jaw before she breathed, “Callum.”
“Unfortunately, my little one, it’ll have to wait for later,” he told her and she found she was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling with it.