“But how can you be so sure?” Jon replied. “Your father
spent years pushing us together, twisting the truth, poisoning it. How can you
be sure that what you feel is really true?”
Taking a step closer, Sofia ran her fingers down his cheek.
Brushing away the tears, she smiled a pure, innocent smile. “Because I never
told my father the truth.”
Jon frowned, not understanding. “I don’t understand, what
truth?”
Leaning forward until their lips were almost touching she
explained. “The truth that I fell in love with you the very first time that we
met. Long before my father even knew about you. In which case he could hardly
twist my feelings, as there was nothing to alter as I was already in love with
you.” She whispered softly. Finally their lips touched, unlike the earlier kiss
this one did not have the desperation of years of separation and unrestrained
need. The kiss was soft, gentle, of two souls that had finally found one
another, reaffirming each other and coming together.
Jon kissed her as if he drew sustenance from her, as if she
were essential to his very survival. There was a fierceness and demand in his
kiss that went beyond passion, beyond hunger, beyond need. The love flowing
between them was mutual and Jon wondered how he could ever have doubted Sofia’s
feelings for him.
As one, the two of them looked at the door her father had
disappeared through.
“Where are your quarters?” Jon demanded urgently.
“Deck three, corridor five. Yours?”
“Forget mine. Yours are closer,” Jon insisted, dragging her
by the hand towards the door.
*****
Fortunately they just about made it to
Sofia’s quarters, even if they did get distracted by each other a couple of
times along the way. As soon as they were through the door Jon’s
hands
were on her shoulders
.
He stroked down her arms and
goose bumps swept across her skin. Then he gripped her hips and pulled her against
him, into the hard ridge of his arousal. A rush of desire made her gasp.
One of his hands slid into her hair, brushing it away from
her neck, and she felt his mouth on the bare skin of her nape as his other hand
moved up her body to cover her breast. She moaned and arched into him before
she could stop herself. His hand tightened almost painfully on her breast as he
thrust hard against her, and she moaned again. Then she heard his voice.
“
I have missed you so much
.”
Her heart was hammering in her chest, and it took her a
minute to process what he’d said. “
I know
.
Me too.
”
He turned her to face him, pressing her back against the
door. She’d never been so aware of a man’s physical strength and she felt so
feminine in comparison.
“
You know I dreamed of this. Us. Together
like this every night
.
For five long years.
” The
look in his eyes made her shiver. He moved closer, until she could feel the
heat coming off his body. He slid a hand down between them, and before she knew
what he was doing he’d undone the button of her jeans. Then he tugged down her
zipper.
He leaned down close to her ear. “I know you want this as
much as I do.”
He pressed his palm against her stomach, and every muscle
there tightened. When his hand dipped lower, stroking over
her
bare skin
, her head fell forward onto his shoulder.
“Jon,” she said helplessly, but whether she wanted him to
stop or keep going she wasn’t sure.
Then his hand moved again, slipping beneath her
underwear
to touch her bare flesh, and she
felt
her whole body flush when he found out exactly how
much she
missed him
.
He sucked in a ragged breath. “
I don’t just
want you in my bed, but I want you in my life. Today. Tomorrow. Forever
.”
“Jon,” she said again, moving in spite of herself, her body
twisting against those searching, insistent fingers as they stroked over her
most sensitive flesh. Her heart was beating frantically, her breath coming in
short, fast, gasps.
“Mine.
Forever
,” he said
demandingly
, his thumb settling over her throbbing centre as
he slid two fingers inside her.
She cried out, the sound muffled against his shoulder. His
thumb was moving now in quick tight circles and the rising torrent seemed to
lift her off her feet. She locked her arms around his neck and raised her head,
her body arching and twisting against his hand. When she cried out again the
sound was swallowed up as he kissed her, hard and fierce and with such longing,
as her body spiralled tighter and tighter, higher and higher.
He tore his mouth from hers. “You’re mine. Say it.”
“Yes,” she gasped, and then her
head
fell forward as her climax hit her, and she bit down on Jon’s shoulder to keep
from screaming as the explosion shattered her into a thousand pieces
of light
.
From far, far away she heard Jon murmuring her name. His
lips were in her hair and his arms were tight around her as she came slowly
back to
reality
.
He was shaking
too
, and something about
that moved her. She tugged at him and he turned to her, and she slid her arms
around his neck and kissed him. He groaned against her mouth as he pulled her
close.
“Bedroom,” he said,
breaking the kiss.
Breathing hard, as if he’d just been running.
“Bedroom,
or I take you here
,
on the floor
, now
.”
She kept her eyes on his as she stepped back, wriggling out
of her jeans, kicking them away, along with her shoes.
His eyes darkened as he reached for her. “
Here
it is then
,” he said, but she laughed and ran for the bedroom.
They made it somehow, stumbling across the living room and
into her bedroom, falling onto her bed and into a kiss that made her dizzy. She
fumbled with Jon’s uniform as he fumbled with the rest of her clothes, getting
his pants off while he slid her panties down her legs. Their shirts came off,
and suddenly the fumbling stopped as Jon rolled her onto her back and then rose
up on his knees, looking down at her.
For a second they were both still.
His grey eyes were so serious. Something in his expression
sent a wave of fear through her, because she was afraid the same thing was in
her eyes.
Need. Desire. Love.
She reached for him, impatient to
satisfy
her growing need for him
, but he stopped her.
“No,” he said, pinning her wrists above her head, on the
pillow. “I’ve fantasised about you
ever since I first saw you
dressed in those clothes
.
You have no idea how hard it
was for me at the time not to throw you onto the nearest bed and make love to
you all day and all night.
”
She arched an eyebrow at him in surprise.
“Only those clothes?” She said, with a smile. “In that case all the rest of my
efforts were wasted. All those strapless, and indecent dresses I wore to try
and catch your eye.”
Jon groaned and broke away from her lips, then dragged his
open mouth along her jaw and neck, tasting the hollow at the base of her throat
before skimming his lips over her collarbone
. “No, not
wasted,” he said between kisses. “I also fantasied about you in those, but that
was me making love to the Imperial Princess, jewel of the Empire. The other
clothes had me fantasizing about making love to Sofia.”
Panic rose in her throat. “
But they are the
same person
,” she said, struggling against his grip. “
I’m
no different.
”
“I know,” he said, his voice suddenly harsh. “I get it.
I know she is a part of you but it wasn’t the Princess I fell in
love with
.
Your money, wealth, or power, I never cared
for any of that. All I ever wanted was you.
”
Her body arched towards him, suddenly and instinctively.
Something inside her, something utterly primeval, responded to his words and
the look on his face, as if she’d been waiting for this her entire life. The
feeling should have terrified her, as it went against everything she thought
she knew about herself. But
somehow coming from Jon, from this
man who was so dear to her, she instinctively knew it was the truth.
She met his eyes in the starlight streaming through the
viewport, and she knew he could feel the change in her, the
softness
that made her whole body yearn
for
him. “What do you
want me to do?” she whispered.
He smiled. Then he leaned in and kissed her, slowly, leisurely,
and thoroughly.
“
Tip
your head back,” he whispered
when he finally pulled away.
She’d never felt so safe and so vulnerable at the same time.
The helplessness of having her hands pinned down, of exposing her throat. Jon
caressed her neck with his lips, and then his teeth, and then his tongue, and
the sensations made her shudder and writhe against him.
Jon knew he’d never recover from this. Every second he was
with Sofia, he could feel the
invisible
marks she was
leaving on him. “Leave your hands where they are,” he said, letting her wrists
go and moving down her body to her breasts, stroking with his tongue, nipping
with his teeth, teasing with his fingers.
He’d never felt this way before
with
another woman
. With Sofia, the most basic part of hi
m
forced its way
to the surface.
Nothing was more important than the need to claim her, to make her his,
forever. His body knew she belonged to him.
The sweet peaks of her nipples drove him crazy. He bit down
harder than he meant to and looked up, afraid he’d hurt her. But her gasp of
surprise held pleasure, too, and her hands were still on the pillow above her
heard, where he’d put them.
The sight did something to him. It made him feel powerful,
like a knight of Old Earth, in his sister’s storybooks. With a groan he lowered
his mouth, dipping his tongue into the dimple of her naval, feeling a rush of
satisfaction when she shuddered against him.
He went lower. “Spread your legs,” he said in a voice so raw
he barely recognised it.
She complied, and he moved between her thighs, kissing her all
over as he moved closer to the p
l
ace he really wanted
to be. When he heard Sofia moan he smiled against her skin.
He urged her legs wider apart. When he bent his head close
he felt her trembling, and he gripped her hips hard, holding her in place.
He was drunk in seconds, ravenous for her. He showed her no
mercy, delving into her body with tongue and fingers until she was twisting
against him
, calling his name,
helplessly.
He’d never felt so attuned to a woman. He knew exactly where
to touch her, when to go hard and fast and when to pull back, taking her close
but not letting her go over until she was frantic with want, writhing so
desperately it was hard to hold her down. Only then did he take her over the
edge, his own heart pounding when she cried out his name, greedy for her
pleasure as he drank in every spasm, every quiver, every tremor as she came
slowly down from the crest.
Even then he went on kissing her softly, moving back up her
body until he could look down into her eyes. Her skin was flushed, her face
glowing.
She took a deep breath.
“
I’m going
to make you pay for that.”
He brushed the hair away from her face. Before this moment,
he wouldn’t have believed anything could make her look more beautiful. “
I certainly hope so. Should I be afraid?
”
She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him onto his
back, throwing a leg across him to straddle his hips. “Very afraid.” She
stretched out
along his body, kissing her way down his torso.
Every muscle in his body was tense with anticipation.
She took him in her mouth, and his hips jerked in response.
It was too much. He slid a hand into her hair,
the other grasping the bed sheets tightly,
and tried to
control himself, but there wasn’t a
hope
in hell he
could handle this. Not when he’d waited so long for her. He barely lasted a
minute before
h
e
rolled away, taking
her by the shoulders and pulled her up to him.
“You have to stop. I’m close, and I
want
to be inside you
the first time
.”
“
I thought that you were trained to resist
all forms of torture
,” she said softly, her mouth close to his ear.
“
I don’t remember that particular form
during interrogation training
.
It was lucky you were
not teaching that class, otherwise I would have failed miserably. I’ll tell you
anything you want to know.
”
She moved over him and pressed a kiss to his chest.
He pulled her
up
for a kiss, so that
their eyes were level. They looked at each other for a long moment.
Finally s
he rose up over him, her knees on either side of his
hips.
She looked like a goddess, her skin drenched in starlight.
Then, so slowly he thought it might kill him, she took every inch of his hard
length inside her.
He was afraid he would explode right then and there. He was
harder than
stone
, every muscle in his body rigid as he
stared up at her. She was hot and tight and so perfect for him. He would have
told her so except his mouth had
suddenly
gone dry, and
he couldn’t say anything but her name. Even that came out as a ragged whisper.
His hands settled on her
hips, trying to urge her to move, but
she just smiled.