Page 63 of Second Chance Prince
“Is that to your liking?” he asked huskily.
“I think…Just a little to the…Oh!”
She began gasping and writhing, and then she cried out, and he felt the warmth of her release against his tongue. He lifted his head and watched her in wonder. So this was what a woman’s pleasure looked like. Her lovely face flushed, her eyelids fluttering, her wide mouth curled into a half smile.
“Niki?” she breathed.
He did not hesitate, laying his body upon her warm, welcoming one and pressing his aching cock deep inside her. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, enfolding him, and murmured encouragement. Did she call him “darling”? He thought for a moment she did, but he was too caught up in the need to satisfy his lust to be certain.
And yet it wasn’t just lust, he thought feverishly. This was more than a joining of two bodies. It was a joining of two minds and hearts. Two individuals becoming one. He and Roberta joined together for eternity. Niki had never thought of himselfas a romantic. He had the example of his parents to warn him off flights of fancy. But perhaps it was the very fact that he had been a lonely boy, dreaming of something other than a father and mother who fought like cats and dogs, and a brother who cared nothing for the women he seduced and abandoned. Perhaps that lonely boy had always wanted someone to love who loved him.
The words were on his lips.I love you.But he couldn’t say them. It was too risky; it would leave him too vulnerable. What if she did not say it back? What if she gave him a kindly smile and patted his cheek sympathetically? No, he couldn’t take the chance.
Not yet.
But some day.
Chapter Thirty-One
Roberta woke to Antonia telling her it was time to get up. She looked about and found herself alone again. Niki was long gone, if the chilly feel of the sheets on his side of the bed was anything to go by. She had found herself hoping she would open her eyes and he would still be with her, but she suspected that was never going to happen. He had work to do, a country to rule, and most of the time, that came before the needs of his new wife. Besides, she would soon have work of her own to keep her busy.
Despite her nerves about her future, Roberta was looking forward to stamping her mark on Holtswig.
Antonia pulled open the curtains. It was cloudy, but she informed Roberta that Freddie had said the wind was in the right direction. “A swift crossing is what we want, not languishing in the Channel until we are all seasick.”
“I don’t think I will feel seasick,” Roberta said as she rose and went to wash her face in the warm water their maid, Ruth, had brought. “I never did when we sailed on the pond at Grantham pretending to be pirates.”
“Hardly the same thing,” Antonia retorted. She had another book on her lap, and when Roberta asked, she explained it was a dictionary of Holtswigger words.
Roberta’s heart sank. “Everyone there speaks English,” she protested.
“So? That makes it all the more essential that you learn some of the common phrases. Don’t you want your people to love you?”
“Why should they love me?” she said, but the truth was, she was afraid they would not. She was a foreigner married to their ruler, and if things went as they usually did, she would end up saying or doing something ridiculous. She would be a pariah then, cast aside by what passed for aristocracy in Holtswig, and even Niki would avoid her.
She blinked and realized that her sister was watching her as if she had read every thought in her head. “It gives me something to do,” Antonia said calmly. “I want to be of use to you.”
“What do you mean? You are my sister, and I need you because…because I just do.”
Antonia smiled and shook her head. “That’s all very well, but I still need to show everyone I am useful. There will be plenty of females chosen to wait upon you. Some might even become your friends; at least, I hope so. I would hate to think of you without someone to talk to.”
It was one of Roberta’s dreads, and she didn’t want to hear it. “But I have you,” she spoke in a rush. “Have I told you how very glad I am to have you with me? I think it will be difficult—in the beginning, at least—and you know what I’m like when I get nervous. You will have to remind me to be quiet and to speak sensibly.”
“Pooh!” Antonia retorted. “Everyone will love you. You’ll see. Just be yourself, Robbie.”
Roberta gave her a wan smile. “But Niki may not love me if I make a fool of him. If that were to happen, and he turned his back on me…I do need to take care, Antonia.”
For a moment, her sister was silent, a pinch between her brows as she observed Roberta. “I think Niki would love you whatever you did,” she said at last. “You underestimate him, Roberta. Or yourself.”
“Do you think he loves me? He has never said so.”
“Of course he does. Anyone can see it. Have you asked him?”
“No, I have not. And I am not going to. It is not something I am comfortable doing.”
Antonia sighed. “Why do sensible people act in such ridiculous ways?”
Roberta shrugged, and went to choose her clothing, signaling that the conversation was over. And Antonia turned back to her weighty tome.
