Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
“Well, yeah. You have the whole I am king business, but right now those kingly powers aren’t even working properly. I’m guessing that delivers a pretty hefty blow to your ego, and while I’m sure it would be much easier to get around without that thing weighing you down, I can’t imagine what this would do to your confidence. And given how old you are, you might even have trouble—”
He cuts me off with his mouth. A hard kiss that is somehow simultaneously playful and demanding. He guides me down, leading me onto my back and repositioning our bodies so he’s hovering over me. When he pulls away, he can’t seem to tear his gaze away from my mouth. “I promise, I will have no trouble.”
I shift beneath him, drawing a knee up so he can settle between my thighs. I feel the proof of his claim pressing into me and draw in a ragged breath.
“I’ll admit that I’m perhaps a little vulnerable,” he says, his voice suddenly soft. He scans my face. “I’ve dreamed of you. This face. These eyes.” He dips his head into the crook of my neck and breathes me in like I am oxygen and he’s been starving for air. “Your smell.” He props himself up on his elbows and stares down at me, lust darkening his eyes.
I’m afraid to move. Afraid to blink. Afraid this will all turn out to be my dream.
He cups my face in his big hand—thumb tracing across my cheekbone, then along my jaw. “Do you have any idea what a kick in the gut it was to see you like this the first time?” He leans forward and trails the bridge of his nose over mine, our breath mingling, his lips so close. “I had all these feelings for you that I couldn’t trust because you weren’t who you’d claimed to be.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I understand now.”
But maybe I need to share some of my vulnerability too. “When you saw me like this the first time, you asked if my appearance was supposed to be a joke.” I feel his surprised inhale, but make myself continue. “That hurt, Misha. And I’ve been carrying that around.”
He opens his mouth and then snaps it shut again, pure confusion written on his face. “I don’t think you’re hearing me. When I say I dreamed of you, I don’t mean after you went missing. I dreamed of you before you ever came to my castle. After I locked you up and saw you like this the first time, I thought you’d gotten into my head somehow. You were her. You were the female I’d dreamed of so many times. The one I’d convinced myself . . .” He swallows. “I didn’t think I’d ever see her outside my dreams, and there you were. I thought you were being cruel. Thought you were taunting me by appearing as the female I’d never met but pined after for months.”
I swallow. “So you weren’t disgusted by me?”
His eyes go wide. “Are we even speaking the same language?” His eyes scan my face, down to my breasts and back up. “No. Not at all. Never.”
“It’s just those words . . .”
“Were horribly out of context, and I’m sorry.” He skims his thumb across my bottom lip. “I thought you were my enemy and when I saw you like this, I wanted you more than ever. You’re beautiful, Felicity.” He pulls back enough to sweep his gaze down the front of me. “What I feel for you doesn’t change when you’re in a different form, but when I see you like this, as you truly are, it’s as if the clouds have parted.”
“Don’t just say things like that.” My chest is so full of need I can barely breathe. I slide my hand behind his neck and pull him close again.
He leans his forehead against mine and smiles down at me. “If it’s not words that you want, is there something else I could offer?”
“Why do you think I was in your dreams? What was I doing?” The corner of his mouth lifts in such a mischievous smirk my cheeks go molten. “That’s . . . well . . . I suppose I didn’t need to feel insecure about that, then.”
He rasps out a laugh. “Not at all.” He cups my face and strokes his thumb up the column of my neck. “As for the why, I asked myself that for months, and before I saw you like this the first time, all I could figure was that you were some manifestation of my subconscious. That I was lonely and my sleeping mind tried to fix that by giving me this beautiful female whose presence made me feel warm and lustful and . . . happy—content in a way I’d never felt in my waking hours.”