She nuzzled into Callum’s warm, hard, weirdly fully-clothed body, tucking her face in his neck and seeking slumber as he settled into the bed, his back to the headboard, his knees cocked, Sonia snug in his lap.
“Sonia?” he called and her eyelids fluttered again.
“So sleepy,” she whispered, cuddling closer, one of her arms bent and pressed between them, the other hand resting on his massive chest.
“I know, baby doll,” he murmured, his arms growing tight for an instant then she felt his temple glide lovingly against her hair.
“I like it when you do that,” she told him, pressing her nose to his neck for a moment then settling and sighing, exhaustion and the heavy ache of her body calling her back to sleep.
“When I mark you?” She heard him ask through her waning consciousness.
“Mm,” she replied, falling briefly into a doze as his arm around her calves shifted to become fingers trailing from her knee down her inner thigh.
“Sonia, honey,” Callum called and her eyes fluttered again.
“Wolf, I’m sleepy,” she protested weakly and to make her point, burrowed deeper into his hard frame.
At her words, his trailing fingers became a gentle grip on the flesh of her inner thigh for a moment before they started trailing again.
“You said that, little one,” he replied softly. “I wanted you to know that the men are here. You need your rest and I need to get to work so I called them here.” His fingers were still trailing from knee to mid-inner-thigh and back again as he finished, “I came up to tell you because I didn’t want you to be alarmed if you woke and heard voices.”
“Okay,” she replied, her thoughts still drowsy, her attention reverting to his fingers’ movements.
He kissed the top of her head and muttered in a final way, “You sleep as long as you like.”
Sonia wasn’t listening.
Her body decided his fingers weren’t going deep enough and, on a downward trail, her hips unconsciously, lazily, rose to lengthen their route.
Those fingers stilled.
Involuntarily, a disappointed noise escaped the back of Sonia’s throat.
His hand dropped instantly and his big palm rested warmly at the juncture between her legs.
It registered on her somnolent brain that that felt nice.
His voice had grown husky when he asked, “Do you want a little play, baby doll?”
Before her mind fully woke, her body used her mouth to answer quietly, “Yes, Callum.”
“My sweet, greedy queen,” he muttered, his voice rough and satisfied as his palm moved away but his fingers moved in. Finding her instantly they twitched and vibrated until she shoved her face in his neck, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and ground into his fingers.
She was panting gently against his skin when his fingers plunged inside her, stroking tender but deep.
“God, I love the feel of you,” he whispered adoringly, the tone of his words Sonia missed as she focused on the beautiful tension gathering around his fingers. “Are you going to come for me, little one?”
“Yes,” she breathed, pressing to meet his strokes.
His fingers drove deep and stilled as his thumb hit the core of her, pressing and twitching and the tension built swiftly then exploded magnificently.
After, she instantly relaxed into his body as the calm of her post-orgasm and Callum’s warm frame enveloped her, making her feel safe.
“So wet,” he muttered, his fingers still toying with her tenderly as she drifted slowly to sleep in his arms. “The times are few, Sonia, when I regret my calling as king. But right now, with you in my arms like this, so fucking sweet, so fucking wet, I’d give anything to be able to stay here with you and eat you clean instead of having to walk down those stairs.”
“Mm,” was all Sonia could say, having no idea that Callum had not ever shared with a living being any regrets about his royal duty. He’d further never been tempted by anything enough actually to consider, even for an instant, avoiding that duty.
The next second, the throbbing still there, with renewed and intensely more delicious vigor that lulled her body, Sonia fell asleep with Callum’s fingers still playing between her legs.
* * * * *
Sonia woke, her eyes opening to see her pillows and thoughts of yesterday, last night and this morning crashed painfully into her head.
Her body under the covers that were tucked snug around her went rigid.
“Oh my God,” she breathed to the pillow.
She felt the ache in her muscles, the insistent throb between her legs and every inch of her skin grew hot with shame when she remembered last night (both times but especially the second time) and this morning (good goodness!).
She closed her eyes tight and turned her flaming face into the pillows as Callum’s words of last night echoed in her ears.
“My glorious queen, I told you we’d have a beautiful life, you and I.”
And she had lain under him, listening to those words, her legs spread brazenly wide to receive him, her body glorying in his weight pressing her into the bed, him still seated deep inside her, filling her full as she drifted into an exhausted sleep of deep abandoned contentment.
And she’d not wanted to lose him, his weight, his warmth, his shaft filling her full, making her feel whole.
“My glorious queen, I told you we’d have a beautiful life, you and I.”
Memories, sharp and stabbing, filled her head.
Yesterday morning, Callum claiming her and then practically forgetting about her for hours.
Yesterday afternoon, Callum telling that poor, sick, clearly demented woman she was “just a fuck” while Sonia, his mate, his supposed wife, sat in his lap facing his ex-lover.
He’d even rubbed his temple against Sonia’s hair, making it clear to the woman, who was obviously hung up on him (and not in a healthy way), not to mention everyone in that room, that Sonia was better in bed than she was. This deepening Desdemona’s humiliation to uncharted levels not to mention Sonia’s.
Then he and his people laughed and joked at Desdemona’s panicked struggles and Callum’s sentence for her to be “sequestered”. Even Ryon, who Sonia thought was a considerate man. Whatever sequestered was but clearly, whatever it was wasn’t good.
And Sonia’s place, her role, as silent succor to Callum. There for nothing more than him to use her “sweet little body” when he needed to work out his day.
It wasn’t medieval
It was…
It was…
She didn’t even know what it was!
And the things he’d said to her last night, about gagging for it, gagging for him.
And Yuri.
And Gregor!
And what they’d heard and Yuri had seen.
And the things she’d learned from them.
And that morning, oh God, that morning, sitting in his lap and letting him toy with her like she was his plaything.
No, she didn’t let him, she’d practically asked him.
She did ask him!
A beautiful life? He called that a beautiful life?
More memories flooded her mind, these at war with the first.
Yesterday morning, Callum, sexy and sweet, just like her dream Callum, teasing her in bed before he’d seduced her and, for that matter, after, if only for a short time.
Yesterday afternoon, Ryon, Caleb and Calder chatting to her like they’d known her for ages. Like she was a member of their family already. Like she wasn’t weird or strange. Like she fit in.
And both times Callum tucked her hand, which was held safe in his, under his arm. Drawing her nearer. Offering his strength when she was frightened in the throne room and upset while facing Gregor and Yuri.
And, looking back at it, last night on the drive home and when they arrived at her house, Callum’s hilariously strained patience at dealing with her when she was in a snit (before he became an arrogant bastard who said hideous things, that was).
And the way he held her after she’d climaxed, her back to the headboard, his hand cradling her head, something about the way he did it making her feel precious.
And the way he’d dealt with her after Yuri interrupted them, that time with amused patience in the face of her fury.
And, before they went down to face Gregor and Yuri, that kiss. That thorough, beautiful kiss. A kiss that made her feel beautiful, desired, even the impossible, loved.
And, having a difficult conversation while facing the only family she had left (outside of Callum’s now, that was), she’d relaxed in his embrace. Callum showing her physically what it meant to support her during her times of struggle by holding her close, holding her strong. Showing her in ways she didn’t understand and couldn’t put her finger on that he stood between her and pain. Perhaps not able to halt it completely but he would be there to cushion the blow.
And at that very moment, tucked snug and warm in her covers, Callum did that. He did something tender in a way that made her feel he was keeping her safe.
“My glorious queen, I told you we’d have a beautiful life, you and I.”
Now that could be a beautiful life.
But that wasn’t all there was to it.
More thoughts pushed the others out and invaded her mind.
Last night, waking up with his hand between her legs, the urge already on her, stronger than ever before, changing her, taking her out of herself so she wasn’t any Sonia she’d ever known but someone else entirely. She was the creature he’d created. The creature he’d claimed. The creature, on some level, her mind was telling her she actually was meant to be.
And the way he took her. The way she responded to it, wanted it, lunged to meet it, her hips pushing into his, his fingers sinking into her flesh and fisting in her hair. He demanded more and more and more and she gloried in giving it to him as she took it from him, needing it like it was breath.
No, like there was something vital missing. Like there was some crucial part of who she was that had been lost. She felt drawn to Callum, linked to him, in fact, just as she’d thought after he claimed her, she felt owned by him and, in so being, only Callum could give her whatever she’d lost.
And this morning, half asleep, her instincts taking over and her brazen (again!) behavior, falling asleep with his hand still teasing her between her legs.
And the way they’d fallen asleep last night and how that didn’t feel shameful or scandalous (at the time, now she was horrified), but instead it felt…
It felt right.
“My glorious queen, I told you we’d have a beautiful life, you and I.”
A beautiful life? Was all of that a beautiful life?
Did all the good that was Callum, all that was tender and affectionate and warm and teasing outweigh the things that were bad? Did it outweigh the things that caused her to feel humiliation that her life as his queen meant he felt entitled to fall asleep between her spread-eagled legs still buried inside her even though he didn’t want her but only the use of her body? Did it outweigh her knowledge that something he dredged from deep inside her made her feel replete, content, whole after he’d taken her so hard, so roughly, making her scream in her climax and then he’d pinned her to the bed under him, still full of him and feeling, insanely, that it was right?
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 hips 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, affec
tionate 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 climax 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 nipples 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 fucking clothes off your sweet little body and fuck 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.
“Okay,” she mumbled and, though she wanted it to sound noncommittal, even to her own ears it sounded disappointed.
She heard his arrogant, satisfied chuckle in her ear before he gave her another squeeze with his arms and lifted his head away.