She responded by tugging him onto the bed beside her and kissing him, her hand frantically searching out his cock and closing over his own—he’d been working himself as he watched her fly apart beneath him.
She leaned back, taking a breath from their frantic pace, and watched him stroke himself. The kernel of a crush in her chest that had grown into a cornfield all simultaneously popped into popcorn from the heat of it. Fuck. She’d already thought him sexy, but now she’d be stuck with this image of him lazily touching himself, invitation in his hazel gaze, whenever her brain wanted to mess with her.
She reached into the toiletry bag beside her bed to pull out a condom, knocking his hand out of the way to slide it onto him. He chuckled at her rush, a sound that was cut short as she slid the condom down. She waited a moment, until he pumped up into her fist impatiently, and then knelt over him and followed suit with her body.
He wasn’t lacking in the girth department, and Portia rested on the tip of his cock for a moment, gaze locked on his as she slowly took him into her. The slow, deep stretch of him felt more intimate than anything Portia had ever experienced. He leaned up on his elbows to watch her, them, though the more she took in, the more tightly his eyes squeezed shut.
She squeezed his torso between her knees as she rode him, loving the thick friction of him inside of her, relishing the way his hips moved as he pushed up to deepen their joining. Her hands rested on his chest as she met his shallow stroke with a deep one, pulling a moan from both of them.
“Jesus, Portia.”
After that there was just the slap and slide of their bodies against one another, their hushed moans. He leaned up, one hand sliding into her hair to hold her gaze with his and the other gripping her hip as he pumped up into her.
“You’re . . .” His eyes closed and he grit his teeth. “You’re driving me crazy. You beautiful . . .”
His words trailed off as she swiveled her hips in his lap, meeting his upward thrusts from a new angle. His hand in her hair guided her mouth to his for a bruising kiss and his hand gripped her hip enough to cause sweet shocks of pain.
“Tav, I’m gonna—” Then she cried out into his mouth as her body went taut with ecstasy. He let out a series of curses as he pounded up into her and then they both toppled over onto the mattress, a tangle of sweaty limbs and heaving chests.
Shit, Portia thought. Now what?
Of course she hadn’t thought ahead to this part. After the hookup. She would usually get up and go now, but this was her room. They lived in the same building.
And I don’t want to.
“Fuck’s sake,” Tav drawled miserably, and Portia steeled herself.
“This bed really is uncomfortable.” He shifted around a bit until he was cradling her in his arms. “Why didn’t you tell me you were serious about that?”
She let out a snort of disbelief and he nuzzled into her neck.
“And you called me a princess,” she asked.
He nuzzled some more—he was a cuddler apparently. She tried to ignore how good and natural it felt to be with him like this.
“Eh, so about that simmering and itch scratching and hype and what not?” His voice was only a little playful.
“We’ll see how we feel in the morning,” she said carefully.
His hand slid up her waist and cupped her breast. “Morning’s a long way off,” he mumbled into her neck. Portia allowed herself to sink into his touch. He was right; sometimes it took a few rounds to really fuck a man out of your system. By the time the sun filtered through the fog of Bodotria, they’d be over each other for sure.
Totally.
Chapter 20
Tavish was sleeping; Portia was not. He had his arms around her and was holding her close and, honestly, who slept like that? Holding another human being like a koala hugged up on a eucalyptus tree. Ew.
She batted at her pillow and Tav’s arm tightened around her.
It wasn’t bad exactly, it was just that he was so warm. His chest hair tickled her back each time he inhaled and exhaled. He smelled—it was a good smell, but still. If she was a man-sweat sommelier, she would say it had hints of steel, citrus, and essence of Tavish. But she had never cared about a guy’s smell before unless it was a rando crushed against her on the train. It bothered her that she was sneaking whiffs of Tav’s elbow, partly because there would be no further elbow sniffing.
One and done. He was supposed to be out of her system. She was supposed to be sliding out from beneath his arm, then firmly but politely shoving him out the door, both of them much too mature to feel anything other than a bit of mischievous pride.
She nestled into him a little closer. Inhaled.
“Why is it you don’t allow yourself to become attached to any of these men, Portia?”
“It’s just easier that way. No muss, no fuss.”
She’d made a lot of mistakes in her life, but maybe none so grave as the three words she’d spoken the night before.
Let’s do it.
A chirping sound filled the room and for a moment she thought it was the morning birds, but as it grew more insistent she realized it was the sound of an incoming video call.
Oh shit.
She’d forgotten Ledi was on a flight to Thesolo and had said she would call at some godawful time. Portia slipped out of Tavish’s hold and smiled at the way he grumbled, then caught herself. She glanced at him, against her better judgment, and her breath caught for a moment.
He didn’t look boyish, with his disheveled salt-and-pepper hair and crow’s feet, and he didn’t look serene. He looked like he was dreaming about something salacious, a sly grin quirking a corner of his mouth and creasing the stubble on his cheeks, and the want that should have burned away with hours of sex flared up again, stronger than before.
She pulled on a T-shirt and grabbed her phone, slipping in her earpiece as she accepted the call.
Ledi was staring sleepily at the screen, her braids pineappled atop her head and poking out from her silk scarf. “Hey, girl.” Ledi’s brows went up. “Heyyyyy, girl. No headscarf. Crazy tangled hair. Yesterday’s makeup still on, kind of. Am I interrupting something?”
Portia’s gaze flicked guiltily toward the bed. “What had happened was, we went to dinner—”
Ledi burst into laughter and shook her head. “I knew it! I knew it! Biso, you owe me twenty dollars.”
The camera jostled and swiveled and then Prince Thabiso was on the screen, brows jumping suggestively over sleep-hooded eyes. “Got down and dirty with the duke, did you, Portia? How could you do this to me? I had twenty dollars that said you could resist his charms.”
“You guys bet on me?” Portia wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Actually, she did know, and it wasn’t great. “And only twenty bucks? You’re royalty!”
“I have to reinvest my money into my country, Portia, I can’t go throwing it about gambling on sex acts,” Thabiso said gravely. “Besides, you know how cheap Ledi is. She wanted to bet five.”
Ledi appeared in the screen again, elbow first as she shoved Thabiso out of the way. “I showed Biso that video of Tavish pounding away on the anvil, and said if I were in your shoes, that metal wouldn’t be the only thing getting hit at the armory, so I didn’t know how you were holding out. This wasn’t some judgment on your character. It was vicarious living.”
“How is it that you’ve become more crude since you became a princess?” Portia asked, mentally smoothing her ruffled feathers.
“Portia, if the last few weeks has taught you anything, it should have been that the aristocracy is crude as they come,” Thabiso cut in. “The parties and jewels and ceremony are all to distract the rabble with shiny things while we engage in indecent behavior.”
“We?” Ledi asked archly.
“Sorry, I slipped into French. Must be because I just finished talking to Johan. They.” He winked at Portia through the screen, then his eyes went wide. “Did you say she called him Ass Man, Ledi? That is a spectacular ass. Shield your eyes.”