And just like Danika had promised her once before, that eventually someday she’d come to love Kingdom even more than Earth, she had.
Because on Earth these twenty years with Robin would have never happened. She’d have never known him. By the time she’d emerged from this prison he would have aged and so would she, any life they could have built would have been nothing more than unrequited dreams.
But now here he stood, her beautiful warrior, his skin as golden as when she’d first met him. His body as powerful and strong, as was her own.
They would meet as equals, as partners in every sense of the word.
Robin walked toward the portal. After tonight, they’d never again be separated. Turning back to look at her, he lifted his hand in farewell. “I love you, my pet. Always.”
And then he was gone.
*
The next day just as the sun was soon to set, a beautiful fairy came to visit the lovely Maid Marian.
Onlookers watched in awe as the fairy lifted her wand and, with a smile of wonder and joy, told the princess that her curse was finally lifted…
Chapter 20
Nixie stepped through the portal that Jericho had designed for a hunky thief twenty years ago. A portal that, till now, she’d never been able to pass through.
And Nixie went to him not as Marian, or a genie, but simply a woman. She left all her clothes back in that lamp, because to her, this was like a rebirth of sorts.
She smiled when she landed in his room.
They’d known this night would eventually come, and Robin—it seemed—had wasted not a moment in planning for their reunion.
His room was a massive thing built of stone and wooden rafters. Thick beeswax candles lined the polished mahogany desk. Royal banners and paintings lined the walls. Plush, colorful carpets were laid out on the floors. In the center of the room was an enormous bed covered in furs, and sitting cross-legged on it was the man himself, wearing a broad smile and nothing else.
He’d taken off his ring, so that she did not stare at Crispin’s face, but his own. His blue eyes blazed like hottest flame as they moved slowly down her body.
Then without speaking a word, he crawled off that bed. His muscles flexing and pulling like a jungle cat’s, smooth and graceful.
In twenty years he’d not aged a day. His body was still the same sculpted monument it’d been when she’d first met him.
“My pet,” he purred when he came to a stop just inches in front of her.
With an inarticulate cry of joy and sorrow, Nixie wrapped her arms around his neck. Robin scooped her up, kissing her lips as he moved them over to the bed, laying her down gently.
And though the hunger between them had raged hot, his touch was tender. Gentle. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he began to slowly kiss and suckle his way down her neck.
She moaned, flexing her hips so that his thickness pressed against her heat.
“An eternity to have you,” he groaned. “I wish to go slow, my love, but—”
She gasped when his teeth latched on to her nipple hard, making her come nearly undone. Clawing at his back, she maneuvered her hips, forcing his length deep inside her.
“Slow later,” she growled, writhing in time to his masterful strokes.
The night echoed with the sounds of their now frenzied mating. Her blood, her skin, hell, even her hair, it all tingled, it all sang. Her body came alive under his touch.
“I love you, my beauty. My pet. My glorious, wondrous genie.” He mumbled against her neck as he pumped his hips harder, bucking against her so powerfully that she had to hook her ankles behind his back just to hang on.
But she didn’t care. Nixie only wished that she could crawl under his skin. Could stay inside his warmth forever.
Her head spiraled with blackness and stars. Their breathing became nothing but grunts and long, labored moans of ecstasy.
“Love you too,” she whispered in between nipping at his flesh, “so much. Always. Forever.”
“And ever, and ever, and ever.” He laughed, and so did she, but they never stopped their attempts to slip into one another’s souls.
“I’m coming, oh my god,” she screamed, digging her nails into the sculpted lines of his back.
Nothing had ever felt more amazing. Her body was going to explode into a nova of nothing but sensation and she could care less. If the world around them burned to a cinder, she couldn’t care. She didn’t care. This was all that mattered, this moment with him inside her and she holding him, where their bodies were as physically connected as could possibly be.
His fingers reached between them and he latched on to her sensitive nub, giving it a quick squeeze. “Then come for me, my beloved.”
And though she was no longer a genie, it was his command that made her blossom. Arching her spine, she jerked and trembled against him as wave after wave of pleasure took her.
Robin joined her just a moment later, and she held on to him, kissing his sweaty brow as she whispered her eternal devotion to him.