I swivel to see she’s face to face with one of the Deep Guard. Lars, I think his name is. A good soldier, broad shoulders, with long blond hair, currently dripping with water.
“Don’t apologize,” Lars answers. “I haven’t seen you around before. Are you new?”
Lars doesn’t see me from behind the rock, but I don’t think it would matter if I was right there. His eyes are entirely on Rosalina.
“Uh, kind of,” she replies, taking a step back.
He has the gaze of a starving man as he takes her in. She’s a rare bloom in this barren place—perfect skin, sweet full lips, and just how much of her body can he see beneath the water? His own naked form is only inches away.
“Hair wash. Good idea.” He smirks and reaches for her head.
I’m in front of him in an instant, grasping his wrist almost hard enough to snap. “She’s with me.”
Lars’ face shifts instantly from lust to terror. I release him and he slinks back. “High Prince Keldarion.”
I say nothing more. He retreats, rejoining the rest of the group far away from us. I stay still, breath heaving in and out of my chest. My fists are clenched at my side to stop myself from following him and doing something I’ll regret.
“Kel?”
Her voice drives me into a different sort of trance. I cannot let anyone else see her. Not here when she’s naked. Not when she hasn’t been properly claimed by me.
I grab her around the waist and drag her deeper into the cave, secluding us behind another cluster of rocks. No one else can have what’s mine.
She squirms against me, and I feel her soft naked body against my hard planes. I can’t let her go, not yet. I press her against the rock wall. Warm water curls around us as I shelter her in.
“Kel,” Rosalina says softly, her fingers threading through the white strands of my hair. “This is a side of the wilde courtship I haven’t seen before.”
“Is that what this is?” We’re far away from the crowd now, their voices a muffled murmur.
“Your pupils are huge,” she whispers. She’s no longer squirming against me, but writhing. Her body moves in a rhythm, and her legs wrap around my waist. Seven realms, is that her slick pussy rubbing against my stomach?
“He shouldn’t have touched you. Shouldn’t have even looked at you.”
“It was an accident.” She smiles, then still holding on to me, dips her head back, rinsing the suds from her hair. “You’re not this jealous and possessive around the princes of Castletree.”
“They may see you. These men can not.”
“What does that make you want to do?” she whispers. She gently touches the snowflake necklace, then curls her fingers in my chest hair.
“Rose,” I warn. My cock is hard with her body pressed so close to mine. “You know I can’t. I can’t let this thing take over again.”
“Fine, but there’s something I want you to know.” She takes my hand and presses it against her chest. “Can you feel my heart?”
“Yes.”
“Right now, it’s beating just for you.”
The rapid rhythm seems matched by my own heart. I close my eyes, relishing the sound. “I feel something else.”
“That is?”
I lower my hand, unable to stop myself from grasping the full weight of her breast. Gently, I knead the soft flesh with my fingertips before palming the entire mound hard.
Rosalina pushes against me, mouth opening against mine, and we both desperately gasp in the humid air. I cup her ass, allowing myself one single moment of bliss, her center sliding against my aching hard cock. “Oh, the things I want to do to you. The sounds I want you to make for everyone to hear. There’d be no doubt that you are mine.”
Her brown eyes widen before she kisses me, tongue slipping across my own. For a moment, I imagine it: sliding deep within her, and fucking her hard against the rock wall.
But too quickly, she pulls away, gaze sultry as she purrs, “Are you sure that’s not just the wilde courtship talking?”
“I want the entire world to know you belong to me,” I say.
“So, you wouldn’t like it if anyone else saw me like this?” She rises out of the water and onto a low rock shelf. The drastic chill in the air instantly pebbles her nipples and gooseflesh spreads across her legs.
“Rosalina.” She isn’t alone in her nudity; others walk around on the bank, gathering their things.
But she alone is a work of art. She doesn’t understand just how gorgeous she is with her perfect breasts, the curve of her stomach, her soft thighs.
“You can’t touch me, but if you could,” she says, “what would you do?”
I step closer, eyes half watching her, half keeping an eye on any Deep Guard getting too close. “First, I’d tell you to spread those long legs and let me gaze on what’s mine.”
“You think this pussy belongs to you?” she asks playfully, but does as she’s told, her fingers playing in the soft line of hair before spreading apart her pretty pink center.
I groan loudly, and my hand instantly dips beneath the water, grasping my cock. It’s steel hard, so ready to stretch and fill her.
She circles her fingers along her entrance. Water from the hot springs slides down her thighs, adding to her slickness. “It is yours, Kel.”
A possessive growl escapes me, and I drop down between her legs, barely able to contain myself from devouring her right now. “Fuck yourself with your fingers.”
She sighs, and I hear the wet sounds as she enters herself. Her scent fills me, rich with desire and lust. Her free hand grips my hair, and she cries out.
“That’s it, Rose,” I say. Then I push myself back. “I have very little control around you.”
Her mouth loops into a smile. “Are you touching yourself?”
I am, gripping the base of my cock hard.
“What would your soldiers think if they knew you were making your mate come just behind these rocks?”
“You’re making yourself,” I say.
She looks at me through a hooded gaze. “You have no idea how much it turns me on to have you watch. To even be near you. Gods, you’re so hot, I could come just looking at you. And the fact you’re watching, that you may want me—”
I grip myself tighter as her fingers slip in and out of her pussy. She bites her lip, and I can see the desire in her eyes. The need.
“I can’t want you, Rose. I can’t have you.”
“Just watch me then. I’m so close.”
Her words send a shiver down my spine, and I can feel the lust, the need, coursing through me. “Fuck.”
She pulls her fingers out, and the wet sound nearly sends my cock into a spasm. Stroking faster, I ache to feel her tight heat enveloping me.
“I wish I could suck on your cock.”
I groan. Can the others hear us? I don’t even care. “I want to lay you out in front of everyone and fuck you, Rose, so they know you’re mine.”
Her eyelashes flutter, and she bites her lip, head falling back, hand moving faster. My rhythm increases to match hers. “Would you like that, Rose? To be covered in my scent, my seed?”