Her Secret Prince by Madeline Ash

he sucked hard.
    “No.” She was slipping too near the edge. “Closer.”
    He withdrew, dragging off her underwear as he went. For several seconds hewas gone, rustling by the nightstand, and then she could make out his naked body before her, his face, the clutch of his gaze. Heaven help her, he was all she’d ever wanted. Heat built in Dee so rapidly that she foiled his next move out of sheer instinct.
    He lifted her, intending her for the bed, and she hooked her legs around his waist, lined up the blunt tip of his erection, and slid down overhim.
    With a startled groan, Jed froze.
    “Come on,” she murmured, and using the windowsill for purchase, rolled her hips, drawing him deeper. That got him. His grip shifted, one hand fastening on the flesh of her waist, the other on the window frame above her. Then he started to move. Slow thrusts that pushed high inside her, filling her, sure and slick and sweet. His lips found hers as the rhythmincreased, a languorous, open-mouthed kiss that consumed her as fully as his sex.
    It didn’t take long. Not nearly long enough.
    Pressure clutched her core, gathering heat and pleasure, gathering so greedily that she couldn’t hold it all in, not with the pace urging her to let go. “No,” she gasped, as her climax broke like lightning around her.
    A sigh, a kiss, and Jed had her on the bed, on herback, and drove in hard. “Dee,” he said, a single syllable that had her blood surging and pleasure mounting in her once more. Like it wasn’t this act he wanted, but her, just her, and no man, no matter how aroused or affectionate had made her feel so precious. Her heart swelled and her ribs seemed to part, drawing him in to a place no man had ever ventured before.
    Jed kissed her neck, teeth scrapingskin, and then he staggered her with another orgasm, deeper, longer, more luscious than the first. He pinned her with a final thrust and she curled around him with a cry, body and heart.
    It was only once she collapsed that emotion charged in, puncturing her right through, because this feeling of being desired should have been all she knew of sex, of making love, all she knew of men. Instead,she’d spent years with fleeting bed partners, searching for a connection like her first love, desperate to convince herself that she’d found another, as pure and magical, each and every time.
    Pressing her face into his neck, broken, she whispered, “You were supposed to be my first.”
    *
    Dee let him hold her. She let him stroke her hairand kiss her lips. All the while, dread gripped her at a second icy realization, so obvious now without sex hazing her mind. With an ease she didn’t feel, she slid out from under him and pulled on her dress.
    “Dee.” Her name travelled sadly from the sheets.
    “Mm?”
    “I heard you. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t.”
    Her heart tore. “Oh look, the tea’s gone cold,” she said, alarm scarcely contained. “I’llmake more.”
    The stairs disappeared beneath her as she fled. By the time she’d reached the kitchen, distress had struck in full force. Tears pushed out, streaking down her face, and she covered her mouth with a palm to muffle a sob. She’d moved too fast. So weak, so stupid. Jed wasn’t some guy she hoped would be the miraculous answer to her soul’s call. Jed was the answer. He’d always been theanswer. No one ever had a chance of replacing him.
    And she’d rushed in like a fool. She’d told herself to wait, known that her usual haste wouldn’t mean lasting satisfaction. She tried to calm her breathing as she moved to the stove, but had no longer than that to pull herself together—even as she lifted the kettle to fill it, footsteps carried from the stairs. Swiftly, she darted up into thelaundry and held her breath.
    “Dee.” Jed’s voice growled through the kitchen a moment later. She scrubbed her face, staying silent. “Dee,” he said again, voice coming from the base of the tiny flight of stairs. “I saw you go up