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The door opened and he watched from a dark corner, light stretching from the hallway onto the floor of the private bed chambers. Aramis was prepared to hide, to duck behind a curtain if necessary, but the queen walked into the room alone, speaking over her shoulder.
“No, thank you. After the day I’ve had I’d rather just be alone and go to bed. If the dauphin wakes, bring him to me.”
There was a murmur on the other side of the door before it shut softly, the only light was the single candle Anne held in her hand. She turned to her little desk and little another candle with her burning flame and it struck him again how unbelievably beautiful she was.
Not even angels could compare.
“Don’t be frightened.”
She gasped and turned around, but really there was no way he could inform her of his presence without startling her, which may have been the only defect in his plan.
“Aramis?”
He stood up from the chair, “My apologies, your majesty. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have been lurking in the shadows of my chambers,” she scolded. “How did you even get in here?”
“The same passageways the Vadim used to steal the royal jewels. Or attempt to, at the very least.”
Something in her face softened, “His escape was the first time you saved me. You saved me again today. How many time do you think God will grant me your rescue?”
“I pray for a dozen times more, at the very least.” He stepped closer to her, “I wanted to see how you were fairing after today.”
“I am shaken,” she admitted and he liked to think there were few people in the world she would admit that too. “But what about you?”
“Me?” he asked, not sure what she was talking about.
“You fell, Aramis, or do you fall so often from windows you don’t recall?”
He smiled at her jest, taking off his hat and leaning towards her to rest it on the desk. It brought their bodies close enough to touch, but not quite. “Ah, yes. Well, I won’t say it was the first time, but as Porthos would say, my ego softened my fall.”
Aramis shifted on his feet, his eyes darting towards the doors. “And the dauphin? He is well?”
She laid a hand on his arm, the barest of touches, but it was enough to feel the warmth through his shirt. “He is fine. I wanted him with me tonight actually, but I worried my distress might affect him. I thought at least one person should be allowed a restful night.”
His heart broke a little at the confession. Her hair was still falling from its pins, a smudge of dirt along her temple, she looked as if she had truly been through an ordeal. Against his better judgement he reached out and touched some of the tufts of hair and smoothed them back. “Anna.”
Her eyes closed at the soft spoken name, her Spanish name, and there seemed to be a quiet, small battle within her before she leaned her head against his hand. He cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing along the silken skin.
She reached up with a hand, her fingers encircling his wrist. “Aramis,” she looked up and into his eyes. “Why did you come?”
“How could I stay away?” He framed her face with both of his hands, the fear from earlier rushing back through him to create an urgency in his veins. “When I fell from that window, the only thing I could think of you was. And the dauphin.”
She shook her head, tears glimmering in her eyes. “Let us not pretend, Aramis. Not when it is just us.”
“The only thing I could think of was you,” he paused and thought the words, felt them against his heart before speaking them, “And of our son, and how if I died I would not be able to protect you both from that madman. It seemed impossible to me that I would die without having kissed you again.”
Anne turned her head and pressed a kiss to his palm, Aramis’ heart stuttered against his ribs at the feel of her lips against the sensitive skin.
“What are you waiting for?”
His grin was quick, a confident and charismatic cover for the way he was melting at the look in her eyes. “Permission, your majesty.”
“Kiss me, Aramis, before either of us remembers all the reasons we shouldn’t.”
And because he was a man who would never deny her anything, he did as she asked. He pressed his lips to hers, wondering at how familiar it was. She dropped her hand from his wrist, clutching at his leathers and pulled him closer, raising on her toes so their bodies were flush against each other.
“Cariña,” he whispered, sensing the desperation in her he ran his hands down her arms, trying soothe her. “You were so brave today,” he whispered as he pressed kisses to her jaw, her neck. “So beautiful. You are always so beautiful.”
He could hear her breath quicken against his chest, her face moving to catch his lips against hers, pulling him under. Aramis wrapped his arms around her waist, the hardness of his erection pressing against her stomach as her fingers feathered through his hair.
When he touched his tongue to her lips she opened for him. He tasted her as his fingers slid up the back of her dress trying to find the fastens which would allow him to touch the skin beneath.
“This dress is slightly more complicated than the one last I took off you.”
“I have no emotional attachments to it.” He stared at her, not quiet sure what she was trying to tell him. “If you haven’t the patience for the buttons, Aramis I’m sure you have something on your belt which might be useful on fabric.”
“You’d never be able to wear it again, Anna.”
“I have no intention of ever looking at this dress again.”
“Turn around.”
She did as told, turning to face the mirror of what he now realized wasn’t a desk, but a vanity. He took the dagger from his belt, “Do you trust me?”
When she met his eyes through the mirror she was smiling, “With my life.”
He kept his laughter soft, taking the blade to the top of her dress and cutting a good two inches before setting the dagger on the vanity next to her hand. Perhaps it was a little bit showmanship, but he wrapped his fingers around the torn seams and pulled the dress apart.
The look of surprise and pure arousal in her eyes was worth it.
He pushed the dress down her arms and torso, realizing only then she wore no chemise underneath it and used the opportunity to touch as much as of her as he could; the indent of her waist, the slight flaring of her hips and breasts. The need to be inside her was almost unbearable but he wanted to draw this out, wanted to savor and make her breathless with wanting, but he had so little experience with her he didn’t know what set her afire.
“Tell me what you like, Anna, tell me what you want. There are no secrets or shadows between us, not like this. I want you to feel everything.”
She was quiet long enough he began to doubt whether or not she'd answer. “Your voice.”
“My voice?” he asked, genuinely surprised, his hands brushing down hers side to her legs. When the backs of his knuckles brushed against her inner thigh she made a soft, startled noise, her hips shifting against his hand as if wanting more.
“I remember lying on the ground in the prison,” she leaned back against him her hands covering his, nails catching on his skin. “My eyes were closed but I could feel the weight of you, the smell of you, and then I heard your voice.”
“I’ve got you,” he remembered.
“It was a good thing I was lying on the ground, because nothing has ever made me quite as weak as your voice in my ear.”
It suddenly dawned on him what she was asking for; she didn’t have the vocabulary for it but he knew what she wanted.
“I do anything you don’t like, tell me,” he reassured her. He smiled into her skin, “I do anything you do like, tell me that as well.”
Aramis looked at her reflection in the mirror, a blush heavy through her chest and up into her face, mouth parted as he began to slowly trail his fingers up and down her skin. “You’re so beautiful, Anna.”
He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck, his hands pushing the drawers down her hips so there was only the sheerest layer of stockings covering her thighs.
He turned her to face him again, pressing against her hip so she leaned back against the heavy furniture. She was naked standing in front of the mirror, her body lit by the soft glow of the candles; she looked like every erotic dream he’d had in the past year.
“Put your hands on the desk.”
“You don’t want me touch you?”
“Oh, very much, but all good things come to those who wait.” Another kiss just below her ear in the hollow where he could still smell a lingering scent from earlier that day. “You do trust me, don’t you?”
She put her hands on the cold marble, and it would be so easy to hoist her up onto the top and bury himself in her, but he had plans first. “That’s my girl,” he murmured into her skin, nipping at the sensitive skin along the curve of her neck.
He felt her stiffen a little against his chest. “I’m not a girl, Aramis. I’m a queen.”
“You’re mine,” he corrected kneeling down. “Right here, in this room, you’re mine. As I am yours.”
Anne looked down, meeting his eyes with something akin to astonishment. “You’re mine?”
“Always,” he told her, fingering the tops of one of the stockings. “Forever.”
With infinite patience he rolled the stocking down her leg, dragging the pads of his fingers along her skin, and followed the path with his teeth and tongue and lips.
She liked to hear him talk, he remembered, and hoped he lived up to whatever dreams she may have had since their last meeting.
“Your skin is so soft, Anna, I can’t stop touching you.”
“Please, Aramis, let me touch you.”
He shook his head and worked on the other leg, repeated the same ministrations as he divested her of the second stocking. “If you touch me, I will be undone by you. But if you could do me a favor? Take your hair down.”
Anne shifted and, completely naked, reached up to begin pulling out the pearl hair pins one by one. Her hair fell down in chunks and waves, blonde hair burnished by the candle light and there was such a sharp pang of need it nearly double him over.
She saw him staring and gave him a curious look, “What is it?”
He stood up, his eyes trying to take in all of her at once. “I think I may have actually died when I was thrown from that window.”
“Why do you think that?”
“There’s no other reason I can think to explain why I’m in Heaven right now, looking at an angel.” He put his hand at the apex of her thighs which were pressed together. “Spread your legs for me, cariña, I want to feel you.”
Her legs shifted so he could put his hand between them, but before he began to touch her, he pressed his lips to hers so he could taste her gasp when he found her clit. “I’ve got you,” he murmured against her mouth. “You’re already so wet for me, I can’t wait to be inside of you again. Moving with you.”
The words, hot and warm against her cheek, seemed to fulfill their intent as Anne reached up to grab the lapels of his shirt. He was barely touching her otherwise.
“Do you remember what it was like in that convent? That first time I slid into you, it was perfect.”
She nodded, her lips pressed together as if trying to control herself, meanwhile her hips moved against his hand, her body asking what her mouth did not. “I’m going to use my fingers now, Anna.”
There was a quick inhale from her as he slid a finger inside of her, her pussy clenching around the single digit. “Do you like that?”
She nodded.
“Tell me, sweetheart. Use your words.”
“Yes, Aramis. I like it.” She let got of his shirt and reached down to pull it out of his trousers. “Take this off.”
He didn’t have to be told twice, Aramis quickly pulled the vest and shirt off and dropped them carelessly on the ground. She ran her hands over him, her fingers exploring his chest and abs, he could feel his muscles flexing beneath her searching touch.
“Do you like what you see?”
It was supposed to come off as a cocky question, a small jest to ease the tension, but there was true uncertainty behind the question and she must have heard it because she looked him square in the eyes and answered. “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, Aramis.”
Aramis had heard the compliment before, even believed some of the women who had said it, but it still had never meant as much to him as it did coming from her lips.
When he kissed her it was with renewed fervor, a kind of desperation he barely kept under the control. She opened for him, licked into his mouth as she pressed her body against his.
His hands settled on the small of her back, pulling her even closer to him, his legs parting hers. Sliding his hands down to her hips he began to move her slightly so the friction of his trousers would rub against her. “That’s right, sweetheart, ride my leg just like that while I kiss you, touch you. So beautiful, I just want to touch you.”
Aramis covered her breasts with his hands, using his thumbs on her nipples till they were hard. He leaned to cover each of them with his lips in turn, using his tongue and teeth to draw little noises of want and desire from her.
Her hands were in his hair and then her nails were digging into his shoulders and she moved against his leg, trying for something she couldn’t quite get.
“Let me help,” he murmured against her sternum, lowering his leg so she could no longer press herself against it. Instead, he replaced with it his hand, this time driving her up with two fingers and he took a prideful kind of pleasure at the gasp he incited from her.
“I’m going to make you come, Anna, but you have to be quiet when you do. Can you do that? Be a good girl, and keep quiet?”
She nodded, already riding his fingers the way she had his leg. He let her set the pace, but used his thumb on her clit to drive her quickly over the edge. Slow, torturous circles to counter the quickness of his fingers.
“Aramis,” she whimpered, her breathing shallow and sharp. “Aramis, please.”
He moved his fingers inside her, searched for the place he had learned every woman had deep inside her. When he found it she cried out, a sound he swallowed as he kissed her.
“You have to keep quiet, remember?” She nodded as he lazily kissed her, using her fingers to help bring her down from the high of climax. “Good girl, we don’t want anyone to interrupt? Not when we’re right in the middle.”
“In the middle?” she asked on a gasp finally easing her grip on his shoulders. He’d have marks from her nails, he was sure of it, and the knowledge only spurred him on. He wanted a million marks from her, permanent reminders of how much she wanted him. Reminders he was the only one who had ever made her feel like this.
“Oh, I’m not nearly done with you yet,” and he swept up her in his arms.
She remembered the night at the convent vividly.
Too often she’d convinced herself it hadn’t actually been as life changing as she remembered, it was just the months of loneliness which had made her nostalgic and gave an unnatural shine to what had been a lovely moment.
But with Aramis caring her effortlessly to the bed after showing her stars, she had to admit her memories were dim compared to the actual thing.
“Are you still with me?” he asked from somewhere above her.
“Yes,” he was mostly in shadows and she couldn’t quite make him out, but she thought he still stood beside the bed. She wanted his weight on her, she wanted to be able to see his eyes and touch him. “I can’t see you.”
He walked away and brought the two candles to the little table beside her bed. “Better?”
Anne nodded and held her arms out to him and he thankfully stepped into them, settling most of his weight beside her on the bed.
He kissed her like he was starving for her and she relished the opportunity to have him press her into the mattress, fingers tracing her ribcage before covering her breasts with his hand. She wrapped her leg around his, burying her fingers into his hair.
She gasped when she felt something brush against her sensitive nipple.
Aramis pulled back and ran a hand down his chest and Anne realized it was the chain from the crucifix which had startled her.
“Sorry, let me take this off.”
“No,” she argued quickly, her voice almost sharp as she laid her fingers over the chain at his neck. “Leave it on. I always liked seeing you wear it.”
“Your wish is my command,” Aramis smiled down at her and then began to kiss her body. The stubble and facial hair on her skin was wildly erotic, as was the warm heat from his mouth on her breasts, her stomach, her hips.
When he showed no intention of stopping there her hips moved of their own volition as her fingers gripped tightly to the sheets, desperate for something to anchor her to this moment.
She remembered this from the last time, blushed at the memory of her naivete and stupidity. A grown woman and she’d had no idea such an act was possible, she’d been so uncertain and embarrassed at the sight of his head between her legs but then he kissed her there and she’d never known anything like it.
“I love the way you say my name when I’m touching you, I only want you to feel good. Spread your legs for me, Anna, so I can take care of you.”
She hadn’t realize she’d been saying his name, but it was the only word she could think of. He was the only thing which existed in her world.
He was everything.
So when he asked her to spread her legs she did, modesty forgotten in the face of desire.
“Good, sweet, girl,” he praised between legs, his words falling onto the skin of her thigh.
Anne didn’t understand why those words undid her, why they seemed to make her pleasure sharper and fuller. In a small, rational part of her brain she thought it had something to do with knowing she pleased him.
The rest of her didn’t care, as long as he never stopped talking.
When he kissed the skin next to her most private parts she shivered beneath him. “Still with me, Anna?”
“Yes,” but her voice trembled. “It feels as if it’s too much, but I don’t want it to stop. Please don’t stop.”
“I won’t stop until your trembling and coming apart against my tongue,” he promised, his fingers spreading her. When his tongue touched that sensitive part her hips jerked against his. “You’re okay,” he murmured, his hand pressing down on her pelvis to keep still. “You taste so good, just let me get a taste.”
He sucked on her clit, and instinctively she wanted to press her thighs together but she remembered when she’d tried to do that last Aramis had been forced to stop. If she wanted him to keep going she had to keep her legs open, but she couldn’t stop her hips from the little movements against his face.
He growled, a deep sound she could feel the vibration of. “Do you know what it does to me when you move like that? My beautiful, sensual queen. You want more? I’ll give you more.”
She didn’t know what he meant until he slid two fingers inside her, moving just out of time with the flicks of his tongue against her so there was reprieve from the onslaught of his ministrations. Anne moved against him, digging her heels into the mattress while she scrambled for purchase.
Normally she had no problem controlling herself, her emotions, but something was different about her with Aramis. There was no place for walls, for pretenses, when he loved her as he did.
When she fell apart she thought there was no coming back, surely she had burst into a thousand stars.
“One more time,” Aramis was saying as she felt the shift of his weight on the bed. “Can do you that for me?”
Anne opened her eyes to see the shadow Aramis beside the bed. He was fumbling with the belt of his trousers, and Anne, languid from her climaxes, moved to her knees and swatted his hands away.
“Anna.”
“I may not know much about men’s clothing, but I think I can handle this.” She pushed her hair out of her way and worked the belt free, sliding it through the loops. Aramis’ breath stopped and stuttered above her, and Anne liked the proof he was affected by their time together as she was.
He whispered her name and muttered something in Spanish when she worked the buttons of his trousers free. “You should probably remove your boots.”
Aramis blinked at her as if she had suddenly spoken an unknown language. “Pardon? Oh. Boots, right.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed he rested one boot on his knee and began tugging them off. Anne pressed herself against his back, leaving a trail of featherlight kisses down his neck and shoulders. “Anna,” he warned as he fumbled with the second boot. “You’re being very distracting.”
“Am I?” she asked, and it felt so right to be a little silly with him. Even if she was naked and he mostly so after he kissed her in a place she never touched herself. Her heart was so light with the rightness of it all, it was almost as if nothing could ever make her sad or broken again.
When he stood up and turned to look at her he was smiling, as carefree as she felt. “Just a little, but I’ll forgive you of it this one time.”
“How kind of you, Monsieur Aramis.”
She giggled as he all but pushed her back onto the bed. “I have some very serious intentions towards for the rest of the night my dear, but I need to get rid of my trousers first. Can I trust you to behave for a few more moments?”
Anne settled back on her ankles, trying to look as innocent as possible. “I’ll try my best.”
He grinned again, shaking his head as he pushed the last of his clothes to the ground and stepped out of them.
Everything had happened so fast at the convent she hadn’t gotten much of a chance to appreciate him, so when he was finally as bare she, Anne reached out.
“Anna,” he bit out when her fingers made contact with his…cock. Even thinking the word made her blush but it was the only one which fit. “You’re being distracting again.”
He barely got the words out and Anne looked up at him through her lashes. “Should I stop?”
“No.”
She smiled at the quick answer, and focused on the task at hand, exploring the length of him with her fingers. Aramis took her hand from his erection and she thought maybe she had done something wrong but there was a look of heat in his eyes she couldn’t mistake for anything other than pure desire.
But before she could ask him a question he brought her fingers to his mouth, licking each digit, coating them in his saliva and then he brought her hand back and closed her fingers around him. “Like this,” he murmured, showing how to move her fist along the length of him.
She stroked him a few times, his hands burying themselves in her hair as he didn’t trust himself to touch her and she thought about his lips and tongue on her. “Should I use my mouth on you?”
The hand in her hair tightened, an immediate reaction. “Fuck, Anna. You can, but you don’t have to.”
“It seems only fair.”
He laughed but it sounded strangle. “This isn’t about fair. I’m certainly not keeping score.”
“You would enjoy it though?”
His hand was still tight in her hair but she found she didn’t mind the little prickles of pain at the back of her head. It was like when she clung onto the sheets, looking for something to hold onto. She was the anchor, even as she was the one driving him to desire.
“Would I enjoy your mouth on me? More than I can make you understand.”
She adjusted on the bed so she’d be more comfortable. “Tell me what to do.”
“Why don’t I show you?” he suggested as he took her hand again, this time only bringing one finger into his mouth as he licked and sucked on it.
Understanding, she put her lips around him and drew him deeper into her mouth, using her tongue to lick the length of his cock, around the tip. All the while he murmured encouragements, telling her how she was doing, how perfect her mouth felt around him, how proud he was of her.
After a minute or so of letting her get used to him he began to move against her mouth, a new sensation but not unwanted until the tip hit the back of her throat and she gagged. Aramis smoothed the hair along the temple, pulling his body away from her.
“Sorry,” and he sounded genuinely contrite. “I got carried away.”
“You didn’t finish,” Anne pointed out lamely.
“You did everything right, but I don’t want to climax like that,” he told her. “I want to feel your pussy around me.”
“Pussy?” she repeated, not understanding.
He put his hands between her legs where she was again, or was it still?, wet. Something about giving Aramis’ pleasure had reignited her own desire. “Pussy,” he repeated. “I want to be here when I come and if you had kept it up I wouldn’t have lasted much longer.”
“Last time you were worried about fitting,” she said, trying to be more confident then she actually felt as she looked him in the eye. “You should know there’s been no one, not since you.”
“No one?” he repeated even though they both knew who she was talking about. It felt wrong, somehow, to bring up his name in this sacred, private moment.
“I was pregnant,” she reminded him, smiling softly at the thought of their son. “And then the Cardinal’s death and Milady’s arrival.”
“A year,” he whispered, leaning forward so she was all but forced to lie down beneath him. “You must have been so lonely.”
Anne shook her head, “I wasn’t. I could feel our son inside me and then I was holding him.”
Something about male virility, Anne thought, made his eyes flare at the mention of his son. “Did you think of me?”
“You were my best dream, Aramis.”
He all but shoved his leg between her thighs. “I’m going to make this so good for you, Anna.”
Anne raised her hands and threaded them through his hair, linking her fingers on the back of his neck. “Did I ever thanking you for saving me, Aramis?”
His brows furrowed as he looked down at her, his crucifix (their crucifix) resting over her madly beating heart. “Even if I wasn’t mad for you, I’m still a musketeers, it’s my job to-“
She shook her head and lazily touched his shoulders, his arms. “That’s not what I meant. Not that kind of saving.” Anne took his hand and rested it on the crucifix, on her heart. “This kind.”
There was such extraordinary tenderness on his face she couldn't have described it with all the words in the world. “You saved me to, Anna, when I didn’t even realize I needed saving.”
When he kissed her this time there was none of the reckless passion, but a slow and excruciating fire, he touched her pussy again, getting her hot and desperate for him.
“Ready, Anna? Ready to be good girl and take me in, let me ride you?”
She nodded, spreading her legs even farther so he could settled himself between them. He hissed as he pushed into her, his whole body stilling as he stopped. “You feel so good, I’m trying to go slow so I don’t hurt you, but I want to be in you to the hilt. Can you do that? Take a little more of me.”
Anne shifted beneath him, guided by his hand on the small of her back, she would do anything he asked as long he kept talking to her like that, like he was desperate for her and no one else would do.
“That’s it beautiful, just like that, take a little more of me,” Aramis struggled to control his breathing, to draw this out, but she was so damn warm and wet around him that it took everything in him not to fuck them both senseless. “Good girl,” he encouraged as he slid out and then back in. “Such a good, beautiful girl.”
“Aramis,” she had no words to describe what she was feeling. It was if she was about to fall, wanted to fall, and only need one more push to feel the air rush up to meet her. “I need, I need-“
“I know, cariña, I know. Touch yourself, make yourself feel better.” Aramis seemed distracted as he took her hand placed it in the curls between her legs. His fingers pressed against hers, leading the pads of them to the place he had touched with his mouth and tongue.
She was tentative at first but the more pressure she used the better it felt, and there was some instinct which had been buried by civilization and the puritanical which guided her movements. “That’s a good girl,” Aramis whispered between thrusts, his hands gliding up her thigh before covering her breasts as if he wanted to touch every inch of her at once. “I want to feel you come around me, Anna. While I’m buried inside you. Come for me, Anna.”
There was something about the command, about the desperation behind the order, along with her fingers and his cock inside her which created a perfect storm.
She fell apart on a strangled cry, the sound catching her throat as her entire body went taunt beneath him.
“Fuck,” his own voice cracked on the word, and when she opened her eyes she saw the strain on his face and imagined he was barely holding on himself.
Anna continued to meet his hips with hers, running her fingers through his hair and kissing the stubble along his neck the way he had done to her earlier. “You’re mine, Aramis,” she whispered into his ear as his hand held onto her hip with almost bruising intensity. “And I’m yours. Always.”
He buried his face in her neck, said her name like a prayer, and came inside her.
For a few moments they lay there together in the gathering silence, but when Anne heard him take in a long, slow breath she knew the moment was over.
He raised himself to his elbow, but he didn’t immediately get up and leave as she thought he might. Instead he ran a finger through the hair at her temple, studying her as if wanted to remember everything about her.
“I should go,” he whispered.
“I know.”
It took another minute before he got up and began to dress, Anne shifted on the bed and pulled the coverlet up, feeling vulnerable. He dressed in silence and took one look around the room to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.
“We both needed this, your majesty.” She didn’t wince at the title, he said it with such affection it was hard to remember he used it to put distance between them. “But it’s too much of a risk to chance another encounter. You could even now be pregnant.”
Anne raised her hand to her stomach, imagined having Aramis’ baby once more moving inside of her. Eventually she nodded. “I know.”
“I won’t come back here again.”
She nodded, accepting it has fact, but when he kissed her it didn’t feel like goodbye.
A few weeks later…
Aramis waited until Constance had stepped outside Emilie’s tent, putting his arm out to stop the queen from following. He kept his voice low, and stepped close so they wouldn’t be overheard by any listening ears. “Don’t ever do that again.”
She took a half step towards him so their bodies were nearly touching. When she spoke he couldn’t help but look down at her lips. “I will always serve my country. But, perhaps, this time I was unwise.”
“Foolish is the better word,” Aramis argued, putting his hands on his hips because it was better than putting his hands on her.
She didn’t even try to hide her smile as she reached up to put her hands on his chest. “You are talking to your queen, Aramis.”
“I know,” he acknowledged, unable to resist the woman in front of him. She wasn’t just the queen in this moment, nor was she the scared woman from the convent. This was Anna from the nights they’d spent together. Carefree and lovely. “We promised each other.”
Her mouth was only a breath away, her hands a steady pressure even through his leathers. “A queen is allowed to break her promises.”
And because he couldn’t resist her, couldn’t say no, he kissed her. His arms wrapped around her as she pulled him closer. It was the kind of kiss shared between lovers, easy and warm and familiar.
For all the sins he’d committed, the least of those was this: He loved her, and he would break a thousand promises to keep her happy.