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t is none of your business.’
‘But you’re allowed to meddle in mine?’
‘I am when it stops you from doing what you want to do with your life.’
‘Did you ever stop to think that maybe I was? That I’m happy working on the farm with kids that need help?’
‘No. I don’t think you’re happy, because I know what you look like when you’re happy, Mason.’
‘And what about you, Danyl? What is it that you want?’
‘I want free of this!’ he shouted, no longer able to hold back all the emotions she provoked in him. ‘This hold you have over me. You think it’s easy for me? You being here? Look at you!’
‘What, dressed up like some wannabe princess? Is the rugged Aussie girl showing through a little too much?’ The bitterness in her voice threw petrol on the flames of his anger.
‘No, dammit, beautiful! You’re beautiful!’ For about a second everything was quiet, as if she was as shocked as he that he’d finally said it. ‘Every time I look at you it hurts, because I know how you taste, I know how you feel under my skin, I know how your eyes darken when you climax, and I know the sound of my name on your lips when you do is like nothing else in this world.’
They were trembling now. Both of them. He’d never spoken to her like this before, with this raw passion that seemed to frighten them both. Ten years ago their relationship had held an innocence, a sweetness, but this... This was like nothing he could have expected or imagined.
She was about to run again. He could tell. He could see it in her eyes. But he couldn’t just let her go. Not this time.
His hand released its grip on her upper arm and moved to her neck, anchoring her in place. His lips crashed against the softness of hers, punishing and powerful. Hard against soft, heat against cool. He thought—feared—for a moment she had turned to stone. But a second before he was about to pull away her mouth opened and his tongue danced with hers. Need like a firestorm swept through his body, blocking out all thought, all awareness other than that of her.
Fireworks tingled over his skin, beneath his clothes, flames scorched his neck as her arms swept up around it, clinging to him with the same desperation he felt.
It wasn’t enough. The kiss just wasn’t enough.
He drew her against his chest, relishing the feel of her soft breasts against the hard muscles there. His hands swept down over the sides of her body, his thumbs reaching to outline the curves of her breasts. Her gasp fell into his mouth as she must have felt his hands, gasps, sighs, but it still wasn’t enough.
He reached to her thigh, pulling behind her knee, bringing it up to wrap around his hip, pressing his aroused length against her core, and relished the way her body sank into his. They had fitted together perfectly. Something he’d marvelled at ten years before, and still now today.
He pressed open-mouthed kisses down the side of her neck, leaning her back into his arms in an embrace that left her chest exposed to his lips. Her skin tasted exactly the same—honey and warmth and that taste of her that was unique.
It was pain and pleasure all mixed together.
His hand pulled up the skirt of her dress. He needed to feel her skin, needed to know this was real and not the fevered imagining that had distracted him even when she was a million miles and ten years away from him. The thin material covered in thousands of crystals poured over the fine wool of the tuxedo jacket, and his hand met the silk of her skin, pushing up her impossibly thin ankle, over the smooth length of her shin, up to the strong, muscled thigh and round to her backside, pulling her towards him, pressing her against the strength of his arousal. It was enough to nearly undo him right there.
He jerked his head back in shock. How had he forgotten? The gala, the palace, the past...
CHAPTER EIGHT
May, ten years ago
‘ARE YOU SURE you want to do this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Really?’
‘I don’t see any other option.’
‘It may be a sacrifice you should not make. It would leave you...vulnerable. Exposed.’
‘I’ve thought through the consequences. It is a risk I’m willing to take.’
‘So be it. Make your move.’
Mason picked up the figure of the Queen and moved it across the chessboard to take his Bishop. Without pause, Danyl took her Queen with his Castle decisively. Mason allowed a small smile to play with the edges of her mouth. She might be learning at chess, but she’d never win at poker.
