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‘I don’t wish to talk about it any more.’ He couldn’t talk about it. Couldn’t think about that lost child. Couldn’t let her see how much her defence of that child meant to him, or she would have even more power over him—and she had enough already. ‘I want you, and you want me,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it is time to stop talking altogether?’
He clasped her face and tugged her towards him. Her hands covered his, but she didn’t resist. Instead she softened against him.
He slanted his lips across hers.
This was what he needed from her, not pity or compassion, only this. And he’d waited far too long to take it.
His tongue delved deep, to capture her sob of need. The pent-up hunger of the last four days released in a rush as he gorged himself on her soft moan, her sweet mouth.
He angled her head to take the kiss deeper, to demand more. She clung to him, her fingers fisting in the cotton of his shirt, her tongue meeting his in a dance of temptation and desire.
The loud tap on the window had her jerking against his hold.
‘Your Majesty, we have arrived at the palace,’ the driver said through the tinted window.
‘Leave the door closed,’ he shouted, but he was forced to let her go.
Her hair fell around her face in disarray, her lips reddened by his kiss, her breathing as rapid as his.
‘Let’s stop overcomplicating this,’ he said. ‘I’m not a child anymore and neither are you. There’s no earthly reason why we shouldn’t make the most of the chemistry between us...’
Panic clouded her gaze. ‘But I can’t... I can’t marry you, Leo, that hasn’t changed.’
‘To hell with the marriage,’ he said.
Right now all he cared about was getting her into his bed. And stopping this need getting out of control. He’d revealed things about his past, his father, that made him feel more exposed than he had as a child, walking behind his mother’s casket and feeling so alone in a crowd of strangers. That had to stop, but the only way to do that was to put this thing on a level he could control.
Sex was simple, uncomplicated. Emotion not so much. He had become obsessed with her; to break that obsession he needed to feed the hunger, stop trying to deny it.
‘Do you...? Do you mean that?’ she asked. ‘You won’t expect more from me if we...’ he watched her throat contract as she swallowed ‘...if...if we become lovers?’
The wariness in her gaze made him reach out, to cup her jaw, and run his thumb across her lips.
‘If, Jade?’ he said, the surge of possessiveness undeniable when she leaned into the caress instinctively. ‘Don’t you mean, when?’
She pulled away from his touch, but the staggered passion in her gaze was all he needed to know.
She would be his. Before the week was out. But this was a big step for her. He needed to remember that. However instinctive her responses to him, however much she might desire him, she was innocent. He would be her first lover.
The surge of possessiveness—protectiveness even—at the thought shocked him to his core. He had never slept with a virgin before, had never wanted to, and had certainly never prized a woman’s virginity. Why would he? It would be the height of hypocrisy, given that he was not a virgin himself. But somehow he couldn’t deny that with Jade it was different.
He wanted to be the first man to hear her sigh, to hear her moan, to watch her come apart in his arms. But to do that, he needed to calm the hunger inside him.
‘I just don’t want you to think I’ve agreed to marry you by default,’ she said. ‘If we sleep together it doesn’t mean more than that.’
He huffed out a strained laugh. Captivated all over again, despite his best efforts not to be. When were her honesty, her integrity, her directness going to stop surprising him?
‘You have my word,’ he said. ‘When we sleep together,’ he corrected her again, ‘it will be for our private pleasure and nothing else. The marriage is something completely separate.’
The truth was, he still planned to press the case for marriage. And he was more than willing to use their shared passion to his advantage in that regard. But he could do that at a later date. If the only way to get her into his bed now was to agree to her terms, he would do so gladly.
‘Can we keep it private?’ she asked. ‘From the media? The public?’
He smiled, he couldn’t help it. How could she be this naïve? After a year as a queen and even longer as a royal princess? How could she not know it would be all but impossible to keep such a liaison a secret for long? But even so he humoured her. He wasn’t about to lose the chance to satisfy this maddening hunger on a technicality. ‘We can certainly try.’
‘When?’ she asked, her directness surprising him yet again—and sending a new wave of desire south. ‘When do you want to...to do it?’
Now.
