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Chapter 6
HENRYK
What started as a chaste kiss meant to satisfy my own curiosity quickly flared into need and desire and heat so potent I couldn’t stop kissing her.
Her lips were soft, and she tasted like red wine and summer.
I pressed deeper, sliding my tongue between her lips. When she moaned, I swallowed the sound and slid my hands down her body, gripping her waist and pulling her more tightly against my body.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and pushed closer.
Oh, fuck. I’m in trouble.
My cock twitched with need and the urge was strong to pick Erin up and carry her into the private suite behind us. I wanted her. I wanted to feel her skin, the heat of her body, the gentle curves. I was so ready.
Tearing my lips from hers, I stepped back, panting with the effort it took to stop touching her. Stopkissingher.
I stared at her, enchanted by the beauty that was so intense I didn’t have words to describe. Her cheeks were flushed with color and her lips bruised from my kisses. Somehow, though I didn’t remember doing it, I’d mussed her long, dark hair.
I looked away. No way would I be able to walk away from her or cool my lust if I continued staring like a man dying to touch her. Instead, I thought of duty. Mine specifically. To my country, to my father, to the woman I was to marry. As much as I hated it, my duty was probably the only thing that would stop me from taking her to bed.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Erin.” My voice was a deep rasp, and I’d yet to catch my breath. I sound like an eighty-year-old who’d just run a marathon.
“Are you all right?” Her concern was enough to shame me, but I brushed my hand down her cheek then pulled away before the one last touch I allowed myself turned into more.
I met her gaze and she pulled her lower lip between her teeth. It was innocent, sweet almost, and it drove me wild. My heart rate kicked up and my stomach clenched. I groaned. “Erin, I want you almost more than I can control and if you continue to look at me with such... like that...”I pointed at her face, and she tilted her head and I was too close to losing my control. “I’m not going to be able to walk away from you. And for our mutual good, I must.”
It could’ve been her beauty or the nostalgia of worshipping her back then, imagining her all these years and not even coming close to how incredible she was, or it could’ve been nothing more than the intensity of this moment, but I wanted her so badly I ached with need.
She slid her tongue along her lower lip in a quick swipe and I wanted to taste her again. “What if...”
I held up a hand and she stopped speaking, thank fuck. “Goodnight, Erin.”
“Counteroffer?”
Pathetic as I was, she didn’t need to say more. I quickly closed the distance between us and took her into my arms again.
Her arms wound around me and she clung. I was being held by a woman who wanted me as a man, not as a king. This one didn’t know what I was or who I was to be. She knew Henryk, the man.
Henryk, King of Lichtenstein. Nothing mattered except that I was to be king. And she would be gone. I couldn’t compromise either of us with an affair that could destroy us both. I had a duty to my kingdom.
I slowed the kiss and finally pulled back enough so I could rest my forehead against hers. “You are the most incredible woman.”
She curled her fingers into the front of my shirt. “Then don’t stop.”
I sighed, heavy and long. “Because you’re leaving tomorrow, and I don’t want to do anything that we would regret tonight.”
She pulled back like I’d burned her. “Oh my God. You’re right. And you’re engaged.” She shook her head. “What was I thinking?” And then she turned, no longer talking to me, but still talking. “What the hell? He’s engaged to someone else.Belongsto someone else.”
She staggered to her door grabbed hold of the handle, pushed it down and disappeared inside.
“Erin!” I called out because I was pathetic and I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to see her face for one more second.
“Yes?” She turned back to face me, biting her lip again and tempting me to indulge.
“Thank you for coming. You have no idea how much it means to my country.”
She shrugged like it didn’t matter, but the weight of this moment sat on my shoulders like a boulder even when she smiled. “It’s okay.”
