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The little girl who hadn’t ended up being anyone’s sunshine, who had ended up destroying her parents’ marriage instead.
Looking at herself in the mirror had felt impossible, so she’d looked at him instead, mesmerised by the flickers of emotion that had glinted in his eyes. Pain and anger, so quickly masked she wasn’t sure if she’d seen them at all.
He shouldn’t be so fascinating to her. She shouldn’t want to ask him what had happened to him, why he’d been exiled, and why he’d returned when he was reputed not to care about anyone or anything. So many questions she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t.
He was her prince and she was only a guard, and she had no right to any of them.
His eyes in the mirror gleamed and she knew that he was angry. That what she’d said about dying for his royal house had got to him in some way. But how? And why? He knew her purpose as well as she did, so why should that make him angry?
Why would he let the opinion of one lowly royal guard get to him in this way?
‘Well?’ His breath was warm on the bare skin of her neck and shoulders. ‘Tell me the truth. If I ordered you to get naked for me, would you do it?’
Yes, he was angry. She must have hit him where he was vulnerable and now he was snapping like a tiger, going on the attack.
Fascination wrapped itself around her, holding her tight. He was so strong and so powerful, invulnerable almost. Yet she’d found a weak point in his armour and that intrigued her, thrilled her.
‘Yes,’ she said, purely to see what his reaction would be. ‘I would.’
‘Would you?’ His grip on her hair shifted, his fingers easing down to the nape of her neck and pressing lightly. ‘And if I ordered you into my bed, you’d do that too?’
He didn’t mean it, she knew that. He was still angry and that tiger was still snapping. Yet that didn’t stop a shiver from chasing over her skin at the thought of obeying his orders, unzipping her gown and being naked in front of him, of moving over to that bed and slipping between its sheets, waiting for him...
There was a dragging kind of pressure between her thighs, a pulse directly related to the hard, muscular wall of his chest at her back and the slight brush of his fingers on her neck. She knew what they were: her feminine urges. But she would not surrender the way her mother had surrendered. Unlike Nerida Kouros, Calista was loyal.
Which makes this a dangerous game you’re playing.
Perhaps. But she was strong. And a soldier did not give ground.
‘Yes, Your Highness,’ she said levelly. ‘I would do that, too.’
‘You shouldn’t be so honest,’ the prince murmured. ‘An unprincipled man might take advantage of it.’ His fingertips brushed lightly over her nape. ‘A man such as myself, for example.’
His touch felt like sparks scattering all over her skin, lighting tiny fires wherever they landed.
She shivered. No one had laid hands on her like this, not with such gentleness. Every touch she’d had over the years had been in training and it had all been violent and physical. Punches and kicks, the purpose to incapacitate, to kill. But this wasn’t violent in any way. It was light, soft. Teasing. Almost as if he liked it and was doing it for his pleasure. And hers...
She swallowed, trying to resist the sensations. Physical pleasure made you weak and she could not give in. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Why would I want to order you into my bed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why would I not?’ His fingers began a gentle, hypnotic stroke up and down the sides of her neck, making those fires blaze. ‘You’re beautiful. And soon I’ll be engaged to a woman I don’t want and who doesn’t want me. A woman who isn’t passionate like you. Who doesn’t burn like the sun the way you do.’
She should pull away. She shouldn’t stand there letting him stroke her, making her feel soft and pliant. Like melted wax. But his voice was warm, with a roughness threading through it, a darkness that captivated her, getting under her defences like a sapper crawling beneath a wall.
Beautiful? She was beautiful?
‘What a pretty daughter I have,’her mother had said, pulling her daughter in for one of her special hugs as Calista had twirled in front of the mirror in one of Nerida’s pretty party dresses.‘You’ll break so many hearts when you grow up...’
Except it was her mother who’d ended up being the heartbreaker and the heart she’d ended up breaking had been Calista’s father’s.
And yours.
Yes. That was true. Which was why her heart now wore its own armour. She’d taken a leaf out of her father’s book and had tempered it, hardened it. And it would take more than a prince’s empty, pretty compliments to make it soften.
Yet a small, traitorous tendril of pleasure curled through her anyway, as if there was some part of her that had remained that weak, soft little girl, who’d loved her mother’s praise. Who’d loved her hugs and loved hugging her in return. Who’d believed it when her mother had told her that she loved her.
