Page 40 of Promoted To His Princess

She looked like a woman well-tumbled, no trace of the soldier remaining.

Good. The soldier was far too sharp and direct for his liking. Right now, he preferred the soft, hot, passionate woman.

He brushed back a lock of hair sticking to her forehead. ‘Are you all right? I didn’t hurt you?’

‘No.’ Her sweet voice was slightly husky, her hands still moving on his back. She smiled, making his heart almost stand still in his chest. ‘Not at all.’

No, he didn’t want this. Didn’t want her smiling at him. Didn’t want the maddeningly light brush of her fingertips. He wanted her nails scoring him, her teeth biting him, her legs around his hips, squeezing him, not this...gentle touching.

‘Good.’ He bent and kissed her mouth again before moving down, trailing kisses along her neck, tasting the hollow of her throat, her pulse leaping against his tongue.

‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Why did you stop me?’

He didn’t need to ask her what she meant; he already knew. But he didn’t want to talk about it, so he nipped the side of her neck instead. ‘I think I should make it clear,’ he murmured, nipping her again, her breath catching as he did so, ‘if it wasn’t clear already, that our marriage will definitelynotbe in name only.’

‘Xerxes.’ She shivered, her hands coming to his chest.

He nuzzled the side of her neck, just beneath her ear. ‘I like the way you say my name.’ Moving lower, he brushed his mouth over her sensitive collarbones. ‘Say it again.’

Her hands pushed against his chest. ‘Xerxes. Stop.’

Dammit.

He lifted his head again, not bothering to hide his anger. ‘I don’t want to talk about this right now.’ Shifting on her, he fitted the growing hardness of his shaft against the soft, sweet heat between her thighs. ‘I have other things I want to do.’

Her body shivered beneath his, but she didn’t look away.

She was deceptive. He’d thought the woman wouldn’t be quite as confrontational as the soldier, but apparently that was not the case. ‘I tell you something, you tell me something,’ she murmured. ‘Wasn’t that what you said?’

Yes, he had said that. Clearly, he’d been an idiot.

‘But I did tell you something.’ He ran a hand down her side, stroking her then lingering to cup one full, round breast. ‘Which means it’s your turn.’ His thumb brushed over her rapidly hardening nipple. ‘Or you could do something else instead.’ He circled the taut peak, teasing it. ‘I’m sure you’d find that infinitely more pleasurable.’

She gave a little gasp as he pinched her gently, her eyelashes fluttering half-closed, her back arching into his hand. She was so responsive. He remembered that from their night together. Which was excellent, since it made her easy to distract.

‘When I was around twelve, my mother promised to take me out shopping for my birthday,’ she said huskily. ‘I loved her so much, loved spending time with her, and I was so looking forward to it. But when the day came, she told me she had a meeting she couldn’t change and we’d have to cancel it. I was so upset and angry. To this day I don’t know why I followed her, but I did. I got on my bike and followed her into the city.’

Xerxes stopped touching her, the emotion in her voice making something inside him pause.

‘She didn’t go to her office building like I thought she would,’ Calista went on. ‘She went to a park instead and there was a man waiting for her by the fountain. The man took her in his arms and kissed her, and that’s when I knew it wasn’t a work meeting. She was meeting her lover.’ Calista’s eyes remained half shut. ‘I was so angry. So very,veryangry. I went straight home and told my father. And he was angry, too. That night I heard them shouting in his office and so I crouched outside the door, trying to listen to what was going on. She’d been having an affair for a year, because she felt my father didn’t love her. And he...said that she was a faithless whore and that he never wanted to see her again. Mum burst out of the door, tears on her face. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me when she found me outside.’ Her voice thickened. ‘I loved her so much, and I wanted to be her when I grew up. But the absolute loathing in her eyes in that moment... She shouted at me that it was my fault, that I’d ruined her life, and then she walked away.’ Calista’s eyes opened suddenly, looking up into his. ‘I never saw her again.’

Her gaze was dark with old pain and he was seized by the sudden need to kiss her lovely mouth, stroke her silky skin, make her feel better.

‘Dad told me that it wasn’t my fault,’ she went on. ‘That I’d been right to tell him what I saw. That I would never disappoint him like she had. That I was loyal. But sometimes I wonder if I really did do the right thing. Sometimes...’ She swallowed. ‘Sometimes I can’t help feeling like... I betrayed her.’

The note of anguish in her voice made his chest constrict, and all he could think about was that of course she would think she’d betrayed her mother. Given the strength of her commitment to her country, she was deeply loyal and felt things very intensely. Both were valuable, admirable traits, but also a double-edged sword; it was clear her mother’s abandonment had hurt her terribly.

He cupped her cheek in his hand, the way he’d done the night they’d spent together, giving her some gentleness. ‘You didn’t ruin anything,’ he said. ‘If your mother was having an affair, then it was already ruined. It would only have been a matter of time before it all fell apart.’

Calista’s throat moved as she swallowed. ‘I shouldn’t have got so angry about that stupid shopping trip. I shouldn’t have told Dad. I should have talked to her or something. But I didn’t. All I could think about was that she’d ruined Dad’s life, and she’d ruined mine, and that I wanted to ruin hers back.’

His own mother had died very young; he barely remembered her. But he knew what it was to feel anger at a beloved parent. To feel betrayed by them. To feel abandoned.

He brushed his thumb over her mouth then bent and kissed her, soft and sweet. ‘You were twelve,’ he murmured. ‘Of course you would feel that way. And she shouldn’t have been angry with you. She was the one who had the affair. It was her issue, not yours.’

Calista’s eyes were very dark. ‘I wanted to ruin her, Xerxes. So I did.’

‘You loved her and she hurt you. It’s not wrong to feel angry. And all you did was hasten something that would have happened anyway.’

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