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“That is sheer amazement that you think you can manhandle me this way, nothing more.”
He moved the arm that wasn’t wrapped around her back, sliding his hand to the delectable bit of thigh that was bared beneath the hem of her dress and just held it there. Her skin was a revelation, warm and soft. And her perfect, aristocratic oval of a face was tipped back, his for the taking.
Maybe he was the Neanderthal she’d claimed he was, after all. For the first time in his life, he felt as if he was that and more. A beast in every possible way, inside and out.
“What would happen if I slid my hand up under your skirt?” he asked her, bending even closer, so his mouth was a mere breath from hers.
“I would summon the royal guard and have you cast into the dungeons, the more medieval the better.”
He ignored that breathy, insubstantial threat, along with the oddity of the Princess of Murin talking of dungeons in a palace that had never had any in the whole of its storied history. He concentrated on her body instead.
“What would I find, princess? How wet are you? How much of a liar will your body prove you to be?”
“Unlike you,” she whispered fiercely, “I don’t feel the need to prove myself in a thousand different sexual arenas.”
But she didn’t pull away. He noted that she didn’t even try.
“You don’t need to concern yourself with any arena but this one,” he said, gruff against her mouth and his palm still full of her soft flesh. “And you need not prove yourself to anyone but me.”
Rodolfo had kissed her once before. It had been a bloodless, mechanical photo op on the steps of Murin Castle. They had held hands and beamed insincerely at the crowds, and then he had pressed a chaste, polite sort of closemouthed kiss against her mouth to seal the deal. No muss, no fuss. It hadn’t been unpleasant in any way. But there hadn’t been anything to it. No fire. No raw, aching need. Rodolfo had experienced more intense handshakes.
That was not the way he kissed her today. Because everything was different, somehow. Himself included.
He didn’t bother with any polite, bloodless kiss. Rodolfo took her mouth as if he owned it. As if there was nothingarrangedabout the two of them and never had been. As if he’d spent the night inside her, making her his in every possible way, and couldn’t contain himself another moment.
Her taste flooded his senses, making him glad on some distant level that he’d had the accidental foresight to remain seated, because otherwise he thought she might have knocked him off his feet. He opened his mouth over hers, angling his jaw to revel in the slick, hot fit.
She was a marvel. And she was his, whether she liked it or not. No matter what inflammatory thing she said to rile him up or insult him into an international incident that would shame them both, or whatever the hell she was doing. How had he thought otherwise for even a moment?
Rodolfo lost his mind.
And his lovely bride-to-be did not push him off or slap his face. She didn’t lie there in icy indifference. Oh, no.
She surged against him, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him closer, and she kissed him back. Again and again and again.
For a moment there was nothing but that fire that roared between them. Wild. Insane. Unchecked and unmanageable.
And then in the next moment, she was shoving away from him. She twisted to pull herself from his grasp and then clambered off his lap, and he let her. Of course he bloody let her, and no matter the state of him as she went. That it was a new state—one he’d never experienced before, having about as much experience with frustrated desire as he did with governing the country he would one day rule—was something he kept to himself. Mostly because he hardly knew what to make of it.
The princess looked distressed as she threw herself across the room and away from him. She was trembling as she caught herself against the carved edge of the stone fireplace, and then she took a deep, long breath. To settle herself, perhaps, if she felt even a fraction of the things he did. Or perhaps she merely needed to steady herself in those shoes.
“Valentina,” he began, but her name seemed to hit her like a slap. She stiffened, then held up a hand as if to silence him. Yet another new experience.
And he could still taste her in his mouth. His body was still clamoring for her touch. He wanted her, desperately, so he let her quiet him like an errant schoolboy instead of the heir to an ancient throne.
“That must never happen again,” she said with soft, intense sincerity, her gaze fixed on the fireplace, where an exultant flower arrangement took the place of the fires that had crackled there in the colder months.
“Come now, princess.” He didn’t sound like himself. Gruff. Low. “I think you know full well it must. We will make heirs, you and I. It is the primary purpose of our union.”
She stood taller, then turned to face him, and he was struck by what looked liketormenton her face. As if this was hard for her, whatever the hell was happening here, which made no sense. This had always been her destiny. If not with Rodolfo, then with some other Crown-sanctioned suitor. The woman he’d thought he’d known all these months had always seemed, if not precisely thrilled by the prospect, resigned to it. He imagined the change in her would have been fascinating if he wasn’t half-blind fromwantingher so badly.
“No,” she said, and he was struck again by how different her voice sounded. But how could that be? He shook that off and concentrated instead on what she’d said.
“You must be aware that there can be no negotiation on this point.” He tamped down on the terrible need making his body over into a stranger’s, and concentrated instead on reality.
She frowned at him. “What if we can’t produce heirs? It’s more common than you think.”
“And covered at some length in the contracts we signed,” he agreed, trying to rein in his impatience. “But we must try, Valentina. It is part of our agreement.” He shook his head when she started to speak. “If you plan to tell me that this is medieval, you are correct. It is. Literally. The same provisions have covered every such marriage between people like us since the dawn of time. You cannot have imagined that a royal wedding at our rank would allow for anything else, can you?”
