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Where could he do it? Here? He tore his mouth from hers and glanced around him. The lake was some distance from the house, and they were unlikely to be disturbed by Princess Catalina or the household staff. But the pebbly beach would be an uncomfortable place to have sex. He thought of carrying Arielle up to the grassy bank and making love to her there. But he did not have a condom, and she might not use any sort of contraceptive.
Finally, Eirik’s brain kicked into gear. He could not risk having unprotected sex with Arielle. And definitely not in a place that had been special to his brother. He remembered when he and Niels had sat beside the lake and talked of the future.
‘I will bring my children here and teach them to swim. Catalina and I are planning to try for a baby as soon as we are married,’ Niels had said.
‘You need an heir.’ Eirik had thanked his lucky stars that he was not the future Sovereign and did not have to bother with marriage or babies.
‘I want a baby with Lina because I love her more than I knew it was possible to love someone. Wait until it happens to you,’ Niels had told Eirik with a smile. ‘Love creeps up on you when you are not expecting it, and then—pow!’
But Niels’s life had been obliterated by an avalanche and the crown would pass to Prince Otto’s second-born son. The second-best son, Eirik thought grimly. It was how his parents had always made him feel. He had told himself he didn’t care and had built a life and career away from the stifling royal court. He had made a fortune and was a multimillionaire in his own right. That achievement at least had impressed his father. But now his future would be very different from the freedom and independence he had once enjoyed.
He had begun the process of selling his business, Sorensen Yachts, and he was preparing to devote his life to duty. It was up to him to prove he was worthy of the role that should have been his brother’s. So what was he doing, instigating casual sex with a beautiful siren who could never be his Princess Consort? Arielle would lure him to his doom unless he resisted her sensual witchery.
Eirik stared into her sea green eyes and knew for sure that she had cast a spell on him when she reached up and pressed her lips to his. Her sweet breath filled his mouth and he kissed her because he simply could not stop himself. She was heat and flame and he was burning up. He had never felt so out of control.
The sobering thought made him wrench his mouth from hers and set her away from him. Her hair was drying into titian curls and her bare breasts were creamy globes tipped with dusky rose nipples that he ached to suck on.
‘This can’t lead anywhere,’ he told Arielle. His voice rasped in his throat.
‘I don’t care.’ Her eyes were glazed and there was a hectic flush on her cheeks. She put her hands on his chest and he wondered if she could feel the erratic thud of his heart. ‘I know that our lives are on different paths, but I want this one time with you before we go our separate ways. I want you to teach me everything, Eirik.’
He understood then just how much of a threat she was. The temptation to pull her back into his arms and take what she was offering was an insistent drumbeat in his blood. His arousal was uncomfortably hard. But an alarm bell rang inside his head.
‘Teach you? Are you saying that you are a virgin?’ He must have sounded as appalled as he felt.
Arielle bit her lip. ‘No, of course I’m not. I had a boyfriend for a while. Not a very nice one as it happens. It...sex...wasn’t great, and, if you must know, he didn’t...satisfy me.’
Faen!Eirik swore silently. Arielle’s face was scarlet. Her vulnerability was the most dangerous thing of all. He suspected that, for her, sex and emotions were inextricably linked. But he did not do emotions.
He captured her hands and pulled them away from his chest before he stepped back from her. ‘This was a mistake.’ He forced himself to sound coolly dismissive, despite the thunderous desire still pounding inside him. He could not risk having sex with Arielle and for her to think that he might develop feelings for her. There was no chance of that happening.
Impossibly her face turned even redder, and the blush spread down her throat and décolletage. Eirik wondered if her pale breasts would flush so prettily pink with the heat of sexual desire. But he would never find out.
‘You started this,’ she said in a low voice that held the suspicion of tears.
‘And now I’m finishing it.’ He stooped to pick up her jumper and held it out to her. ‘Get dressed.’ Eirik hoped he would feel more in control of himself when he was not faced with the tantalising sight of Arielle’s naked breasts.
‘I told you the truth when I said I have not promised marriage to any woman. But the event I have been involved in organising is a masquerade ball, which will take place two weeks from now, at my official residence, the Winter Palace. The ball is to celebrate my birthday.’ He grimaced. ‘My mother has decided that it is an ideal opportunity to invite every woman who she deems suitable to be my future Princess Consort, and there is an expectation that I will announce I have chosen my bride.’
‘You make it sound so businesslike. How can you be sure you will fall in love with a woman who has your mother’s approval?’
‘I have no intention of falling in love. Nor do I want a wife who might fall in love with me. In that respect Ida Lundberg is ideal. Since childhood, her goal has been to become the Princess Consort. Her father hoped she would marry my brother, but Niels met Princess Catalina and it was love at first sight. Now Baron Lundberg sees another opportunity to link our two families.’
‘How romantic,’ Arielle said drily. ‘Why is your mother in such a rush for you to get married?’
‘Two years ago, my father was diagnosed with a malignant tumour. While he underwent treatment, he gave in to my mother’s pleas for him to abdicate and allow Niels to become ruler of Fjernland with Princess Catalina as Consort after their wedding. Obviously that did not happen,’ Eirik said gruffly. ‘Prince Otto has made a full recovery from cancer, but my mother is desperate for him to retire from public life. My father has agreed to stand down in favour of me, but only when I have a wife who will hopefully give me an heir.’
Eirik looked away from Arielle’s wide-eyed stare. He was royalty and this was how these things were arranged. That was what he had been taught. Love played no part in the begetting of heirs who would ensure the House of Sorensen’s bloodline as rulers of the principality that few people outside Fjernland had heard of.
By lucky chance his brother had fallen in love with a princess, who would have been his bride. But Eirik knew there was a dark side to love. Jealousy, despair, rejection; he understood that his mother had suffered those things in her marriage to his father, and he had experienced them himself when he’d been hurt by his parents’ indifference before he had learned to detach from his emotions.
He glanced at his watch. ‘We should get back.’ He waited while Arielle rolled up her mermaid’s tail, and she followed him as he strode up the beach. The path through the woods was just wide enough for them to walk side by side. The tall trees all around made the air feel close, or perhaps it was his intense awareness of the woman beside him that constricted his lungs.
‘My mother was in her early twenties when she fell in love with my father. Prince Otto was nearly forty and enjoyed a playboy lifestyle before and after they were married.’
Eirik was aware of the surprised look Arielle gave him. He had no idea why he was telling her about his dysfunctional family. ‘My parents were civil towards each other, but I never saw affection between them. I was about thirteen when I heard a rumour circulating at the palace that Prince Otto’s dalliance with a kitchen maid was not his first affair, nor likely to be his last.’ He shrugged. ‘My father married because he needed a son, and Princess Hulda duly provided an heir and a spare. She showered her love that her husband had spurned on my brother.’
‘What about you? Surely your mother loved you as much as your brother.’
