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‘No.’ She stared into his blue eyes, touched by his concern. But it was unnecessary. She was on fire for him, and more than anything she wanted him to reach the heights of sexual fulfilment that he had taken her to moments ago. When he withdrew a little way, she tilted her pelvis and slid her hands around his back, gripping his buttocks and urging him to thrust deeper inside her.
Eirik muttered something in Fjernlandic and rested his brow against hers. ‘This issogood for me, but I need it to be good for you too.’
‘It is, or it will be if you stop talking.’
His low rumble of laughter curled around her heart, and she felt a connection between them that was more than physical.
‘No more talking,’ he promised. He began to move, setting a devastating rhythm that Arielle found utterly addictive. She wrapped her legs around his hips as he drove into her faster, deeper. The orgasm he had given her with his mouth had been amazing, but now her body craved more. She sensed there was something even more intense, but it remained frustratingly beyond her reach.
‘Relax, and it will happen,’ Eirik murmured. He slipped his hand between their joined bodies and did something wickedly inventive with his fingers. At the same time he gave a hard thrust that drove the breath from her lungs and the world exploded. Her orgasm was so powerful, so pleasurable that Arielle lost all sense of time and place. Sensation after sensation tore through her as her vaginal muscles clenched and unclenched in the sweetest release.
Eirik was still plunging into her, faster, faster. She sensed his urgency and arched her hips to meet every vigorous thrust. He tensed and stared down at her. His eyes glittered, and his breath came in harsh pants, and then his face twisted, and he let out a savage groan as he gave one final, hard thrust. His big body shuddered with the force of his climax before he collapsed on top of her.
Arielle welcomed the weight of him pressing her into the mattress. She locked her arms around his back and turned her face into his neck. When she kissed his skin, she tasted the salt of his sweat. She wished they could stay there for ever, their limbs entwined and hearts thundering in unison. But wishes rarely came true, and after a while Eirik lifted himself off her and moved across the bed.
She missed the illusion of security when she had been in his arms and fought the temptation to snuggle up to him. ‘That shouldn’t have happened,’ she said, getting in first before he told her that he regretted what they had done.
‘Probably not,’ he agreed. There was amusement in his voice. He rolled onto his side and leaned up on one elbow, stroking damp tendrils of hair off Arielle’s face. She told herself that she must have imagined tenderness in his eyes. ‘But it did happen,’ he murmured. ‘And very soon it will happen again.’
He grinned at her startled expression and caught hold of her hand, holding it against his burgeoning arousal. ‘We have all night to enjoy each other, and I don’t intend to waste a second,min prinsessa.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
EIRIKWOKETOthe soft greyness before dawn. He opened his eyes and watched a finger of faint light poke through the chink in the curtains. A new day heralded a return to reality.
Last night with Arielle had been incredible. His muscles ached from the excesses of the most amazing sex he’d ever had. He’d made love to her several times and when finally their mutual desire had been sated, she had curled up against him like a sleepy kitten. He had slept deeply for the first time since his brother’s death, but now thinking of Niels opened the lid of Pandora’s box and reminded him that he must put duty before his personal desires.
It was a pity he had not remembered his duty last night, Eirik thought grimly. He turned his head on the pillow and studied a still sleeping Arielle. The sleek hairstyle she’d worn at the ball had reverted to its natural tumble of silky curls, and her auburn eyelashes made crescents on her cheeks. The sheet had slipped down to reveal one creamy breast tipped with a dusky pink nipple that Eirik knew would harden against his tongue if he succumbed to the temptation to put his mouth on her.
The night had exceeded all his expectations, but today he had a full diary of royal duties to perform. He frowned as he remembered how in the throes of passion he had called Arielle his princess. Of course she never could be the Princess Consort. Even if the rules on who he could marry were changed, he would not choose Arielle to be his wife. Not because he cared about their perceived difference in social status. He firmly believed that all people were equal, and it was down to fate that he had been born a prince. But a tragic twist of fate had made him the future monarch. It was his fault that the only person he had ever truly loved was dead, and Eirik assured himself that he did not want or deserve love. The woman he married would have to understand that he expected the relationship to be uncluttered by emotions.
He acknowledged that he did not know Arielle very well, but he suspected she was highly emotional, romantic, and looking for love. He needed to make it clear that she would not find it with him. The way to do that was not to pull the sheet away from her body and settle himself between her thighs to arouse her with his tongue. Remembering how much she had enjoyed him caressing her in that way, and the husky moans she’d made when she’d climaxed against his mouth, made him instantly hard.
Swearing beneath his breath, Eirik slid out of bed and headed for the en suite bathroom to take a cold shower. Standing beneath the punishing spray, he tried to fathom why he was finding it hard to walk away from Arielle when he’d never had a problem compartmentalising his previous lovers in a file marked temporary. Possibly it was because Arielle had seen him at his most vulnerable when she’d saved him from the sea, he brooded. He felt a connection with her. He liked her and he was interested in her marine conservation work. Perhaps they could have been friends if he hadn’t let his libido overrule his common sense.
Who was he kidding? he mocked himself when he went into his dressing room and donned the uniform he was required to wear to a military ceremony he was to attend later. He did not want a platonic friendship with Arielle. He had hoped that sleeping with her would release him from her siren’s spell. Surely, novelty had been part of her attraction. The thrill of the chase and her ultimate surrender.
But when he returned to the bedroom and saw Arielle still sprawled on the satin sheets, her red curls spilling over the pillow, Eirik was sorely tempted to wake Sleeping Beauty with a kiss that would quickly escalate into tumultuous passion, and he knew that he was in trouble.
‘Arielle, wake up.’ Eirik’s curt voice pulled Arielle from an erotic dream in which she’d relived the many and varied ways he had made love to her throughout the night. But he did not sound like the sexy lover who had groaned her name when she’d wriggled down the bed and flicked her tongue along the length of his manhood.
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and stared at a stranger. Eirik was resplendent in a dark blue suit decorated with gold buttons and epaulettes. A red silk sash was draped across one shoulder and tied around his waist. Attached to his jacket were several military medals. With his blond hair swept back from his brow and the stubble on his jaw neatly trimmed, he looked like the handsome Prince Charming beloved of fairy tales. But he was remote and unsmiling. Clearly he hadn’t read the part of the story where he was meant to wake her with a kiss.
‘You need to get up,’ he told her.
‘I gather that my presence in your bedchamber is no longer required, Your Highness,’ she said drily, determined not to let him see that she was hurt by his brusqueness. She sat up and snatched the sheet over her breasts.
A dull flush ran along his cheekbones. ‘We both knew that we could only spend one night together.’
She nodded. It was true, but she hadn’t expected him to dismiss her quite so brutally. ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll be out of your hair.’ Her voice was as cool as his. She saw a pool of green velvet on the floor where her ball gown had landed when Eirik had undressed her the previous night. ‘I left my overnight bag with a change of clothes in my room in the guest wing of the palace.’
‘I had Gustav bring your things here to my private suite.’ Eirik indicated her bag on a chair. ‘I’ll leave you to get dressed. I have an appointment this morning and Gustav will drive you back to the marine institute.’
But he continued to stand at the foot of the bed and his eyes narrowed when Arielle inched across the mattress and stood up, clutching the sheet around her to hide her nakedness. ‘It’s a bit late for modesty,’ he drawled. ‘Last night I kissed every inch of your body.’
‘Last night we were lovers, but now we are not.’ Tears threatened, and she wished he would go, before she suffered the humiliation of breaking down in front of him. ‘I assume from your uniform and the impressive row of medals on your chest that you are going to a royal event.’
‘A passing out parade at the naval college. It’s an important day for the cadets and I will preside over the ceremony as the High Commander of Fjernland’s Navy.’
