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As soon as he woke, he pulled on a pair of jeans and headed out to his balcony. Ten minutes of waiting and no sign of Elsbeth in the garden.
Where was she? Every morning that week he’d stood at the French doors of his balcony and watched her walk across the lawn of their garden. A warning voice had told him to stay hidden, take a little private fix of her beauty and then get on with his day.
Since that moment in the press secretary’s office, getting on with his day had become a titanic battle with himself. Heburnedwith unfulfilled desire. Burned. That perfume he’d so detested...now he couldn’t get enough of it. Now, when they travelled to and from their engagements, every inhalation came with a dose of it, and it shot straight to his loins.Dio, it had been bad enough before, sitting in an enclosed space with the object of his infatuation there, close enough to touch, but now...
He could not believe the strength of his craving for her.
And she wanted him too. It had been written all over her face in that mad moment. As still as she held herself and as indifferent her outward body language during the hours they’d spent on engagements the last two days, she could no longer mask her eyes to him, or mask the desire they contained. That composure she wore like an iron cloak...slowly but surely it was slipping off her shoulders. He ached to rip it away and watch her lose the last of her control, and then bury himself in her.
Impulse took possession of him.
Not bothering to put a T-shirt on or anything on his feet, Amadeo bounded down the iron steps from his balcony and knocked loudly on her French doors.
He gave her ten seconds and knocked again. And again.
A shadow appeared through the glass before the door opened. Instead of Elsbeth, he was confronted with an armed palace guard, who took one look at him, turned bright red and set off with a profusion of apologies.
‘It’s okay,’ Amadeo said, interrupting him impatiently once he’d got the gist that the guard had been stationed in his and Elsbeth’s joint reception room and, when he’d heard unexpected banging on the French door at six in the morning, had done what he was trained to do. ‘It’s great that you’re so alert and doing your job so well and keeping the Princess safe. Where is she?’
‘In her room with Gregor.’ Gregor was the other guard.
‘Good man. You can return to your post. Radio Gregor and give him the all-clear.’
Striding through the day room—a deep red armchair had been added to it, replacing, he was sure, a dusky pink one—he then turned into the corridor at the same moment Gregor left Elsbeth’s room, speaking into the walkie-talkie the guards used to communicate when stationed on duty. Behind him, Elsbeth appeared, wearing a short black nightdress that perfectly showed off the delectable golden legs he’d so admired from his balcony.
She came to a sudden halt.
Eyes puffy from sleep captured his, a light forming in them as her chest rose.
He stepped closer to her.Dio, in this sleepy tousle-haired state she really did look good enough to eat.
‘I thought you were an early riser,’ he murmured.
Her throat moved a number of times before she whispered, ‘I had trouble falling asleep.’
Standing before her, he gazed deep into her eyes. ‘And why is that?’
The colour staining her cheeks was a joy to witness, and he knew, without a solitary shadow of doubt, that what had kept her from sleeping was the same thing that had woken him before the sun.
Saturday. Their day.
She’d been waiting for it with the same heightened expectation as he had.
They had all day if they wanted. No rules would be broken.
A whole day to sate their hunger.
His arousal, finally freed from the mental chains he’d kept it clamped in for days, throbbed and burned.
He reached for her.
Elsbeth couldn’t move. She was spent. Her limbs were jelly, her pelvis tingling, molten.
Amadeo was still inside her, his face buried in her hair, his breathing ragged.
She couldn’t believe what had just happened. How it had felt to have her husband take her in his arms and practically throw her on the bed in his passion for her.
It had been like waking from the most wonderful dream, only to find the dream was real.
