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He was the biggest unknown in all of this. What the hell was a woman like Luciana doing with a scumbag like him? He was missing something vital here, and he did not appreciate having only half the intel on a situation.
During the twenty minutes he’d waited for her to emerge from the lodge he’d accessed every file he could uncover.
Princess Luciana Valentia Thyssen Verbault. Born and raised in Arunthia. Schooled at Eton and Cambridge, England. No record of her time in Zurich. No surprise there, since she’d been a carousing black-haired gypsy. Five years in China. Low-key. There was only the odd photograph during that time, either with a dark-haired friend and two small boys, or back home at a royal function—as if she’d returned to Arunthia for that purpose entirely, only to travel straight back to China. So what had been there to lure her back again and again? A job? Maybe. But why did his instincts tell him it was a man?
One thing was clear: unless he got a better picture of her life his plans would be dead in the water before he’d even launched them off the jetty.
While all this circled around in his head like manic vultures, Luciana launched into another talkfest about Arunthia: how content the people were, how he could learn a thing or two. The bare-faced cheek of it! Her arms wafted in the air as she warmed to her subject. And, Dios, no matter what crap came out of her mouth, she was the picture of enthralling passionate beauty.
He’d adored that about her. How she could talk for hours. About nothing in particular. Silly, mundane things—music, movies and architecture. He’d revelled in that freedom from his responsibilities, the chance to forget the trouble at home for a while. Ironic that he’d chosen a Zurich festival, having been once before in his uni days, to get away from it all and met a woman from his own sphere who’d been doing exactly the same thing.
An odd memory hit and a smile curved his lips. One she caught.
‘What?’
‘I was just thinking of the time we went to the cinema and were thrown out because you wouldn’t stop talking.’
A lie.
‘Talking? We didn’t get thrown out because we were talking. We got evicted because we were…’ Heat plumed in the rapidly shrinking confines of the car, driving a flush high across her cheekbones. ‘Never mind.’
He felt so smug he could hear his own grin. ‘Shall I finish that for you?’
‘No, thank you. It’s best if we don’t go there, okay?’
She was right. He should be getting a handle on her relationship with the Viscount, not testing her memory. Not watching that beautiful blush frisk down her neck and caress her collarbone. Not inhaling her subtle vanilla and jasmine scent until his body prickled with heat and unleashed a firestorm of memories that turned him hard as steel.
Like the sensation of those plump lips softening beneath his as she’d surrendered to him. The way she’d felt when he’d thrust inside her virginal tight body. The way her legs had curled around his waist as he took her over and over. Lithe, svelte legs…glossed with skin that had felt like finely powdered icing sugar beneath his palms and tasted just as sweet. The softest, most exquisite texture he’d ever touched. Legs that were taunting him now because they were fuller. Lusher. Just like her breasts…
Thane shifted in his seat, the creak of leather sharpening his arousal as his body roared to life. Feral lust pushed incessantly against his zipper. Worse still, she exacerbated his darkly erotic state by squirming and lifting her hair from her nape as if she were over-hot. Well, that made two of them.
Depressing the window button, he let the cool air slither through the gap in a wispy sheet of fog and relished the odd snowflake that settled on the back of his hand.
Luciana’s answer was to snatch a bar of chocolate from the mini-bar and have ravenous sex with every bite. He could virtually hear her silent moans.
‘Hungry?’ he asked, his voice as thick as his throat.
She licked the sweet treat from her lips with a sensual flick of her tongue. ‘Erm…yes. Dinner was awful.’
He took the opening for what it was. Perfect for getting him back on track. ‘The food or the company?’
Her gaze drifted to stare unseeingly out of the tinted window. The runway floodlights flickered over her at intervals, highlighting the honeycomb strands in her lavish hair and lending her skin an incandescent glow.
Ethereal was surely the only word to describe her in that moment. Seraphic. And his ardour dulled as he was struck with the feeling that he was too dark to touch her. That he would taint her somehow.
