Page 25 of To Claim His Heir by Christmas

‘Neanderthal, much?’

He gave a breezy shrug. She could call him what she liked; it changed nothing.

‘And, secondly, I’m not merely talking about my father. I’m talking about my sister, Claudia. She’ll be frantic by morning.’ A devious light flashed in her eyes. ‘Speaking of Claudia… Oh, you don’t want to meet her husband in a dark alley. In fact when he hears about this he’ll make you wish you’d never been born.’

Thane lounged back with a lazy smile on his face. ‘This would be Lucas Garcia? Once head of national security for Arunthia?’

‘That’s exactly who it is.’

‘And you think I fear him?’

She scrunched up her nose. ‘Yes, well, come to think of it that is a flawed strategy. The devil himself wouldn’t scare you. But one day you’re going to meet your nemesis, and I’d love to be there when you do.’

He had a feeling he already had. In this woman.

‘If I have my way you will be there.’

‘On this occasion I’m afraid you’ll have to accept defeat. I’m not staying with you. I’ll move heaven and earth to get home, and the sooner you realise that the better. You can’t always have what you want, Thane.’

‘Ah, Luciana. When there is a war to be fought I will always be the victor. Especially when I want the prize so very, very badly. And I want you, Luciana—very, very badly. So I will do whatever it takes to make you mine.’

Those smooth, satiny cheeks flooded with a warm sensual blush of pleasure even as she pursed her mouth in an expression that screamed cynicism.

‘Whatever it takes, huh? I don’t think personality transplants are available on this continent, Thane. And, believe me, it will take more than a dishonourable kidnapping rat to woo me down the aisle.’

At the blatant challenge he felt his blood heat and he arched one brow.

‘Okay. So I haven’t been the most noble of men today.’

‘Ha!’

‘I honestly didn’t think it would upset you this much. I am struggling to understand why you want to go home so desperately when there is nothing for you there but a ball and chain and a vapid viscount.’

She shifted uneasily and pulled her lip into her moist mouth with a scrape of her teeth. Before he could discern if he was seeing guilt or not, she ground that curvy, firm bottom over his rapidly hardening groin and he had to grind his jaw to stop a feral moan escaping.

Unclamping his jaw took some effort. ‘All that being said, perhaps a more subtle approach would have been better—but I cannot turn back time.’

‘You could take me home,’ she suggested hopefully.

Not if the survival of mankind depended on it.

‘What about if I make a deal with you instead?’

That grabbed her attention, and she focused those incredible eyes back on him. Where he wanted them to stay.

‘What kind of a deal?’

‘You give me two days to…what did you call it? Court you? Date you? And if after those two days you still wish to return home I will take you myself. Escort you to your father’s door and never darken it again.’

Not that it would come to that.

The knowledge that he was using military tactics to keep his princess in line did not impress his sense of fair play, but then again fair play had flown out of the window when he’d clapped eyes on her in the company of Augustus. She was his gorgeous little lioness. The answer to his royal prayers.

In his arms, he could feel the tension ooze from her body, and a corresponding flood of gratification unravelled the anxious knots in his mind.

‘You mean it?’

Her brandy eyes melted to warm honey and flowed through his chest like blissful nectar, soothing his every raw nerve. He brushed the back of his index finger down her nose. Over her lips. Luscious lips that he glossed with the pad of his thumb, where they were still bruised from his kisses.

A new kind of tension sizzled in the air and a glow of unsatisfied desire filled the space between them––an invisible presence that moved over his skin, sliding over them both like a caress. A teasing, taunting, tempting caress.

And right there was the difference between him and Augustus. Bedevilled, off-the-charts sizzling chemistry. Black magic.

This. This was what he would play on.

Regardless of how he’d got her on this jet, he still made her weak with desire—and right now that was all he had to work with.

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