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And not one of those images had provoked the faintest glimmer of desire in her.
‘He’s a grisly bear of a man,’ she found herself whispering, dimly aware that Constantin’s eyes were suddenly very bright and that he was actually sitting much closer to her than she’d thought. ‘With a beard. And...’
There was a pause. A heartbeat of a pause.
‘And?’ he prompted smokily.
Zabrina looked at him and knew it still wasn’t too late, even though she had already said far too much. She could send the bodyguard away and retire to her room and take whatever consequences came her way. But she couldn’t seem to move. Not only couldn’t, but didn’t want to, despite the undeniable thrum of danger in the air and the sense that something momentous was about to happen. She just wanted to sit there, drowning in the smoky grey light from his eyes and letting his velvety voice wash over her. ‘And I hate beards,’ she added, her voice suddenly fierce.
Roman nodded in response to her bitter words. He should have been angry. It was surely his right to be angry but that was the last thing he was feeling. Maybe because the defiant face which was turned to his was so irresistible. Maybe because he wasn’t used to such candour, not from anyone. He could see the urgent flicker of a pulse beating at the base of her neck and could sense all the latent resentment which had stiffened her slender frame. But there was something else he could see in her eyes and that something was desire—a sexual hunger which surely matched the one which was pulsing around his veins. It had been present from the moment they’d met and now it was plainer than ever.
She didn’t want the man she was promised to, he realised—and yet she wanted him.
He shook his head slightly, knowing what he should do. He should immediately absent himself from her company and address the disturbing aspects of her character this had raised in the cold, clear light of morning. But he knew he wasn’t going to. He was going to kiss her. He
had to kiss her because she was drawing him to her like a magnet. He was dazzled by the light which shone from her eyes. As he looked into her face his overriding sensation was one of intoxication. Or maybe he had just been celibate for too long and was woefully unprepared for any kind of temptation.
All he could see was the gleam of her lips. The rise and fall of her breasts and the whisper of her unsteady breath as she looked at him, those forest-green eyes soft and molten with hunger. The subtle scent of desire hung like a musky perfume in the air and he felt it wrapping him with silken bonds. He knew he should tell her the truth. Tell her who he really was. But how could he possibly explain his dilemma when right then he wasn’t sure who he was? No longer an ice-cold monarch or masquerading bodyguard, but a man whose senses had been invaded with a potency which had taken him by surprise, leaving his nerve-endings clamouring and urgent with need.
It felt visceral.
It felt all-consuming.
As if everything he’d ever known before that moment had been forgotten and was focussed in the hard, sweet throbbing at his groin.
He must have moved, for his shadow threw her slender body into shaded relief and his face hovered above her startled, yet hungry expression. And suddenly he was responding to the glint of invitation in her eyes. He was bending to brush his lips over hers, fired up by the groan of pleasure which passed from her mouth to his as he kissed her. He told himself that any moment now she would come to her senses and push him away, but that wasn’t happening. Her fingers were on his shoulders. They were digging into his flesh and she was pulling him closer, as if she wanted him to go deeper. And he did. God, he’d never kissed a woman as deeply as this before. The pressure of their seeking mouths was like lighting the touchpaper of a firework. He could feel her breasts pressing against his chest. His tongue laced with hers and she was moaning softly—moaning like someone in the middle of an erotic dream who was just about to come.
Was she?
Or was he?
Maybe.
Roman slipped his hand beneath her baggy top and a groan of pleasure escaped him as he cupped her breast in his palm, luxuriating in the lace-covered feel of it. He kneaded the soft flesh, thinking how much more luscious it was than it had appeared beneath her embellished dress of earlier. He grazed a negligent thumb over one pert nipple and heard her little moan of joy.
His lips on her neck, he ran the tip of his tongue over her skin and felt her shiver in response and, as he tasted her flesh, he felt utterly bewitched by her. His hand moved down towards the waistband of her sweatpants and she was circling her hips towards him, like a dancer on a podium inviting men to throw money at her. And all the questions he should have asked—not just of himself, but of her—suddenly seemed to evaporate.
Hadn’t he told her that everything which was said would remain between these four walls for ever—and didn’t that count for everything they did, as well?
‘Princess,’ he intoned huskily. But it was more than an undeniable purr of appreciation. It was also an unspoken question which they both understood as he stared deep into her eyes.
Zabrina stilled as she heard the use of her official title, but even that brief brush with reality wasn’t enough to dampen her desire for him, which was off the scale. He was tacitly asking if she wanted to continue and she knew only too well what she ought to say. Despite her inexperience, she could sense that things were getting rapidly out of control, yet she was doing nothing to stop him—and it was pretty obvious why. All during dinner she’d been fascinated by him. She had been deeply attracted to him on a physical level, yes, but there had been a huge element of trust, too.
He had told her she could confide in him and for some reason she had believed him—because the light shining from his grey eyes had looked genuine and honest. So she had. She’d told him more than she’d ever told anyone. But all those confidences now seemed like a double-edged sword. It had been good to get things off her chest and vocalise her doubts to someone outside her immediate family, yet the freedom of doing such an unroyal thing had made her feel strangely restless and...incomplete.
It had made her long for the freedom to do more of the same. It had made her wish she weren’t a princess who was being sold off to a man she didn’t know, but a woman who had the ability to make her own choices about things. Like, about who she would give her body to, when she chose to have sex for the first time. Constantin had tried to put her mind at rest by explaining that Roman was an exacting rather than a cruel king—but that didn’t cancel out the fact that she didn’t fancy him, did it?
But she fancied Constantin.
Her heart pounded almost painfully. She fancied him more than she could say. Especially as he was now peeling back her sweatshirt and bending his mouth to the mound of her breast. She tipped her head back and a helpless shudder ran through her as he sucked at the nipple through the flimsy barrier of her new bra. And now he was beginning to stroke her belly and she wanted more. Much more. She could feel the molten heat building between her thighs, along with a hungry pulse of need which had started flickering there. Her mouth dried to dust because he was igniting a yearning deep inside her and it felt so incredible that every cell of her body was screaming to let him carry on.
So she did.
She told herself it would only be for a minute. Certainly no longer than that.
His hand slipped further down and he pushed aside the centre panel of her panties, which were almost shockingly wet, and Zabrina gave a little cry as he made contact with her aching flesh. She swallowed. Was it so wrong for his finger to be skating urgently over that most intimate part of her? And for that same finger to alight on the exquisitely sensitised nub before beginning to move in delicate rhythm? How could it be wrong when it felt like nothing she’d ever experienced before? When it felt so good...
She closed her eyes as the light movement made her catch her breath, then blindly she lifted her face to his, and his responding kiss made her feel as if she were drowning in honey.
