by Maya Blake
Her hair unravelled further as she shook her head. ‘Never,’ she whispered.
‘Do you want me to stop?’
She swallowed. ‘No...’
Pure male satisfaction flared over his face. Then, before she could wrestle back the last of her sanity and put a stop to this madness, his finger slid inside her. Slowly. Carefully. Ensuring she felt every breath-stealing second of invasion.
Her muscles clenched around him, greedily absorbing the giddy sensation. Then Remi touched the barrier of her innocence and the look on his face was transformed again, eclipsing all previous emotions.
Her heart lurched, thumped wildly against her ribs as she deciphered it. Shock. Hunger. Possessiveness. Raw and unadulterated.
She shouldn’t be feeling so exhilarated. Shouldn’t be allowing that fever to rage even more fiercely through her bloodstream.
‘Dio mio, veramente exquisitivo,’ he breathed.
‘Remi...’
‘Be calm, my beautiful innocent. I’ll safeguard your treasure,’ he muttered thickly.
He didn’t remove his touch. Instead he levered himself over her, that enthralling finger moving in and out of her as he started to kiss her again, his tongue mimicking the action of his finger.
Maddie had no warning, no way to prepare herself when bliss shattered what remained of her world. With her fingers buried in his hair, Maddie gave herself over to intoxicating sensation, a slave to the magic of his fingers as he sent her soaring high.
She was aware that a hoarse scream ripped from her but she didn’t care. It was all she could do to hold on to him as her world exploded in fragments of colour.
When she came to, she was alone on the sofa. Remi stood framed between the two heavy drapes at the window, his gaze on the street below. Whether he was granting her time to compose herself or was once again caught in the grip of furious guilt—she suspected the latter—she was thankful for the reprieve.
Quickly she straightened her clothes, passed a shaky hand over her hair just as he turned around. For a full minute he simply looked at her, until a different, more self-conscious flame rushed over her skin.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she asked, the shakiness racking her body infusing her voice.
‘You’re a beautiful and desirable woman.’ His voice was heavy, gravel-rough.
Her skin burned hotter. ‘That sounds like an accusation.’
His hand slashed the air. ‘Perhaps I’m still trying to understand—’
‘Look there’s no great mystery, okay? I had a boyfriend—’
‘A boyfriend?’ He spat out the word as if it was poisonous, his eyebrows knotting in a thunderous frown.
‘Yes, you know what those are, don’t you?’
Her sarcasm bounced off him, his expression remaining the same as he slid his hands into his pockets. ‘Tell me. I want to know.’
‘Greg and I grew up together. I thought we were friends. We fell out of touch for a while, but when I needed a friend I called him. We grew...close. I thought I was in a trusting relationship with him. Until I found out my plight was fodder for his amusement with his rich friends. Not only that, turns out Greg makes a habit of seeking out women and talking them into taking risky financial ventures with his company. Unfortunately I was one of those naïve victims.’
Maddie couldn’t disguise her bitterness, nor shake off the heavy weight of her own failure and Greg’s betrayal. She’d trusted him enough to hand over the last of her father’s savings, with his reassurance that his stockbroking firm would double her money within a few months, ensuring she would have enough for his rehabilitation, filling her with wild hope.
She’d lost everything.
Remi exhaled sharply. ‘Did you report him to the authorities?’
She shrugged again. ‘It was all above-board, apparently. Greg claimed I’d willingly signed on the dotted line and that I knew the high risk of the investments he was making on my behalf. There was just enough truth in his story and, using our history, he convinced the authorities that I was a bitter ex-girlfriend with a grudge. He got away with it. And I was left with nothing but the clothes on my back and, yes, my virginity.’
Remi walked towards her, his eyes fixed on her face. ‘Is he the reason you’re caught in this lifestyle?’ he asked thinly.
‘It would be easy to blame everything on him. But, no, he just happened to be one straw in the bundle that eventually broke me.’
One sleekly masculine eyebrow rose. ‘You think yourself broken?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m currently living with a strange man who likes to throw his weight about, berate me when I’m fifteen minutes late and is paying me for the privilege. What would you call that?’
‘I call it negotiating for what you want without compromising what’s important to you. And I’m not strange,’ he tagged on.
Maddie bit her lip against the smile that wanted to escape. ‘Careful, Remi, or I might think you respect me.’
The corner of his mouth twitched for half a second before that bewildered frown returned ten-fold and he turned away sharply.
‘There you go, treating me like I’m a leper again.’
He froze. ‘What are you talking about?’
She shook her head. ‘What happened on the sofa wasn’t planned, so if you’re going to hate yourself for it could you please do it elsewhere?’
She wasn’t completely sure that she wouldn’t welcome a repeat, despite the polarising vibes now emanating from Remi. And just what did that say about her willpower?
‘Maddie—’
‘If we’re not going out, I’d like to go to my suite now, please,’ she interrupted, not sure she could take any more of that look on his face.
For another long moment he stared narrow-eyed at her, until stinging awareness grew into unbearable proportions. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak his phone burst to life.
He stared at the screen with a mixture of grim resolution and irritation. ‘I need to take this call. Then we’ll talk. Yes?’
Licking her lips, Maddie nodded, managing to hold herself together until he left the room. Then she hightailed it to her suite on embarrassingly shaky legs.
She was staring into space, her senses roiling out of control, when her own phone rang.
It was with trembling hands and an unfocused mind that she answered. It took a minute for Mrs Jennings’s distressed tones to sink in. And as Maddie rushed for the door she was almost grateful for the distraction of this new bombshell that had been thrown into her life.
Because now she didn’t have to dwell on the terrifying knowledge that what she’d just experienced with Remi Montegova had fundamentally changed her. And that there might be no going back.
CHAPTER SIX
REMI SUPPRESSED ANOTHER groan as he stepped out of his dressing room and headed back into his private living room. At the ringtone announcing his mother’s call, part of him had relished the news he intended to give her, even though he knew she would resist it. But he’d already warned her he would do things his way.
With the charged tension between them, he’d been reluctant to leave Maddie, and he’d almost changed his mind on seeing the lingering arousal in her eyes. Remembering the taste of her. Her unfettered responses. Her tight innocence.
The cold shower he’d taken minutes ago, after cancelling his invitation to the opera, was rendered useless as his body surged in fiery recollection. He quickened his steps. And arrived in an empty room.
Maddie wasn’t in the main living room. Or in her suite.
‘Where is she?’ He repeated his earlier question to Percy when he rushed into the kitchen. Only this time he instinctively knew he would like the answer even less than last time.
‘She’s gone, Your Highness. She requested a taxi fifteen minutes ago.’
Remi attempted to
rein in his irritating alarm as he dialled Maddie’s phone. The request to leave a message reminded him that she’d confessed to switching her phone off. They’d been distracted by other matters before she could turn it on again.
Anger rising, he picked up the suite’s phone and dialled Raoul, his chief of security.
‘Where is she?’ he snapped for a third time.
‘She’s in a taxi heading south, Your Highness.’
‘Why did she leave?’ Remi despised the intensity of the disquieting sensation.
‘She didn’t say, Your Highness. She only said to tell you something came up.’
Remi took a long, deep breath, aware of his fraying control. ‘Did something happen this afternoon? Something to indicate what was suddenly so urgent?’ he breathed.
‘I’m sorry, Your Highness. I don’t know.’
Fury cut through his disquiet. But even that was unwelcome. He was far too wrapped up in Maddie Myers. And yet he couldn’t locate an off switch. That cloying need to know everything about her smash through him again.
Dio, he was being irrational. The woman had a right to her secrets, whatever they were. But the sensation wouldn’t go away. The discovery of her innocence had revealed another facet of her character that stunned him. But his admiration for Maddie for standing on her own two feet in the face of her challenges was also the reason he was annoyed with her now.
And, call him a chauvinist, but her streak of independence was beginning to grate as badly as her absence. After the pleasure he’d given her, after watching her come apart so spectacularly in his arms, would it hurt her to yield to him a little?
His mouth firmed even as his shaft stiffened at the reminder of what they’d shared on his sofa. He’d felt her innocence. Felt it and experienced a primitive urge to claim it.
He wasn’t ashamed to admit the discovery had taken him completely by surprise, that even the thought that he would be betraying Celeste’s memory hadn’t been enough to dissipate the untamed hunger that prowled through him even now.
Last night, when a cold shower hadn’t frozen the hunger or dispatched the guilt that had settled on his shoulders, he’d forced himself to take another path, to think rationally about the problem he faced.
The call with his mother had settled that once and for all.
He refocused. ‘I’m coming downstairs. You know where she’s headed. Take me to her.’
‘Immediately, Your Highness,’ Raoul replied.
He slammed the phone down and cursed Maddie’s elusiveness.
Even though he’d never taken advantage of it, the privilege of his birth included never having to pursue a woman. Women of standing and gold-diggers alike made no bones about their willingness to fall into his bed at the slightest display of interest.
Barely an hour ago Maddie had succumbed to his caresses—then immediately dismissed him. He was finding that a...unique experience. One he didn’t wish to repeat.
Irritation intensifying, he dialled her number again. For the third time her smoky tones directed him to leave a message. He tossed the phone away, his teeth meeting in a hard clench.
She’d better not to be with another man. Or what? The voice in his head taunted. He’d go against all his breeding and make a scene?
Why not? She was his.
Remi froze as the enormity of those three words hooked into him, unshakeable and real.
As he tried to breathe through the dizzying sensation his phone rang again. He snatched it up. Leaden disappointment seized his gut when he saw his mother’s number displayed on the screen. For the first time in his life, Remi did something un-prince-like. He ignored the Queen’s summons.
His mood hadn’t improved one iota by the time they turned into the street he’d delivered Maddie to after their first meeting. He exited the vehicle and followed Raoul to the shabby, nondescript entrance to a tiny ground-floor flat. The door before him was thin and insubstantial, with peeling green paint.
Swallowing his distaste, he leaned on the bell, gratified when he heard a jangle of sound within. The sight of a dishevelled Maddie immediately reversed that sensation.
‘What are you doing here?’ she blurted, with a hasty look over her shoulder.
‘You will let me in,’ he instructed.
Her chin lifted. ‘Will I?’
‘Unless you want your neighbours to witness our conversation, yes.’
Her gaze darted past him to the six bodyguards stationed on the street and the sleek convoy of his motorcade, which was already drawing attention.
‘Or you can just get back into your vehicle and leave?’ she suggested hopefully.
His gut churned harder. ‘I’m not leaving. This will go easier if you let me in.’
Her face paled a little but she stood her ground. ‘I’d really rather not.’
‘For both our sakes, I hope you didn’t leave my bed to be with another man.’ The very thought of it sent a spike of anger and jealousy through Remi.
Her eyes widened with shock, then anger. ‘You think I left you to come to another man?’
He didn’t—not completely. But the possessive beast holding him prisoner wouldn’t let go, and nor would the thought that, having touched her innocence, she belonged to him, no matter how irrational both notions were.
He tried clinical reason. The decision he’d made would slake this unrelenting hunger within him so things could settle back to rationality. So he could focus on his duty and obligation to his crown. Where was the harm in that?
The harm is your betrayal.
The gentle voice in his head drew ice over his roiling emotions.
Remi exhaled and reasoned with it. It wasn’t a betrayal if his kingdom needed him. He’d been tasked to find a solution. It was as simple as that.
He focused on Maddie’s face. ‘You left without telling me, after agreeing to stay. You’ll pardon me if I don’t have the fullest confidence in you right now.’
‘I left because I had an emergency,’ she replied hotly. ‘I didn’t think you’d appreciate me stomping into your bathroom to inform you.’
‘What about using the phone I gave you?’
She mangled her lip again, drawing his attention to the swollen curve he’d kissed less than two hours ago. His groin tightened, and he felt that hot flash of lust flooding him again.
‘I wasn’t exactly thinking straight, all right?’
A rustle of noise from inside the flat made her tense. Nervous, she attempted to minimise the space between herself and the door.
‘You have five seconds to let me in before I walk away, Maddie. You’ll recall I had another proposition to discuss with you. But if I leave both our agreement and the new proposal will go away.’
She hesitated another moment before her gaze boldly met his. ‘I’ll let you in—but, for the record, I won’t be judged. If I see so much as a trace of judgement on your face, this is over.’
The urge to remind her who she was talking to reared up, but Remi found himself nodding, agreeing to her terms of entry.
She released the door and stepped back to reveal a dank hallway with threadbare carpets and more peeling paint on the walls. It offended his every sensibility to know she lived in this appalling place. She didn’t belong here. She belonged in a palace, among the finest things in life, draped in silks and sparkling jewellery, being fed the best gourmet meals and treats that would produce her thousand-watt smile.
Most of all she belonged in a world where that anxiety on her face was taken away for ever.
He wanted to be the one to do that for her.
Remi stiffened in shock at the direction of his thoughts, then assured himself that his reasoning dovetailed with his own goals.
‘I guess you’ve changed your mind,’ she said, a flicker of hurt mingling with disappointment at his reaction to her surroundings.
He blocked the door before she could shut it in his face, stepped inside and shut it firmly behind him. He stared down at her, breathing in the alluring perfume that still clung to her despite being in this dismal place. Her elegant throat moved in a swallow, her fingers fidgeting with the folds of her dress. He wanted to plaster her against that dirty wall, lose himself in her the way he’d craved to do in his suite.
Another rustle from inside reminded him they weren’t alone.
Abruptly, she turned and hurried down the hall.
Remi followed, arriving in a shabby living room full of mismatched dilapidated furniture and packing boxes, to find her crouching over a shrunken figure.
‘I think the water spilled on the floor,’ the figure croaked.
‘It’s fine. I’ll take care of it,’ Maddie murmured softly.
Remi took in the scene. The man couldn’t be more than fifty years old, although he looked much older and in an appalling state of health. Nevertheless, the familial resemblance was evident from the eyes that took him in for one unfocused moment before sliding away to Maddie.
‘Who’s this?’ the man asked.
Remi stepped forward, extending his hand to the man wearing threadbare clothes that hung on his bony figure. ‘I’m Remirez Montegova. You must be Maddie’s father.’
The older man’s lips twisted, his gaze resting heavily on his daughter. ‘You would think she was the parent, the way she chivvies me. Perhaps you can talk some sense into her—get her to give me what I need.’
‘What you need is rest,’ she replied firmly, although Remi caught the slight wobble in her chin.
Remi took a closer look at the man, his gut tightening at the evidence of addiction.
‘I’ll get you some more water,’ Maddie said.
She picked up a plastic cup and hurried out of the room. Remi followed.
The kitchen was in a worse state than the living room, but again he swallowed his distaste as Maddie turned around.
‘Whatever you’re going to say, save it.’
‘Very well, I won’t ask if you have the necessary health shots to survive living in a place like this. Instead I’ll ask how long you think you can keep your father on that sofa when it’s clear he needs advanced medical attention?’
