by Anne, Melody
“I feel pretty great, actually,” she said. “No headache today, and no . . . I don’t know. I’m just not feeling bad.” But as she woke up more fully, she suddenly felt self-conscious and pulled the covers all the way up to her chin.
“There’s no need to hide your body from me, sweetheart.” He rose and sat down on the bed, and then reached out and tugged her toward him.
“I . . . um . . . I know,” she said, shaking away the cobwebs in her poor head. “Or at least I think I know.”
“You’re just confused. The doctor said that’s to be expected for a while.”
“Why don’t you tell me how we met? What were our lives like up until the plane crash? Maybe that will help jog my memory.”
There was that hesitation again. He did that a lot. Adara wondered whether he was just thinking about where to begin.
“We’ve been together for three months,” he finally said.
“Three months? That doesn’t seem long enough to fall in love.”
“Ah, but when it’s meant to be, it can happen in no time at all. As it did in our case.”
“I . . . uh . . . I guess, but I just don’t know . . .” She pushed to get inside her battered brain, to figure out why his statement seemed off. Why didn’t she think she was the type of girl to fall head over heels in love in so short a time? But she was lost here; her synapses offered her nothing, not one clue.
“You were finishing up your master’s degree at Cornell University when we met in a bar near campus.”
“Finishing my degree? In what?” Why couldn’t she remember something so basic?
“Astronomy. You had just defended your thesis and said you were celebrating. A few more things to do and you’d officially be done.”
“What was I planning on doing after that?”
“Looking up at the stars, Adara.”
“That’s sort of lame, Chris. I’m sure I have higher aspirations than that.” She spoke with some heat now, though it didn’t quite make sense. She didn’t remember what her aspirations had been.
“But the heavens are infinite. Isn’t helping to map out the farthest reaches a noble prospect for anyone?”
“I don’t know, but as you continue to talk about it, I feel better about things. It sounds like something I definitely want to do. Did I tell you what my next plans were?”
“Not that night you didn’t. You said you were done even speaking about school for a little while, and that you were at the bar to have fun. You were absolutely radiant,” he said before lifting her chin and kissing her. “You still are.”
“Hmm,” she murmured, entranced by just his voice. How could a man who was effectively a stranger do that to her? But that had been happening a lot in the past day. “What came next?”
“We talked until the bar closed, and then we walked down by the gardens and lay in the grass and talked for a long time more. Come to think of it, I did most of the talking. And we decided right then that we were a perfect match.”
“This is so frustrating, because I absolutely can’t remember any of it. But my gut tells me I’m not the type of girl who just falls for a man, any man, and particularly a man I’ve just met.”
“I absolutely agree. You’re not that sort of woman. It took me a good week before we made love for the first time,” he said as he ran his fingers through her hair.
“A week? It only took a week?” Horrifying. She’d slept with him that quickly?
“You told me you’d been a virgin long enough.”
So it could have been worse. But she was still speechless. She’d just fallen into bed like that after a week, and with a guy she hardly knew? She had to ask him, “What sort of girl am I?”
“You’re a beautiful, fascinating, spontaneous, intelligent woman. I’ll say the word woman again. We connected in a way that night that’s so rare; most people never find it, ever. And you certainly have no reason to feel shame, shame of any sort, at what we did. I may not have realized it at the time, but my heart already belonged to yours the minute you first smiled at me with that unrestrained joy of yours.”
Was what he’d just said a little over the top? Maybe. But his words were doing the trick. She relaxed against him. She had no idea how she’d felt back then, but she had no doubt right now that lying in his arms was soothing. And more than soothing. She found her fingers grazing down along his arm as he held her close against him.
“And then we just kept seeing each other?” she asked.
“We decided just a few days ago, Adara, that we couldn’t live without each other.”
“What is that in your voice?” She tried to look at him, but he was cradling her head and she was unable to.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I don’t know either. But when you said that, something didn’t seem quite right,” she told him. “Something in the sound of your voice changed.”
“It’s nothing. Nothing, really. We just had a slight argument the day of the crash,” he said after hesitating yet again.
“What did we argue about?”
What was it with all these long silences? She tried once more to look up at him, but he pulled her more tightly to him, and she soon stopped fighting him.
“I hadn’t yet told you that I was a prince.”
“What? Wait! What? What? Please repeat that.”
She couldn’t have possibly heard what she thought she’d just heard. Maybe he just meant a prince of a man. But that wasn’t what he’d said.
“I don’t want to argue again,” he said.
“Then answer my questions.”
“Ah, Adara, your spirit thrills me. It’s one of the many reasons I’ve fallen in love with you.”
“Don’t think you can sweet-talk me and I’ll forget,” she told him. “Yes, much of my past life is a blank, but I remember everything from the moment I woke up.”
“I’m a prince of the island nation Rubare Collina. You didn’t receive the news the first time any better then than you have just now,” he said, and his eyes were downcast.
This time, she pushed against him, refusing to let him hold her so she couldn’t see his face. He released her and she scooted back on the bed so she was sitting up and could see into his eyes when he raised them again.
“You’re an actual prince? Royalty?” He nodded. “Why would you have hidden something like that from me, Chris? Or should I call you Your Royal Highness?”
He looked away toward the open window overlooking the sea. Then he turned back toward her.
“I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep my royal title. Being a prince means responsibility; it means that I have to do everything on someone else’s schedule. There are rules . . .”
“What does any of that have to do with me?”
“I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want anyone to know. I just wanted to be Christopher Dante, just a normal guy from nowhere particularly important. It was nice. But then I realized I couldn’t forsake my country or my obligations to it, my duties — at some point, everyone has to grow up. I also realized that I wanted you to be by my side when I returned home.”
“And I was okay with all of this?”
She somehow doubted it — who would want to live in this way, under a constant spotlight and all the constraints of such a life? Such a complete lack of privacy. A lack of self-direction. But how was she to know for sure? And this man did seem to know her, intimately.
“No. Not exactly ‘okay’ with it,” he said. “But you love me, and because you love me, you knew you would forgive the deception.”
“I told you this?” she said with narrowed eyes.
“Why don’t you wait until you regain your memory to make any judgments? Then you’ll feel it.”
“I’m trying to, but I don’t know at all what I wanted,” she said, dragging her fingers in frustration
through her sleep-tangled hair. “And I know when something feels wrong.”
“How do you feel while you’re lying in my arms?” he asked, pulling her back against him.
Heat shot instantly through her and her heart began pounding — why did he always have that effect on her? “It feels right,” she had to admit.
“Then trust in that feeling, Adara, because we’re meant to be together, and deep down inside you know that.”
He ended the conversation with a kiss that left even her toes tingling. She still had a lot of doubts about him and what he’d told her. But she wasn’t willing to walk away from whatever it was that they had together. Not yet.
She’d soon find herself again — get her freaking memory back — and maybe then she’d win this happily-ever-after that some prince was offering up to her.
Chapter Nine
You look as if you’re enjoying yourself.”
Adara slipped beneath the water and came up gasping for air.
“You scared me, Chris.” She swam over to the side of the pool, where he was sitting in a chaise longue.
“I’ve been watching you for more than a few minutes. You seemed deep in thought,” he said. He pulled his shirt over his head, and the sight of his chest took her breath away. And she’d already lost her breath just a few moments before.
“You should have let me know I wasn’t alone. Coughed, or something like that. It’s only fair.”
“I could watch you all day long. I can’t possibly describe what you do to me.”
He stood up and began removing his trousers, and, oh, gosh, his underwear too, and she waited. Breathless once more. They hadn’t made love yet — not since the accident, anyway, a full week ago — and she desperately wanted to. Make love to a virtual stranger. Was that weird? Was she in fact some sort of man-eater? One of those cheap tramps she read about? Or was it the opposite? Was she just repressed in some way and yearning to break out from her inhibitions, the way he’d told her that she’d done when they first met?
Too much thinking. Maybe she needed to let go of what she couldn’t remember and what she didn’t understand. He’d been a perfect gentleman for seven days, and she hated that.
Because right now all she wanted was to have his arms around her.
When he was finally free of his clothing, she got one magnificent glimpse of his hardened body before he dove straight into the water. Like an Olympian.
He swam over to her and boxed her in against the wall. “The water is warm,” he said as his body pressed closer to hers.
“Yes, it’s wonderful. But shouldn’t you have left some sort of swim trunks on? Shorts? Anything? You have people working here, and they could come in at any time.”
“I told them to leave — to leave us,” he whispered before leaning forward and running his lips down her neck.
A shudder rushed through her. She wanted to turn her head, to kiss him full on the lips, but something instinctive held her back. Maybe she wasn’t a slut. But why not just do, though? Why couldn’t she just go for the gusto and take what she wanted?
“Chris,” she murmured, her insides growing molten as he reached around her and pulled her away from the wall and into those strong arms of his.
“Yes, Adara?”
His hardness was pressing against her stomach, and her nipples were jutting out against the fabric of her bikini top. She released her grasp on the wall and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Okay, so she couldn’t just kiss him. But she could ask him to help her out. “Kiss me, please.” Her words were almost inaudible.
His eyes instantly filled with desire and a low growl made its way past his throat as he pushed even more closely against her. He reached down and wrapped her legs around his waist, making his manhood rub insistently against her core.
She grew hot in an instant, ready for him to rip her little bathing suit off and take her right there in the warm pool water.
Lowering his head, he connected their lips, and the sparks she’d already been feeling in her body were transformed into explosions. He caressed her mouth with his own, and she didn’t hang back now. She gave in to his kiss, got lost in his embrace.
This was a different kiss from the others they’d exchanged in the past week. This kiss was a promise of what was to come, and she was sure that she didn’t want to turn back, that she didn’t want to leave his arms until she’d . . . she’d . . . had all she could of him. Every glorious inch. And there were a lot of them . . .
He withdrew, but she refused to let him go. “Please, don’t stop,” she moaned.
He growled again and fused his lips once more with hers while tugging on the string of her bikini top and releasing it. He yanked it away, and then her bare breasts were pressed firmly against the muscles of his chest.
It wasn’t enough. It felt as if it would never be enough. She needed them to become one. She needed it more than she’d ever needed anything in her life, or so it seemed. She had no doubts any longer.
He ran his mouth down the column of her neck, and when he sucked on the tender skin where her pulse was beating erratically, she had no choice but to let out a cry. And as that mouth of his proceeded slowly down to the line between her breasts, she started to hyperventilate.
It took a moment for her to realize that he was propelling the two of them through the water and into the shallow hot tub at the other end of the pool, because he’d captured one of her nipples in his mouth and was licking it avidly, and her entire body was tensed up in pleasure.
He ran one hand up over the curve of her breast while he now devoured the other nipple.
“Don’t stop,” she begged him.
“Are you sure?” he asked before sweeping his tongue in the valley between her breasts.
Her core pulsed with need. “Absolutely sure,” she gasped, digging into his shoulders with her fingernails.
He untied the knots on the side of her bikini bottom, and as the material floated away in the tub, so did any and all of her inhibitions. She was ready for this, and she didn’t need to have her memory back to know that.
Nothing mattered more at this moment than to be joined with him. To have and to hold. She could give up oxygen, food, anything at all — anything except for the passion she was feeling right now. His lips made a trail back up her neck and he captured her waiting mouth once again. She delighted in tasting him, and she pushed her now naked womanhood against his arousal.
Moving her hips back and forth almost frantically, she told him without words that she wanted him to sink inside her.
He took the hint. Smart guy.
With one solid thrust he buried himself deep within her and Adara let out another cry of passion as she tightened around him. The smallest of movements would send her over the edge to glory and she was aching for it. Aching for it all.
Before she had time to urge him on, he took charge. He grabbed hold of her hips and pulled back almost completely before thrusting forward again, all the way, with a single sure stroke.
She let go. What else could she do? Her body convulsed around his as she broke away from his lips and cried out her ecstasy. He moved his mouth to her neck and continued plunging in and out of her body, drawing out her pleasure.
Just as one orgasm ended, another began — one even more intense — and as he now moved faster and faster, his groans mingling with hers, she kept wailing in joy under the power of her climaxes.
“Adara!” He shouted her name, the sound echoing around the indoor pool as he found his release.
His manhood still pulsed against her walls and warmth washed through her as they each found total pleasure lying there locked together. Neither of them could move now.
Hell, the thought of ever moving again was too much even to think about.
But nature took its course. As Chris pulled himself gently from her and hoisted h
er and himself up on the bench in the hot tub, Adara curled up in his arms and rested her head on his shoulder. She felt at peace. Finally.
“Thank you, my princess,” he whispered.
“I should be the one doing the thanking. That was stunning,” she told him with a sated sigh.
“Let’s just agree that we’re both very pleased, my dearest Adara.”
Adara tensed then, and she pulled her head up. “Oh, my goodness. I have no idea where my bathing suit is. What if someone comes in?”
“I told you before, darling. I ordered them to leave us alone. They won’t invade our privacy.”
She looked around nervously anyway. “I’d still feel better if I had some sort of clothing on,” she said.
“I agree. I’ll get you a robe and we’ll go to my bedroom. My bedroom. When we’re there, I’ll be able to take the proper amount of time, to give you what you and your body deserve.”
“I wasn’t complaining about what you did before, Chris.” Another shudder passed through her, and though she didn’t think it possible, she felt her core instantly moisten at the thought of beginning their lovemaking again. He obviously felt something similar — he was growing hard once more against her hip.
“Woman, you do such incredible things to me,” he said before giving her one more extraordinary kiss and then releasing her so he could climb from the water.
Watching the perfect definition of his backside as he walked away had her completely ready to go at it again. He was truly a masterpiece of a man. Michelangelo’s David had nothing on this guy.
“Here’s your robe. You have exactly three seconds to get out of the tub and put it on. Because if you keep looking at me with that hunger in your eyes, I won’t be able to control myself any longer. I’ll just pull you from the water and take you again right here on the cold tiles at the side of this damned pool. Not that they’d be cold for long.”
“Ohhhh” was the only sound that came from her parched mouth at first. But then her eyes skimmed down his body and settled on his shockingly hard manhood. “You can take me anytime, anywhere.”
