by Nora Roberts
She tore at his clothes, all sense of denial and self-preservation winked out like the tip of a candle. There had been pleasure before, with its twin face of pain. But not like this. To want like this was to forget all other wants. Never had she been so aware of her body so that she could feel every pulse beat, hundreds of them pounding wherever he touched, wherever she wanted to be touched.
Sweat sprang out on her skin. And his. She could taste the salt as they rolled over the bed. The scent of passion rose, sharp, pungent, arousing. She could hear his breath come ragged and strained as he pinned her beneath him again. Their eyes locked. His head pounded as air tore in and out of his chest. He could feel the bite of her nails in his back, and the give of her breasts beneath him.
“I’m going to watch you go up,” he told her, and the words hurt his throat. “You’re going to know I’m the only one who can take you there.”
He plunged into her, pounding, thrusting so that her eyes went wide and glazed. The gasp of pleasure strangled in her throat.
He could feel each separate muscle in his body bunching, straining. Then her hips were moving like lightning, meeting him thrust for thrust. Sensations sharpened. He could see the light falling over her face, hear the rustle of sheets, almost feel the pores of his body open. Her scent, like her arms, like her legs, like her hair, wrapped around him. Reality focused to the point of a pin. He thought it must be like dying. Then even his vision dimmed. Her cry of release was like an echo as he poured into her.
She waited for the shame to come, and the self-disgust. But there was only the soft, lingering glow of pleasure. He’d done things to her that she’d never known she could enjoy. And she had welcomed them. Wallowed in them. Even now, with passion spent, she knew she would welcome them again. She kept her eyes closed, knowing he watched her.
She couldn’t know how she looked, Philip thought. Naked, her long, lean legs still spread in abandon, her skin warmed with that afterglow of good sex, her hair spread wildly over white lace pillows. She wore nothing but diamond drops at her ears. They winked erotically in the light of the lamp.
“These are real,” he said as he toyed with them.
“Yes.”
“Who gave them to you?”
“Celeste. For my eighteenth birthday.”
“That’s good. If they’d come from a man, I’d have had to be jealous. I don’t have much energy for it at the moment.”
She opened her eyes and nearly smiled. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
“You could say something about this being an excellent way to start the new year.”
She wanted to touch his hair. It was almost gold in the light and mussed around his face. Her hands had done that in passion, but she kept them lowered now. “Philip, you have to understand this can’t change anything. It would be best for you to go back to London.”
“Umm-hmm. Do you know you have a mole just here.” He skimmed his fingers down her hip. “I could find it in the dark.”
“I have to be practical.” Even as she said it, meant it, she moved against him. “I need you to be practical.”
“An excellent idea. Let’s drink to it.” Reaching over her, he picked up their glasses.
“Philip, I want you to listen to me. It may have been wrong of me to leave the way I did in Mexico, but I thought it would be easier. I wanted to avoid saying things that have to be said.”
“The problem with you, Addy, is that you try to think more than feel. But go ahead, say what’s on your mind.”
“I can’t afford to be involved with you, with anyone. What I have to do requires all my concentration. You know as well as I how vital it is not to let outside problems interfere with work.”
“Is that what I am?” He was sated enough to be amused rather than angry. “An outside problem?”
She was silent for a moment. “You have no part in my plans in Jaquir. Even after I’ve finished, I intend to stay alone. I won’t ever allow myself to build my life around a man, to make decisions based on my feelings for one. If that sounds selfish, I’m sorry. But I know how easy it is to lose who and what you are.”
He listened to her, his eyes very clear, his mouth very sober. “That would be all well and good except for one slight problem. I love you, Adrianne.”
Her lips parted. In shock, he realized wryly. Then she pushed herself up and was nearly out of bed before he caught her.
“No, you won’t turn away from me.” He pulled her back, ignoring the glass she’d dropped over the side of the bed and the wine that was soaking into the carpet. “And I won’t let you turn away from yourself.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Already done.”
“Philip, you’re just letting your imagination run away with you. You’ve romanticized what’s been happening between us, added violins and moonlight.”
“Does it make you feel safer to think so?”
“It’s not a matter of being safe, it’s a matter of common sense.” But that wasn’t true, not when she could feel the fear dancing inside her stomach. “Let’s not complicate this any more than it already is.”
“Fine. We’ll keep it simple.” He took her face in his hands, gently this time. “I’m in love with you, Addy. You’ll have to get used to it because you won’t shake me loose. Now relax.” He skimmed a hand down to cup her breast. “And I’ll show you what I mean.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Adrianne snuggled into the pillow, blinked against the intrusion of light, then stretched. Philip’s arm rose with hers. Metal rang. In speechless shock she stared at the handcuffs that bound her wrist to his while he grumbled.
“You bastard.”
“We’ve already established that.” With one jerk he had her tumbling against his chest. She was smoothly, warmly naked. “Morning, darling.”
She pushed off, then fell against him again. “What the hell is this?” Adrianne yanked her arm hard enough to make him wince.
“A simple precaution—to keep you from slipping under the door.” Using his free hand, he caught her hair to pull her face down to his. He was already hard, just remembering. “I love you, Addy, but I don’t trust you.”
“Take these off immediately.”
He tolled so that his legs tangled with hers. “I was hoping you’d let me prove that I can make love to you with one hand tied behind my back. So to speak.”
She swallowed a chuckle. “Some other time.”
“Suit yourself.” He settled back on the pillow and closed his eyes.
“Philip, I said to take these off.”
“I will, when it’s time to get up.”
She gave their joined arms another jerk. “I refuse to be shackled like some sort of body slave—”
“Lovely idea.”
“And I am getting up.”
He opened one eye. “At this hour?”
“It’s after noon.” Disgusted, she lifted the cuffs so that she could study the lock. She supposed she could drag him to her tools. “I was an early riser before I met you.”
That made him open both eyes. “Whatever for?”
On a hiss of frustration she climbed over him. “Where’s the damn key?”
“All right, don’t get testy.”
Planting her feet, Adrianne pulled. She had to drop to her knees, but it was satisfying enough to watch Philip hit the floor.
“Christ.” Forgetting dignity, he rubbed the part that hit the floor first. “What’s the hurry?”
Fighting back laughter, she scooped her hair out of her eyes. “If you must know I want—no, I need the loo.”
“Oh. Why didn’t you say so?”
Air whistled out between her teeth as she clamped them together. “I didn’t realize I’d need to announce it until I found myself shackled to you.”
“Nice feeling, isn’t it?” he said as he bent over to kiss her.
“Philip.”
“Yes, the key.” He glanced around, then spotted his jeans heaped at the foot
of the bed. “Come along.” With Adrianne in tow and swearing at him, he reached his jeans. “It’s in the pocket.” He dipped into one, found nothing, then tried another. “I don’t suppose you want company.”
“Philip!” She wouldn’t laugh. At this moment laughter could be a disaster.
“No? Well then.” He tossed the jeans back into a heap. “Got a hairpin?”
When he started downstairs a short while later, he was hoping for coffee. The last thing he’d expected was to find Adrianne, dressed in baggy sweats, grilling bacon. The scent was enough to make him fall in love.
“What are you doing?”
“Fixing breakfast. Coffee’s hot.”
He walked to the stove to stare at the meat grilling in the skillet. “You cook?”
“Of course I cook.” She lifted bacon out and set it to drain. “Mama and I spent a lot of years without servants. I still prefer to see to myself.”
“And you’re fixing me breakfast.”
Embarrassed, she snatched up a carton of eggs. “For heaven’s sake, it’s not as though I’m laying down my life.”
“You’re fixing me breakfast,” he said again, and brushed the hair from the nape of her neck so he could kiss it. “You do love me, Addy. You just don’t realize it yet.”
He bided his time through the meal, letting her relax. What he didn’t know was that she was doing precisely the same thing. Lounging by her window that opened up to a view of Central Park, they lingered over coffee. They were there, looking out, when the first flakes of snow began to fall.
“The city’s lovely in the snow. The first time I saw it I cried because I thought it wouldn’t stop until we were all buried in it. Then Mama took me out and showed me how to build a snowman.” She pushed away her coffee, knowing the caffeine would make her jumpy if she indulged in any more. “I wish I could take the next few days and show you around New York, but I have a lot of business to see to.”
“I don’t mind tagging along.”
She cleared her throat and tried again. “If you could come back in a few weeks, I’d be free to take you to some museums, a few shows, a gallery or two.”
He tapped his cigarette on the table before lighting it. “I didn’t come here to be entertained, Addy, but to be with you.”
“Philip, I leave for Jaquir at the end of the week.”
He took a long, soothing drag. “That’s something we need to discuss.”
“No, that’s something I’m going to do. I’m sorry you don’t understand or approve, but it doesn’t—it can’t—make any difference.”
He continued to look out at the snow. A young boy was heading into the park walking a fleet of dogs. A pretty scene, he thought. He could be content spending a portion of his life on this continent, in this city, in this room. When he spoke, it wasn’t in anger, it wasn’t meant as a threat. It was said with the calm simplicity of fact.
“There are things I can do, Addy, that would make it difficult if not impossible for you to leave the country, much less go to an area as unstable as the Middle East.”
Her head came up just a fraction, but it was enough to lend her the air of royalty. “I am Princess Adrianne of Jaquir. If I choose to visit the country of my birth, neither you nor anyone can stop me.”
“You do that well,” he said. Well enough that the picture of her fathers face flashed in his mind. “And if it were only a visit you planned, you’d have a point. As it is, I can stop you, Adrianne, and I will.”
“This isn’t something for you to decide.”
“Keeping you alive has become a matter of some interest to me.”
“Then you should understand that if I don’t go and do what I have to do, I may as well be dead.”
“You’re dramatizing.” Leaning over the table, he grabbed her hands, forcing her to look at him. “I know a bit more now. I’ve spent a great deal of time over the last few days reading about your mother, digging up what scraps I could about your father, your early life.”
“You had no right—”
“It has nothing to do with rights. I know it was difficult, even horrible in many ways, but it’s over.” He tightened his grip. “You’re clinging to something you should have let go a long time ago.”
“I’m taking back what’s mine by right, by the law, and by my birth. I’m taking back what dignity was stolen from my mother and from me.”
“We both know that stones don’t bring dignity to anyone.”
“You don’t understand. You can’t.” Her fingers tightened on his a moment, then relaxed. “Come with me a minute.”
She led him out of the breakfast nook, through the hall, into a sitting room. She’d decorated it in white on white with a few passionate slashes of red and royal blue. Over a marble fireplace scrubbed clean as glass was the portrait.
More than the clipped photographs, more than any film he’d ever seen, it showed Phoebe Spring in her glory. Her hair, that furious trademark red, fell wave upon wave to her shoulders. Her skin was like new milk against an emerald gown that dipped to her breasts and left her arms and shoulders bare. She was smiling, on the edge of a laugh, so that her wide, luxurious mouth seemed all the fuller. Her eyes, a striking Viking blue, were lit with promise and unmistakable innocence. A man couldn’t look at it and not be drawn, not want, not wonder.
Around her neck, as he’d seen before, was The Sun and the Moon.
“She was magnificent, Addy. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
“Yes. But she was more than her looks. She was kind, Philip. Truly kind. Her heart would break over a stranger’s trouble. She was easily hurt, a sharp word, an angry look. All she ever wanted to do was make people happy. She didn’t look like this when she died.”
“Addy—”
“No, I want you to see. I had this painted from a picture that was taken of her just before she married. She was so young, younger than I am now. And so much in love. You can see just by looking that at that moment she was a woman secure in herself, happy with life.”
“Yes, I can see that. Time passes, Addy, things change.”
“It wasn’t a matter of time for her, or of natural change. That necklace—she told me once how she’d felt the first time she’d put that necklace on. She’d felt a queen. It hadn’t mattered to her that she’d be giving up everything she’d known, going to another country to live under different rules. She’d been in love and she’d felt like a queen.”
He touched a hand to her cheek. “She was.”
“No.” She lifted her hand and laid it on his wrist. “She was only a woman, naive, big-hearted, afraid of the dark side of life. She’d made something of herself, become something. Then she let it go because he asked. The necklace was a symbol, a promise that he was as committed to her as she was to him. When he took it back, he was making a statement that he renounced her, and me. He took it back because divorce wasn’t enough. He wiped away the marriage, as if it had never been. When he did that, he took the last of her dignity, and he stole my birthright.”
“Addy, sit down a minute. Please.” He lowered to the sofa with her, keeping her hands in his. “I understand how it feels. There was a time I looked for my father in every stranger’s face. In every teacher I ever had, every cop I avoided, even in the marks I chose. I spent my childhood hating him for turning his back on my mother and refusing to acknowledge me. But I still looked. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d found him, but I do know that there comes a time when you have to be enough for yourself.”
“You have your mother, Philip. What happened didn’t destroy her. You didn’t have to watch her die bit by bit. I loved her so much. I owe her so much.”
“What’s between a parent and child doesn’t require payment.”
“She risked her life for me. It was no less than that. It was for me she left Jaquir much more than for herself. If she’d been caught, taken back, her life would have been over. No, he wouldn’t have killed her,” she said when Philip’s eyes narrowed.
“He wouldn’t have dared, but she would have wished herself dead. She’d have been better off dead.”
“Addy, however much you loved her, whatever you feel you owe her isn’t worth risking your life. Ask yourself if she’d want you to.”
She shook her head. “It’s down to what I want. The necklace is mine.”
“Even if you managed to get out of Jaquir with the necklace, you’d never be able to claim it publicly, you’d never be able to wear it.”
“But I don’t take it to own it, to wear it.” A fire came back into her eyes, a dangerous one. “I take it so he knows, he finally knows how much I detest him.”
“Do you think it would matter to him?”
“That his daughter hates him? No. A daughter means less than nothing to a man like him. A commodity to be traded, as he’s already traded his others for political security.” She looked back at the portrait. “But The Sun and the Moon means everything. There’s nothing worth more in Jaquir, not for its monetary value. It’s beyond price. It’s a matter of pride and of strength. If it passes out of the hands of the royal family, there’ll be revolution and bloodshed and the crumbling of power. The unrest that borders Jaquir will cross over and sweep it away.”
“Do you want revenge on your father or on Jaquir?”
She brought herself back. Her eyes were blurred as if she’d been dreaming. “I could have both, but that’s up to him. Abdu will never risk Jaquir or his position. His pride. In the end it will be his pride that makes restitution.”
“His pride could as easily strike back at you.”
“Yes. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.” She stood then, her back toward the portrait, her hand offered to him. “Don’t say anything more yet. There’s something else I want to show you. Will you come with me?”
“Where?”
“You’ll need your coat. I’ll take you.”
The snow fell in sheets, whipped by the wind that tunneled through the buildings. With her mink tossed over her sweats, Adrianne tried to relax in the warmth of the limo. She hadn’t told anyone so much, not even Celeste. She hadn’t shown anyone what she intended to show Philip.
