Pure Princess, Bartered Bride (Bride On Approval 1)

by Caitlin Crews

  She had an inkling that he probably would.

  “I think that I miss the sun,” she said, finding it hard to manage her usual light and easy tone. “Though this room is a fair approximation of it, isn’t it?” She waved her hand, taking in the glittering chandeliers and lavish furnishings, all of which gave the famous hotel restaurant a distinct golden hue even late in the evening. “It’s almost like sunshine.”

  She knew that she should tell him. She should have told him already. She should have called him the moment she’d left the horrible paparazzo’s presence. She should have told him as they dressed for dinner—when he’d told her he preferred the slightly more risqué Balenciaga black dress to the more classic Chanel black dress and she had changed accordingly. She’d had ample opportunity to tell him during the ride from her house in Belgravia to the Ritz, when she’d asked him about his day and told him silly stories about her minor adventures. And they’d done nothing but talk throughout dinner—even touching briefly on his past with the paparazzi, giving her many an opportunity to raise the subject.

  But every time she opened her mouth to tell Luc what Silvio had said—what he’d insinuated and what he’d claimed—she couldn’t do it. It would hurt Luc too much. She didn’t know how to tell him that his worst fear was on the brink of being realized. Wasn’t this why he had chased her in such a fury to Los Angeles? He would do anything to avoid bad press—even that dinner he’d insisted upon in California, where they’d run into Silvio. And Gabrielle realized that while she was no longer afraid of her husband, she couldn’t bear to hurt him—as telling him about Silvio’s plans would inevitably do. He would rage and glower, and perhaps even threaten, but she knew enough now to know that it came from a place of pain. She simply couldn’t stand to cause him any more pain.

  The thought startled her. When had she reached that conclusion? When had she come to understand him that way?

  “Sunshine in London, surrounded by rain and cold with no end in sight?” Luc said dryly, but there was a certain tenderness in the way he looked at her, and it tugged at her heart. “I suspect you are more of a romantic than you let on, Gabrielle.”

  “A romantic?” She smiled. “Impossible. There’s not a romantic bone in my body. My father expressly forbade it.”

  “Shall we put it to the test?”

  She didn’t understand when he stood and stretched out his hand. She blinked at him in confusion. Then comprehension dawned, and she let out a startled laugh.

  “You wish to dance?” she asked. “Here?”

  Elegantly dressed couples already moved on the dance floor to the sounds of the four-piece band, but Gabrielle found it impossible to imagine the two of them among the crowd. It was so…so impractical. So very unlike Luc.

  “Why not?” he asked, amusement making his silver gaze gleam beneath the chandeliers.

  “Perhaps it is not I who am romantic?” Gabrielle murmured, and slipped her hand into his.

  The last time—the only time—she had danced with her husband had been at their wedding, and Gabrielle found that she’d blocked out much of the experience in the chaos and excitement of what had followed. She tried to remember the details as he led her out on to a different dance floor, pulling her to him expertly. She remembered that part: the feeling of being caught up against the unyielding wall of his chest—of being held so securely she’d felt trapped, overcome.

  She felt neither of those things now. Her breath seemed to tangle in her throat as she tilted her head back so she could look up at him—at the harsh, forbidding face that now seemed more dear and necessary to her than the mountains she’d stared at her whole childhood.

  “The last time we danced was at our wedding,” she said, aware that her voice was husky.

  “I remember,” he said. “You may recall that I was there and, unlike some, remained there as planned.”

  She ignored his dig. She even smiled.

  “What I recall is that you lectured me about politically expedient spouses,” she replied. She let her hand slide along his arm, testing the shape of his rock-hard bicep against her palm. “I think you meant to cow me into submission.”

  “Behold my success,” Luc replied in a low voice, almost a growl. “I cowed you into a race across the planet.”

  “At your next wedding,” Gabrielle said, concentrating on the part of her that felt the lightness between them, the teasing, and not the part that ached for him beneath it, “you might consider talking to your bride rather than lecturing her. I only offer suggestions,” she continued hurriedly, when his eyes narrowed in warning, “because I know you are a perfectionist and wish to improve yourself in all things.”

  “Careful, Gabrielle,” he warned, his dark eyes hard on hers.

  She did not know if it was the teasing he objected to, or the idea of a second wife. He had proved remarkably and consistently ill-humored whenever the idea of an end to their own marriage—however fanciful—was raised. She decided to act as if it was the former.

  “Come, now,” she said softly, smiling. “We are none of us so grand that we cannot take a bit of gentle teasing, are we?”

  “I prefer to tease in a more private place,” he replied in a silky tone. “I find the results are far more edifying.”

  As he had no doubt intended, she could almost feel his mouth on her skin, his flesh against hers, the hot, hard length of him moving deep within her—and all while he held her so correctly, so reservedly, and executed the steps of the waltz with faultless precision. She let out a shaky laugh.

  “Do not play games with me,” he suggested, a smile lurking in his gaze though his mouth remained hard, “if you cannot compete.”

  She knew this was the way he played with her—and that she might be the only person on earth he could be said to play with. He did not know the meaning of the word gentle. He did not tease—he decimated. Everything about him—from the way he carried his hard warrior’s body, fashioned for combat, in elegant couture, to the way he conducted his business affairs like the wars he did not fight, to this, his marriage—was the same. He was an unstoppable force—more machine in many ways than man. He knew nothing else, no other way of behaving.

  She couldn’t bear to hurt him. To cause him pain by telling him what Silvio had threatened to do. She was overwhelmed by the need to shield him, protect him.

  And that was when she knew. When the truth of it hit her like a speeding train to the side of the head. She felt the blood drain from her face, from her extremities, so that everything tingled and hurt while her stomach clenched and twisted. An earthquake could not have knocked her more firmly on her behind, though he continued to hold her up and move her about the room.

  “What is it?” he asked, frowning down at her. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “No, no,” she murmured, and tucked her head against his chest, because for once in her life she could not bring herself to smile. Everything seemed too sharp, too real—the world suddenly in brutal focus when she hadn’t even known it was blurred. “I am perfectly well.”

  But that was not precisely true.

  She was in love with her husband.

  Recklessly, totally and heedlessly in love with him. Even thinking the word love made her blood pound harder in her veins and her head swim.

  Of course, she thought, the truth ringing deep inside her like a bell. Of course.

  How could she have thought it was anything else? How had she hidden the truth of it from herself for so long?

  “Look at me,” he commanded her.

  She felt dazed, but she complied, letting that fierce gray gaze crash into her, knowing finally that what she felt was not terror, not panic, but a bone-deep exultation. It was hard and it was true and it was love—fierce and uncompromising.

  She loved him.

  “I am fine,” she told him. Finally she smiled. “I promise.”

  “Do you need to sit down?” He was already moving toward their table, but she stopped him with a hand against
his steely chest. She blinked to hide the sudden tears in the backs of her eyes. She was too emotional—too full with the sudden knowledge she’d been denying herself for so long. Too long.

  “No,” she said. “I want to dance.” He looked as if he would ignore her. “Please? I am a little tired, I think. That’s all.”

  He searched her face, and for a moment she thought he would remove them from the dance floor after all, but he relented. He pulled her close again, and frowned down at her.

  “If you feel dizzy at all, tell me,” he ordered her. “I am not a mind-reader, Gabrielle.”

  “Indeed you are not,” she murmured, and he responded with something close to a snort. But he danced, sweeping her with him, gliding them both across the floor.

  The band played; the chandeliers glowed.

  She loved him.

  Her body had known it from the first moment she’d seen him, as she walked toward him down the aisle at their wedding. It had overwhelmed her. Her blood had sung out to him, her breath had caught, and she had wanted him despite everything. Despite the fact she did not know him, despite the fact he had been so hard, so terrifying. Her body had known all along. Even while she ran, even while she hid, even while she tried to convince herself that there was something wrong with her.

  She had called it weakness, worried she was going mad, tried to hold herself apart—but none of it had made any difference. He had managed to get to her, again and again, and she’d not only let him, she’d wanted him. She wanted him now.

  But more than that, more than all the rest of it, she wanted to protect him.

  She could not tell him about Silvio. She refused. She would do what she must and make sure Luc never heard about the tape. She would protect him from the thing he hated most, and she knew as she looked up at him, at his strong face set in those uncompromising lines, that she would love him desperately until the end of her days. Ten thousand pounds was getting off cheaply. She would pay twice as much, and as easily, to keep him from any more pain. She would do it happily.

  “And now you smile,” he said. “A real one this time.”

  “Take me home,” she told him, her smile widening. “I think I’m interested in the kind of teasing you prefer.”

  As soon as the bedroom door closed behind them, shutting them away in the privacy of their suite of rooms in the grand Miravakian Belgravia house, Gabrielle turned and smiled—the kind of smile that made Luc harden instantaneously while desire roared through his body.

  “My turn,” she said. She seemed to shimmer in the glow of the single light left burning—the small bedside lamp she used to read, which cast the rest of the room into shadow.

  “By all means,” Luc agreed, tugging his tie off and opening the top button of his crisp white dress shirt. In his current state he would have agreed to anything. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was incandescent tonight—radiant.

  “You are so accommodating,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

  “You are different tonight,” he told her as she swayed toward him, her figure displayed to breathtaking advantage in the formfitting black dress she wore so well. He’d spent the whole dinner fascinated by the delicate ridge of her collarbone. He was mesmerized now by the roll of her hips, the fullness of her mouth, the heat in her eyes. He was hypnotized.

  She did not speak. She only smiled that same mysterious smile as she advanced on him and then put her hands on his body, making him smile in return with deep satisfaction because she was finally touching him. He made a low noise in the back of his throat as she ran her palms over his abdomen, then up his chest, leaving trails of sensation in her wake. She helped him shrug out of his jacket, then tossed it aside.

  He nearly vibrated with a mixture of awe and lust as she sucked her full bottom lip into her mouth, worrying it, while her eyes moved over him, drinking him in. He felt it like a physical caress.

  “Che cosa desideri?” he asked huskily. The room felt close and tight around them. “What do you desire?”

  “You,” she whispered, emotion crackling in her voice, across her lovely face. “Only you.”

  “You have me,” he replied. Succumbing to a sudden sense of urgency, he backed her toward the huge raised bed that dominated the room as she yanked his buttons free, parting his shirt to stare greedily at his exposed skin. “You need only ask.”

  “I am not asking,” she said, tilting her head up, heat and mischief in her gaze. “Tonight I am telling you.”

  “Is that so?” he asked lazily, enjoying her boldness.

  “You do not like being told what to do, I know.” Her lashes swept down, and then she looked up at him again. She was suddenly coquettish. She was delectable. “I want you to take off my dress.”

  Luc smiled. “I find that perhaps I do not mind it as much as I thought,” he murmured. He reached over and smoothed his hands along her curves, feeling the heat of the skin on her bare shoulders. “There are certain things you can always order me to do.”

  Spinning her around, he unzipped the dress and peeled it from her, slowly exposing her creamy skin to his hungry gaze. He pushed the fabric down over the swell of her breasts as they surged against a bra made of lace and imagination more than anything substantial, then further, over the flare of her hips and the triangle of scarlet and lace that covered her mound.

  “Your wish is my command,” he whispered, lifting up the heavy coil of her hair and pressing his mouth to the place where her pulse throbbed against her neck. She smelled of flowers and spice and went straight to his head—with a spike of desire to his groin.

  She surprised him by turning around in his arms, stretching up to press her mouth to his. She was like heat. A rich, addictive sweetness that was all her—only her—with an underlying kick he couldn’t seem to get enough of. The taste of her wrenched the desire in his gut to an even higher pitch. He raked his hands through what was left of her elegant chignon and jerked her closer, flattening her against him. He felt the push of her breasts against him, the hard ridges of her nipples like twin points of delicious agony against his bare skin, and angled his mouth across hers for a deeper, better fit. He filled his hands with the sweet curves of her bottom, pulling her tight against him, her softness directly against his throbbing groin.

  She felt too good. He could eat her alive. In one gulp. But she wanted her turn, and he wanted to give it to her.

  She pulled away, her eyes dark in the low-lit room. Once again that smile curved her lips. It drove him crazy. He had the sensation that the worlds he’d sensed in her were there once more—just out of reach, hidden in plain view—if he could simply decode that damned smile.

  He let her push him backward toward the bed, intrigued by the new determination that tilted up her chin and brought that gleam to her eyes. She kept pushing against him, and he kept letting her move him, until he sprawled back across the deep burgundy silk dupioni coverlet. He propped himself up on his elbows and watched her. If this was how she looked when he let her take charge, he resolved to allow it more often.

  Very slowly, never taking her eyes from his, she reached behind her and released the catch of her bra—pulling it off with one hand and letting her breasts fall free. He did not move—he only feasted on them with his eyes. So close, and yet out of reach, the twin globes were begging for his touch—his tongue. Then she bent and slowly stripped her panties from her body, drawing his eyes along with her as she stepped out of them. One long, shapely leg, then the next.

  Luc thought he might have lost the power of speech. He ached to bury himself in her. His hands twitched with the need to touch her. And she only stood there, for a moment that seemed to stretch into infinity—her eyes as unreadable as the sea they were said to resemble.

  Just when his patience was about to snap she stepped toward the bed, running her hands up his legs until they met at the waistband of his trousers. Her hair trickled across his stomach—teasing him, inciting him, driving him slowly and softly out of his mind with the most intense lu
st he had ever experienced.

  She leaned over him and set about removing his trousers with more single-mindedness than skill. She let out a soft sigh when she released his aching hardness from behind his zipper, and took it in her warm hands, testing the weight and feel of it against her palms.

  Luc had to close his eyes and grit his teeth to retain control. Barely.

  “Stop,” he ordered her when she leaned forward, her mouth far too close to his sex.

  He jackknifed up and pulled her away from danger, his heart pounding against his chest like a drum. He kicked his trousers off, wincing as he nearly unmanned himself in his haste to get rid of his socks, his underwear, without releasing his hold on her. Her hair fell around her in a tangled curtain of dark honey, her lips were swollen slightly from his kisses, and she was without question the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

  If he did not get inside her soon he might kill them both. And her mouth would not do—not tonight.

  “I told you—” she began.

  “I have only so much control,” he gritted out, cutting her off, his own voice guttural in the quiet room. “I am only a man, Gabrielle!”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, her laughter wicked. Powerful. Then her eyes darkened—a mix of passion and something else Luc could not identify. “I think you do not trust me.”

  She didn’t give him a chance to answer. She climbed up on to the bed, straddling his thighs, bracing herself against his chest and holding herself there for a moment—poised above him, tormenting them both.

  If he had meant to answer her, he forgot. He forgot everything.

  “Gabrielle—” he managed to grit out, through his teeth.

  And she sank down on top of him, burying his sex deep within her, making them both groan.

  Luc pushed her hair back from her face and pulled her down close as her hips began to move in that delicious, mind-numbing roll that was uniquely hers. He kissed her once, twice, and then released her, watching her rear up in front of him like some kind of goddess. She rode him until they were both panting and she was moaning—rode him until she shone with the force of it—rode him with an abandon and an intensity that he had never seen before, never dreamed of before.