Her stomach tightened, then softened when he brought her gently back to the surface. Water played over her stomach, echoing the ripple of arousal inside it. “It’s a beautiful tattoo. Does every man in the family get one?”
Sebastian glanced down at it. The pattern of stylized leaves traced the swell of his muscles to ring his upper arm just below the shoulder. “I’ve had it so long I forget it’s there. But no, it’s not traditional.” His eyes sparkled with humor. “My mom almost died when she saw it. I got it when I was sixteen after I went to an Eric Clapton concert in London with some friends.”
Tessa laughed. “That’s such a…regular guy thing to do.”
“Who says I’m not a regular guy, as well as a prince?” He raised a brow.
Somehow that stopped her in her tracks. Not that she was making any tracks, since Sebastian still held her fast in his arms and her feet bobbed near the surface of the water. Royal trappings aside, Sebastian was just a guy. With a mind and heart and feelings. Like everyone else.
Like her.
She ignored the funny sensation in her gut. “It’s lucky I was always strapped for cash as a teen or I might have the New York Knicks emblazoned on me somewhere. What made you decide to get the family motto?”
Sebastian looked at the scrolled words. “Caspia and its people are my team. I might have occasionally cheered for, say, Manchester United, but my heart is always in Caspia, and as you’ve observed, I wanted to wear it on my sleeve. Still do.”
His eyes shone with a mix of passion and humor that made her heart squeeze.
How had their relationship gone overnight from five years of formal and professional relations to half-naked conversations and underwater encounters?
In some ways it was her wildest fantasy come true. The man she’d admired and mooned over for so long was actually teasing and flirting with her. It was hard not to be flattered.
And excited.
Sebastian adjusted his grip, sliding his strong arms under her. “Let your head rest. Let go. The water will carry you.”
“I think you’re doing most of the work.”
“I wouldn’t call it work.” His deep voice had a playful tone.
But what was he playing at? They both knew this flirtation couldn’t go anywhere. Not anywhere sensible, at least.
She shot him a challenging glance. “Me, either. I have phone calls to make.”
“First you must heal and recover. Hydrotherapy has been recognized for thousands of years as a powerful curative.” He shifted one of the hands supporting her torso and splashed a few drops of water on her hot skin.
She swallowed hard, trying to crush the sensations swelling inside her. “You should open a spa. Ancient healing therapies seem to be a specialty of yours.”
“Excellent idea. Why didn’t I think of that? See how valuable you are to me?”
“Oh, stop it.”
“Stop what?” His expression was all innocence.
“Buttering me up so I’ll stay and work for you.”
Or do whatever else it is that you have in mind.
“Can you blame me?”
“Well, no. I am efficient and organized.” She raised a brow. “And I do my best to present a professional appearance. Though that seems to have fallen by the wayside today…” She glanced at her bare stomach. Drops of seawater sparkled on skin that had already started to tan. A result of Sebastian’s unthorough sunblock application.
What was he doing with his fingers? The pads of his fingertips played her waist like a piano, dancing over her until her insides hummed like vibrating strings.
Her nipples poked against the fabric of her scanty top. Heat and moisture gathered between her thighs, making her glad her bikini bottom was already damp.
Sebastian lowered his head so that his breath heated her ear. “As you point out, you are perfect. Which is exactly why you can’t leave. I won’t let you.”
She shivered, the force of his words sinking in.
I don’t want to leave.
She writhed slightly, trying to regain control of her body. The sensations swimming through her were startling and unfamiliar. Warm water swirled around her while the breeze tickled her bare skin above it. Sebastian’s powerful hands held her crushed against his muscled chest. His musky scent wound through the salty tang in the air, threatening to overwhelm her senses.
Suddenly she was panting, gasping for breath, struggling against the firm hold of Sebastian’s arms and the ache of her unwelcome arousal. “I have to stand!” She shoved against him with her elbow.
“It’s too deep.”
Flailing in the water, she started to panic. Frantic kicking had freed her from Sebastian, but now, head reeling and body throbbing, she couldn’t seem to remember how to swim.
“It’s okay, Tessa, I won’t let you sink.” Sebastian took her hand and tugged her gently to the stone dock. He didn’t try to grab or control her, just guided her through the water. She grabbed a metal ring and clung to it.
She blew out a sharp blast of air. “I’m sorry. I guess it was all too much. I’m not cut out to be relaxed. It freaks me out.”
Sebastian’s look of concern eased into a grin. “You’re a real New Yorker. You’d rather resist than relax.”
“I’m from Connecticut,” she protested.
“Same thing.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“See, you want to fight me already.”
“I do not!” She shifted her grip on the ring. How had this man managed to so thoroughly unhinge her?
“Oh, yeah?” He shoved his hand in the water and splashed her. Hard.
She splashed back and kicked with her feet, showering him completely with water until he ducked below the surface.
He rose up, laughing. “See what I mean?”
She shoved another wave of water at him. Damn. He was right. She felt better already.
She could even stare right at his handsome face with the water streaming over its hard lines and feel…almost normal.
“Do you surrender?” she challenged.
“Caspians never surrender.”
“Honor Omnia Vincit, and all that.” Her eyes wandered to the tattoo circling his thick bicep.
“Exactly. And since I am a man of honor, I’ll help you out of the water. I think we’ve both had enough hydrotherapy for one afternoon.” His black hair hung in his eyes, dripping with water.
He looked very unroyal.
And devastatingly handsome.
“It’s okay. I can swim. I grew up in a coastal town. In Connecticut.” She dodged his offered hand and darted around him, diving under and pulling hard for the stone steps twenty feet along the dock.
As she climbed out of the water she sensed his eyes on her. She adjusted her scanty bikini, not that it made much difference. His steady dark gaze threatened to evaporate the water right off her.
This was so wrong.
A strange noise pierced the air. It took her a full five seconds to realize it was her cell phone. She dived for it, dragging her sarong over her bare legs.
Patrick. His work number. He’d called three times this morning just to “see how she was.”
How could she talk to him now, while her inside pulsed with desire for another man?
Guilt speared through her as she pushed the button to send him straight to voice mail.
“Now can we see the files? I’m kind of a workaholic, so I get neurotic if I’m not allowed to work.”
“You are working. You are my assistant and you are assisting me in enjoying my day.” His arrogant expression dared her to argue.
She fought the urge to laugh. Obnoxious jerk!
And he was right, too, which made it worse.
She sucked in a deep breath and tried to compose herself. All she had to do was survive her two weeks’ notice without doing anything stupid, then she could get on with the rest of her life.
“Do you have jeans?” His question yanked her back to the present.
; “Yes.”
“Great.”
He shrugged his white linen shirt back on, right over his wet skin. It clung to his ripped chest in a very disturbing way. She was still attempting to tear her gaze from the sight when he looked up. “What are you waiting for?”
“What am I supposed to be doing?”
“Getting your jeans.”
“Oh.”
Sebastian looked at her as if she’d lost a cog or two. He was right. Of course, it was all his fault.
“I’ll, uh, be right back.” She strode into the palace, hoping she could find her way to her room.
In the wide, colonnaded hallway she passed the queen, who was talking at top speed on a cell phone. Despite her damp and seminaked appearance, Tessa prepared her brightest smile. Her Royal Majesty glanced up but didn’t make any acknowledgment.
Ouch.
What did she expect? She was Sebastian’s assistant, not a visiting princess. Get over yourself already.
Six
S ebastian drove through the gates that kept the rest of Caspia outside the palace walls. He negotiated his Land Rover through the narrow cobbled streets with expert ease, pausing for an occasional chat through the window.
“I think it’s really nice that the royal family is so intimate with the people,” Tessa remarked. She thought, too, that Sebastian seemed more relaxed here than in New York. There he often looked tense and rushed.
“Ha. It drives my mother crazy. She prefers to maintain a majestic distance. But my dad and I like people too much. We couldn’t be cool and distant if we tried.”
He leaned out the window to beckon a flower seller, then exchanged one of Caspia’s large, colorful banknotes for a ribbon-tied bunch of pink, bell-shaped flowers.
He handed it to Tessa.
Now he was giving her flowers?
“Smell them.”
She wanted to laugh. Typical of Sebastian to buy her flowers then order her to smell them.
She buried her nose in the soft petals. “Mmm. They smell like honey.”
“Our Caspian honey smells like these flowers. It’s the most delicious honey in the world.”
“Of course it is.” She grinned. “Is there anything in Caspia that isn’t the best in the world?”
Sebastian turned to her—while continuing to speed along a windy, narrow stretch of road—and gave her an incredulous look. “You’ve spent a day here. Surely you know the answer to that already.” He faced front again and she loosened her grip on the door handle. “We’re headed for the place where these flowers grow, in the cool and shady crevices of our mountains.”
“Let me guess, they’re the most beautiful mountains in the world?”
Sebastian stared straight ahead as he drove. “You’re catching on.”
The Land Rover climbed toward the sky, bumping along a narrow, unpaved track. Grasses and wildflowers grew sparser as they rose through the rugged terrain, past the occasional grazing goat.
When it seemed as if surely they’d scrape the roof of the car on the hovering white clouds, he screeched to a stop in a cloud of dust.
“Jump out.”
She did. And it was quite a jump, onto loose shale. She skidded then got her footing on the desolate crag they’d ascended. She was about to make a crack along the lines of “where’s the royal pavilion?” when she looked up and the view made words shrivel on her tongue.
The land descended right from her toes in a sweeping cascade of rock, grass and flowers still brilliant in the dusk. A wide plain of grazed meadows punctuated the dramatic slope, then the land descended again to the city, where the red clay roofs of the ancient buildings hugged the hillside as it ringed the harbor.
“We’re two thousand feet above sea level.”
The ocean, far below, crinkled and twinkled in the setting sun. She could make out the dots of bright colored fishing boats returning to the harbor, and others setting out for the night’s catch.
Smoke rose from chimneys, no doubt rich with the aroma of Caspian dinners being cooked.
The lowering sun just touched the wide, dark sea, a bright orb that bathed land and water in transparent golden light.
It was so beautiful Tessa could hardly breathe.
“Now you’ve truly seen Caspia. This is our whole nation.”
Sebastian’s deep voice drew her gaze from the view. His pride and emotion were written plainly on the strong features of his face.
He stared at her. His gaze heated her face, but she couldn’t find words to cut through a new tension that thickened the air.
He reached out and again he played with her hair. She couldn’t move. Her synapses crackled as excitement rushed through her.
The golden light burnished Sebastian’s complexion to a warm bronze, making him more handsome than ever—like a prince from an ancient myth, here to rescue her from the humdrum reality of life and transport her to…
Somewhere like this.
“She must have looked like you.” His words were almost a whisper. His fingers roamed in her hair as his gaze wandered over her face and neck.
“Who?” She tried to ignore the hum of arousal vibrating through her.
“The golden statue.”
“The one that used to stand in the harbor?” Tessa squinted at him. She expected to see his face crease into a laugh, but it didn’t.
“Yes.” He tilted his head and gazed into her eyes. “The ancient statue of Andara that used to watch over our bay. The guardian of the people of Caspia.”
He paused and his eyes narrowed. “Now that I see you here, with your bright hair streaming in the breeze and the sun on your golden skin, I can picture her perfectly.”
Embarrassed, Tessa pushed a stray hair off her face. She could feel heat rising to color her cheeks. “I’m glad sunset in Caspia suits me, but I’m just Tessa from Connecticut. Trust me on this.”
His eyes held hers, unblinking. “Tessa from Connecticut, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
He spoke with such conviction that the breath crept out of her lungs.
Then a shard of good sense peeked through the sudden fog of desire: This is Sebastian Stone, world famous seducer.
“You’re not bad yourself, in the right light.” She tried to laugh, but no sound came out.
She stood transfixed by the hot gaze of his dark eyes. Something in her said “run!” but she didn’t move a muscle.
Then he stepped forward and pressed his lips to hers in a swift motion that almost buckled her knees.
His hard torso brushed her breasts, tightened her nipples into peaks. He gathered her into his arms, his strong hands covering her back as he pulled her closer.
Gentle at first, his kiss deepened, becoming forceful, intense. A current of heat seared her as his tongue touched hers.
His rough cheek against her own sun-heated face roused her senses. He smelled like sun and earth and salt air—not the things you’d expect a prince to smell like—but magic, and she couldn’t help but respond.
Her arms slid around his waist, against the hard muscle of his back. He groaned as his pelvis bumped against hers. The rough denim of his jeans chafed her. She wanted to slide his jeans down over his powerful thighs and…
Tessa! The shocking thought tugged her out of the haze of raw, pulsing lust that deprived her of her common sense.
What were they doing?
Well…right now Sebastian was devouring her neck, his mouth hungry and unforgiving, his teeth scraping deliciously against the ultrasensitive area behind her ear.
And she was moaning…Or would that sound be better described as whimpering?
Stop!
The word formed in her brain, then dissipated into a fog of desire as Sebastian took her mouth again in a hot, unrelenting kiss.
She didn’t want to stop. Not at all. The sensations pouring through her like thick honey made her want to beg for more.
So what if he was her boss?
If he was a prince?
If
he only wanted her for one hot, raw, ravenous night?
She shivered, her desire for him almost too much to bear.
Her fingers clawed at his shirt, then reached under it to touch his hot, hard muscle. She ground her hips against his and he responded, molding himself to her.
Her breasts crushed against his chest, her nipples thick with sensation as he hiked up her shirt and slid his hand over her bare back.
Then Sebastian unbuttoned her shirt. Slowly, carefully, his big fingers handled the buttons with gentle care. He eased it down her arms.
Her own breaths were ragged and unsteady in the quiet dusk. She saw the last copper rays of the sun as it sank behind the sea, taking with it the heat and bustle of the day.
And leaving the rich, thick darkness of the night.
Through her bra Sebastian laved her nipple with his tongue. Sharp sensation skidded over her and she almost lost her footing. His quick hands and strong arms soon righted her. He held her steady, tight, as he lowered his mouth and sucked—hard—on her other nipple.
The rough gesture aroused her to the point of agony.
“Come.” He took her hand.
His thick arm supported her across a patch of slippery shale and up the side of a rocky ledge.
He stepped through a narrow opening between two boulders and gestured for her to follow.
Tessa’s legs shook under the weight of unfamiliar feelings and sensations, as she stepped through the rocky opening. Behind the rocks lay a flat patch of hilltop, lit only by a slim, crescent moon.
Soft, thick grass tickled the sides of her feet above her sandals.
High rocks hid them from everyone and everything but the slender moon. Sebastian pulled her close and she shivered as he wrapped his powerful arms around her and held her tight.
Being wrapped in Sebastian was perfect.
Too perfect.
“Um, what are we doing?”
“Right now, I’d say we’re hugging.” He nuzzled her neck.
Shimmers of sensation danced along her shoulder and cascaded over her torso.
Her unclothed torso. Her shirt was out there on the rock face, somewhere.
“And now…we’re kissing.” The end of the last word blurred as his lips settled over hers.
His tongue danced with hers, making her insides twist and untwist in a pulse of excitement.
Prince of Midtown Page 6
