She wouldn’t, actually. She was occasionally called upon to do her duty as Lady Anastazia Carmichael, daughter of the Duke of Warminster, and appear at a Royal Garden Party or some other formal occasion. Not too often, thank goodness.
“What happened last night with Ash and your friend Lissa?”
She glanced across at Alexandre. “You haven’t spoken to Ash today?”
“Oh, I’ve spoken to him.” Alexandre sat forward to top up their wineglasses. “Ash isn’t saying anything.”
Well, that was something. At least Asher didn’t appear to be the type of man who would totally humiliate Lissa by discussing his conquests with other men.
Stazzi grimaced. “Lissa doesn’t want to talk about it or him.”
He frowned. “I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t your fault.”
“But I introduced the two of them.”
“And Lissa would be the first one to tell you she’s a big girl now and quite capable of making her own mistakes without help from anyone else.” In fact, that was exactly what Lissa had told Stazzi during their last telephone call just after six o’clock this evening.
“It went that well, hm?”
“I believe so, yes. Now, which film are we going to watch?” She deliberately changed the subject. Lissa might take responsibility for her mistakes, but Stazzi wasn’t about to discuss this one with a third party. Even Alexandre. Maybe especially with Alexandre, as he was such a close friend of Ash’s.
The change of subject led to another heated discussion regarding the merits of the newest superhero film or a comedy. Stazzi won, removing her boots before she and Alexandre sat together on one of the sofas in front of the television, the lights turned down as they watched the superheroes once again save the day.
“You just wanted to look at that guy’s abs,” Alexandre commented dryly once the credits were rolling.
“And?”
“And nothing.” He chuckled at Anastazia’s expression of “duh.”
“There was humor in it too,” she defended. “I distinctly heard you laugh a few times.”
She had, yes, but that was mainly because Alexandre was totally relaxed in her company, and he had also enjoyed sitting back and watching her enjoyment of the movie. He had a private cinema in the palace in Androcco, could watch any film he wanted whenever he wanted, but this, here and now with Anastazia, was the most fun he’d had in… Well, in two years, to be exact.
She was also far more relaxed in his company this evening.
“Can I kiss you?”
Stazzi instantly tensed. Not because she didn’t want Alexandre to kiss her. But because she did. Even more so after spending such a relaxed evening with him. She really wasn’t sure it was a good idea to have him kiss her too.
And who decided that everything I do has to be a good idea?
She liked Alexandre. Maybe a little more than liked him after spending such an easygoing evening with him. But as long as she didn’t allow herself to get too carried away with the moment, where was the harm in a kiss? Or two? Alexandre had kissed her good night outside her apartment building last night before he left, and it hadn’t turned her into the wanton she had become in the back of the limousine.
Maybe that was because of all those bodyguards standing only feet away? Bodyguards that were nowhere near this evening…
She dismissed those warnings as she turned toward him. “Yes. Please.”
Chapter 8
Alexandre’s breath caught in his throat as he shifted along the sofa until he sat close enough to Anastazia to place his hands against her cheeks. He lifted her face up to his before he lowered his head and claimed her lips with his own.
He loved Anastazia’s mouth. The parted softness of her lips and the promise of heat beneath. The way she now responded almost shyly, despite the intimacies they had shared the previous evening in the back of the limousine. He could spend hours just kissing her, sipping, tasting, exploring, as he learned every warm contour and nuance of her lips and mouth.
Stazzi wondered why she’d ever thought indulging herself with one kiss—or two—would ever be enough to satisfy the craving she now felt for more. So much more, as her hands rested on the broad width of Alexandre’s muscular shoulders, loving the feel of the shift of those muscles beneath her fingers as Alexandre’s arms moved about her waist and he scooped her up to sit her across the hardness of his thighs.
Her lips parted against the onslaught of his marauding tongue, hands moving instinctively to allow her fingers to become entangled in the hair at his nape. She groaned softly, nipples tightening, a burning ache at the apex of her thighs as the kiss became wild and heated and Alexandre laid claim to every part of her mouth. In the same way the hot throb of his arousal beneath her thigh said he wanted to claim all of her.
She had no idea how long the increasing wildness of those kisses lasted—minutes, hours, days—the room filled with the sound of their hungry groans as their hands roamed and caressed with increasing desperation. One of Alexandre’s hands cupped and squeezed her aching breast before moving lower, and that hand parted her denim-clad thighs. He pressed and stroked her swollen clit until she began to gasp and arch into the sureness of those strokes.
The ever-increasing swell of Alexandre’s arousal told her that his need was as urgent as her own. More so, probably, because she had selfishly taken last night, with no return to Alexandre for the pleasure he had given her, not once but twice.
“What—” Alexandre’s protest when Anastazia broke the kiss died in his throat, his heart beating loudly as the stormy blue of her gaze held his captive and she slid down to the carpeted floor to kneel between his thighs.
“Anastazia…?” He barely breathed as her fingers moved to unfasten the top of his denims before sliding the zip down, lifting up slightly to help her as she tugged his denims and boxers down to his thighs, allowing his cock to spring free of its confinement.
“God, you’re beautiful…” Anastazia’s fingers gripped and then stroked the length of him, her gaze becoming both hot and hungry as a bead of precum escaped the slit at the top in response to those fingers grasping him tightly.
Alexandre groaned as the tip of her tongue appeared and slowly moistened her lips before she rose up on her knees and that tongue flicked out to gather up the bead of precum, only for it to be followed by another, and then another, all licked up greedily by that hot and rasping tongue.
“Mm, you taste delicious,” Anastazia murmured appreciatively before parting her lips and slowly feeding his cock an inch at a time into the heat of her mouth.
Fuuuck!
Alexandre almost lost it completely as she sucked his cock to the back of her throat and her fingers gripped him tightly. It felt so fucking good. Indescribably amazing. Heaven and hell at the same time, and so much more intense than pleasure given in a dream or by his own hand. Alexandre felt his balls tighten at that overload of pleasure after months, years, of grieving for his father or being too busy ruling Androcco to so much as look at a woman with sexual interest, let alone do anything about it.
Until Anastazia.
Alexandre groaned as he sank farther down on the sofa, becoming boneless and totally unable to stop watching Anastazia through narrowed lids as she set up a sensual and heated rhythm of pleasure. Her lips were wrapped tightly about his cock as she took him to the back of her throat, and then that wicked tongue would lick along his length as she slowly pulled back, before concentrating that silky hot tongue on the sensitive knot of nerves just below the bulbous tip.
And each time she did, his balls drew up tighter and his self-control slipped a little further out of his grasp. He needed to stop this. Had to stop this.
But it feels sooo good. Too good to stop. I—
“Oh fuck!” Alexandre sat forward abruptly to grasp Anastazia’s shoulders as she cupped his balls in her hand and one finger pressed against another knot of nerves beneath them. “You have to stop,” he gasped, fingers gripping tighter
in an effort to stop himself from coming. “Anastazia, if you don’t stop, I’m going to come!”
She lifted slightly, releasing him with a loud moist pop. “Then come…” Her breath was warm against the dampness of his flesh before the heat of her mouth once again enveloped him.
Fuck, fuck, fuck! “For God’s sake don’t stop.” He totally contradicted himself as she sucked his cock deeper still, followed by her tongue licking in that wicked rhythm as she slowly raised her head. She repeated the hot caress again and again, until Alexandre felt sure he would go insane from the pleasure. “God, Anastazia!” he cried out as he began to desperately stroke his cock into that moist furnace.
He thrust again and again, and it was pleasure such as Alexandre had never felt before. Because it was Anastazia? He had no time to think about why as, mere seconds later, his pleasure became so intense, he exploded and his cum pumped out of him in thick and molten, seemingly never-ending jets, to be swallowed down by Anastazia’s hot and greedy mouth.
Their ragged breathing filled the air in the aftermath of Alexandre’s sexual explosion.
He fell back against the sofa, groaning at the release of one last painful shuddering pulse of cum from the visual pleasure of his still-hard cock held captive in Anastazia’s mouth.
Well, this is awkward, Stazzi realized self-consciously, lashes lowered as she slowly raised her head, releasing Alexandre from her mouth to place her hands on her jean-clad thighs. She sat back on her haunches. Her eyes flickered up and then quickly down again as she heard Alexandre’s groan and realized it was in response to the sweeping of her tongue across her lips as she licked up and relished the taste of the last of his release.
She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and then released it again when she saw the heat of Alexandre’s gaze as he watched her. Because she was doing that “chewing your bottom lip” thing again.
“Alexandre, I— What are you doing?” Her eyes widened as he straightened his clothes before leaning forward to scoop her up in his arms. Her arms moved quickly about his shoulders when he stood up and strode across the room towards the closed door. “Where are we going?”
“Bedroom. Open the door, please,” he instructed gruffly.
“But—”
Alexandre didn’t ask her a second time, bending slightly at the knees so that he could open the door with the hand he had beneath her thighs, before stepping out into the hallway.
Stazzi felt the warmth enter her cheeks when she saw the bodyguard on duty outside, his eyes widening briefly before he quickly averted his gaze.
Alexandre didn’t so much as glance at the other man but set off down the hallway in the direction of the bedrooms. Because he was used to living in that goldfish bowl? So much so, he probably hadn’t even noticed the other man. But Stazzi noticed him as he had noticed her, and she knew he must be drawing his own conclusions about where the two of them were going and what they were going to do once they got there.
Was this what she wanted?
She had so enjoyed giving Alexandre pleasure. Had felt empowered when he lost complete control and came in her mouth. She could still taste him there, salt and sweet at the same time, with an added dash of spice. Utterly delicious.
Oh, to hell with it—yes, Alexandre is exactly what I want.
Not on the rebound from Will, as she had suspected last night, but because she wanted Alexandre. This Alexandre. The man she had spent this evening with. Dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, his hair tousled from her caressing fingers, those green eyes dark with passion as he glanced down at her.
Stazzi relaxed and smiled at him, then settled more comfortably in his arms, her own arms tightening about his shoulders. He entered a darkened bedroom and kicked the door shut behind them, the room lit only by the light of the moon shining in through the windows.
She kept her arms about Alexandre’s neck while he laid her down on top of the bed, parting her thighs to welcome him as she pulled him down on top of her.
Alexandre felt his cock engorge and swell again when he settled between the heat of Anastazia’s thighs, his weight on his elbows while he looked down at her. “I want to make love to you.”
“I think I already know that,” she teased.
“All of you.”
“Yes.”
His heartbeat sped up. “Yes?”
“Yes,” she confirmed breathlessly.
His gaze roamed over Anastazia’s face, searching for any sign of uncertainty on her part. Her eyes looked back, shining and assured, a slight smile curving those delicious lips. “God, Anastazia…” He buried his face in the thickness of her hair, breathing in deeply. Breathing her in deeply. The lemon smell of her hair, the floral and spice of her, and the hot and heady perfume of her arousal.
Removing her clothes, one item at a time, was like unwrapping a Christmas or birthday present, each layer taking him closer to the holy grail that was Anastazia. First her top, then her bra—God, her breasts were perfect. Small and yet full, and tipped with dark, engorged nipples that he enjoyed with his lips and tongue before releasing them so that he could move lower and deal with the fastening to her jeans. He slid those denims down her thighs, along with her lace panties, revealing dark curls at the apex before removing the clothing completely, along with her socks.
Alexandre sat back on his haunches to gaze at Anastazia’s nakedness. Her hair was a glossy black tumble on the pillow behind her, the ivory skin of her naked body bathed in moonlight as it picked out all the perfect dips and hollows. “You’re as beautiful as I imagined you would be.”
“For all of forty-eight hours?” she teased huskily.
His gaze flickered briefly up to her face. “I saw your photograph long before that.”
“Photograph?” She frowned.
He nodded. “The Meyers Hotel has a website. You’re on it. I saw you, and I wanted you.”
“You saw my photograph and wanted me…?”
He winced. “Too stalkerish for you?”
“No. No, not at all,” Stazzi assured him wonderingly. It somehow made…this, whatever this was, less…tenuous, to know that Alexandre had wanted her before he even met her. It also made her feel warm inside to know he hadn’t come on to her because she conveniently happened to be here, and that his attraction was specific to her.
Because Alexandre saw my photograph and wanted me.
How much of an ego boost was that, to know that Prince Alexandre St Sebastien of Androcco, once the playboy prince of the West, had seen her photograph and wanted her?
She held her arms up invitingly. “Come here.”
He held her gaze as he reached for the bottom of his T-shirt and pulled it up over his head, tousling his hair even more and giving him a distinctly rakish appearance as he once again settled his denim-clad thighs between hers and then aligned the hard warmth of his naked chest against her breasts. “I want to savor every inch of you.” His breath was warm against her skin as his lips explored her throat. “Kiss, touch, and caress all of you, until not an inch of you remains hidden from me.”
“Yes.”
“Not one inch, Anastazia. I will know all of you,” he warned darkly. “Claim and possess all of you.”
Stazzi gave an anticipatory shiver. “Take off the rest of your clothes, Alexandre.”
His mouth quirked even as he moved to sit on the side of the bed before standing to finish undressing. “I like that you’re as demanding a lover as I am.”
She wasn’t. Not usually. She was being so now because Alexandre allowed her to be. She had always reined in the depth of her passion with men in the past. Especially with Will, because he didn’t like a woman to be in the least demanding in bed, claimed it was unladylike— Oh, fuck Will and what he did or didn’t like. If Alexandre, ruler of his own principality, didn’t feel threatened by the depth of her passion or her demands, then she was finally free to be her completely uninhibited and demanding self.
Alexandre’s cock gave a welcoming surge as Anast
azia moved up onto all fours, her gaze holding his as she prowled across the bed toward where he stood, the glossy fall of her hair shielding most of her nakedness. Which didn’t hinder him appreciating the slender length of her back or the perfect roundness of her bottom.
“Not this time.” He stepped aside as she would have reached for his cock. “The next time I come, I’m going to be inside you,” he promised as he gently nudged her over onto her back before sitting down on the bed beside her. “Deep inside you.” He straightened his arm to lean his hand on the bed as his other hand moved to cup her mound, palm pressed against her erect clit even as his fingers parted her swollen folds and he pushed two of them inside her slick heat.
Anastazia gave a low groan and her eyelids fluttered closed, her legs parting to allow him deeper access.
“Look at me. No, not here, down there,” he instructed as Anastazia’s gaze went to his face before lowering to where he had his hand between her thighs, his fingers glistening with her juices as he removed them fully between each thrust. “You’re so hot and wet here, Anastazia.” He pressed harder against her throbbing clit as his thrusts became faster. All the time his gaze remained fixed on her face, flushed now, lips slightly parted, her dilated pupils making her eyes appear almost black. “You like this.”
“Yes…”
He sat up to allow his other hand to squeeze and roll one of her nipples between his fingers and thumb. “You like that even more,” he said with satisfaction. Her back arched into the caress while her thighs met the thrust of his fingers. “Answer me.” His voice cracked like a whip in the silence of the bedroom.
“Yes. Oh God, yes, I like that,” she groaned.
“How much?” He squeezed the nipple harder, fingers pumping faster between her thighs.
“Very much.”
“No, don’t touch me,” he ordered as she would have reach up to him. “Keep both your hands on the bed.”
“Oh God…!” Her head began to toss from side to side when he moved his hand to her other nipple and squeezed even harder, almost but not quite to the point of pain.
Resisting Alexandre (Knight Security 0.5) Page 7
