She reached down behind her and ran her fingers through his dark gold hair. His powerful arms and chest were bare. At her caress, he glanced up and sent her a smoldering look, his enticing mouth against her pale skin. Then his gold-tipped lashes lowered again and he bent his head and continued pleasuring her.
She was soon beyond shame, barely able to hold a coherent thought but for the realization that, with his bag of wicked tricks, he could have had her anytime he had wanted. Then reason fled. Sensation was all.
He continued seducing her.
When she moaned loudly with desire, he began kissing his way up her spine again, holding her firmly by her hips. He worked her night rail up over her head and pulled it off her, then covered her with his body, pressing her into the mattress under his weight. His chest was hard and hot against her bare back.
His muscled body was so large he seemed to surround her on all sides, dominating her; kissing her ear, he was a firm but gentle master. She could hear him breathing heavily, felt the soft, chafing broadcloth of his breeches against the bare skin of her backside and the massive evidence of his need as he ground his throbbing groin against her.
She arched her head back as his fingertips lightly caressed her throat, moving down to tease her nipples. She moaned with want, her body undulating under him. In that moment, he ruled her utterly.
“Ask me nicely,” he breathed.
She whimpered his name, knowing if he left her in unfulfilled torment again, she would die. His signet ring gleamed in the moonlight as he ran his hand over her fevered skin.
He kissed her shoulder. “Ask for it.”
She closed her eyes and gave him her surrender. “Rafael, Rafael,” she breathed. “Take me.”
“Turn over,” he ordered in a ragged whisper. Pushing up off of her, he permitted her to roll onto her back while he finished undressing, staring at her body all the while.
Naked with her a moment later, he cupped her breasts and moved down to kiss them. She cradled his head against her, closing her eyes.
“I love you, Rafael,” she said very softly. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Slowly, he rose over her and looked deeply, solemnly into her eyes, into her very soul. “You will never lose me. ”
“Rafael.” She caressed his chest with both hands, then slipped her arms around his neck. “Make it so they can never part us.”
He closed his eyes, bent his head, and parted her lips with his own. Kissing her all the while, he gently eased her legs wider apart and lay between them.
He murmured to her softly as the time drew near. She grew nervous at the sheer size of him. She watched his face, every nuance of his expression as she lay in his arms, trusting him as she had never trusted another living soul. She gave everything. She let him stoke the fire in her until she was ablaze, and when the time came, she opened herself completely, giving, yielding, as he eased in, whispering to her like a man gentling a wild horse.
He told her, softly, raggedly, when it would hurt, and she cried out as he thrust deeply into the core of her, but there was the ecstasy amid the pain, for she knew he was hers now, hers forever.
And then he began to make the hurt go away.
“My love,” he whispered, pressing fevered kisses to her brow. “My love. I needed you so much. I’ve missed you.” The warm, virile smell of his skin mingled with her faded day’s perfume and with the musky smell of sex that thickened the air. Stroking her arms and shoulders, Rafael caressed her breasts until her nipples strained rigidly under his palms.
Shyly, tentatively, she sought his mouth in the darkness as the pain slowly receded. She opened her mouth wider, consuming his slow, luxurious kisses. He fed her with his kisses, plunging his tongue deeply into her mouth until she caressed it with her own, sucked it hungrily. His hands traveled down her sides, following her curves down to her hips.
“So sweet, so tight,” he whispered. He stroked her, cupped her backside in both his hands, kneading her flesh, then his hands slid lower, drawing her legs apart even wider.
“W-what are you doing now?” she whispered in sudden alarm, still sounding a bit distraught from his rending her.
“Now I’m going to finish it, my darling,” he murmured, panting. He was trembling with restraint, his passion held in check. He kissed her shoulder while she slid her arms around him, bracing herself, not sure what was to come.
Pulling back gently from the tight sheath of her body, he thrust inside her again, again. He groaned with pleasure as he took her; he moved faster, seemingly unable to stop. It was like being caught in a summer storm; he was hard and steamy-slick, covered in sweat.
Surely she would be split in half, she thought, but she closed her eyes with a grimace, held on to his massive, sculpted arms, bit her lip, and silently endured the ramming of his warriorlike body into hers, forfeiting herself to his rage of love.
Then something peculiar happened. She was not sure exactly when the pain began turning to pleasure, but suddenly a burst of bliss beamed forth like a burning, sweet star in the place where he had once kissed her with the peppermint.
Startled, she dragged her eyes open and stared up at him. His eyes were closed and now he slowed his pace to a deep, languorous rhythm, savoring every moment as he took her in long, slow strokes. A diamond drop of sweat rolled down the side of his face, which was etched with tantalizing bliss.
“Oh, God, yes,” he groaned, hanging his head. His golden hair fell forward in a silky curtain around her.
She moaned abruptly a moment later, then her rigid body began softening under him. The fullness of having him inside her ceased to be discomfort. Fascinated and amazed, she closed her eyes, relaxed under him, and let passion flow through her veins like wine. She shivered and clutched him to her, gasping with undreamed-of pleasure. She was aware of nothing else but the sensations that were sweeping ever closer, and then they crashed through her body and she cried out against his skin, holding on ever so tightly to him.
He was whispering wildly to her. In a state of bliss, she was rigid, pulsating: She felt as though she had been born for this moment.
He claimed her mouth, rising on his hands above her as the last of his control flew asunder. He took her with urgent, vigorous strokes, then gave himself up to the dark wave of his release as it came roaring up from the depths of him. A barbaric growl tore from his lips: His mighty body went rigid and he gripped her in a savagely tight embrace. Pinning her fixedly under him, his hips lunged, his manhood pulsed with completion inside her and filled her womb to brimming, leaving him spent.
Over his broad shoulder, Dani stared up at the bed’s canopy above her, her eyes wide. He collapsed heavily on her with a soul-deep sigh. She enfolded him in a soft, nuzzling embrace.
After a long moment, he slipped his still quite rigid sex out of her body. She grimaced faintly, but found, to her surprise, that the pain she’d expected was nothing compared to a gunshot wound.
Rafael glanced down at her, his golden mane tousled, his eyes heavy-lidded. He was still breathing deeply, but the man looked thoroughly satisfied. Dani smiled softly, filled with the sweetness of the knowledge that, indeed, they belonged to each other now. With a brief mist of tears in her eyes, she reached up and cupped his beloved face.
Even if she died in childbirth, he was worth it.
He pressed a lingering kiss to her palm. “There’s something I must confess, Dani,” he murmured.
She said nothing. She already knew about his visit to Chloe Sinclair’s and wasn’t sure she wished to discuss it.
“The truth is, I didn’t marry you because you were the Masked Rider.” He stared down at her. “I didn’t really need to use your sway with the people. That was just the excuse I gave you for my proposal. It was much more than that, but I didn’t know how…I didn’t dare tell you…”
“What is it, Rafael?” she asked, taken aback.
“I knew from the moment I saw you that you were the one I have been looking for all my life,” he
whispered. “I would have found any excuse to make you mine, Daniela di Fiore.”
He kissed her and she closed her eyes, quivering at his words. He ended the kiss and they were silent. When he caressed her face lovingly in the dark, she looked at him again, loath to ask, but she had to know.
“Did you go to Miss Sinclair’s tonight?”
“I was there,” he admitted quietly, his eyes registering a flickering pang of guilt, “but nothing happened. I swear it on my honor, Dani. I ended it with her and left. Then I came straight home to you. You are my wife.”
“You left?” she asked in a small voice, longing to believe.
“Yes, my love. A man needs more than the pleasures of the flesh.” He trailed his fingertip along the line of her jaw and down her throat and whispered, “You alone satisfy my soul. Will you forgive me?”
“Yes, Rafael, but…” She paused for a moment, struggling with her doubts. “I know I cannot leash a man like you, but if you ever stray, you will lose my trust.”
“I know that,” he said soberly. He laid his hand on her midriff and, leaning closer, kissed her forehead. “Please do not fear it anymore, because there is nothing I treasure more than you and this trust of yours that I’ve finally won. I would sooner lose my kingdom, my life. I learned my lesson tonight, Dani. You are the only one.”
Lying on her back, she turned her face to him in the darkness. “I believe you, Rafael.” She gazed at him. “My heart is in your keeping.”
“And I will hold it as gently as a baby sparrow in my hand, my sweet one.” He leaned down and kissed her, then he yawned suddenly and stretched like a lazy lion, all lordly pride and tawny velvet.
He gathered her into his arms with a playful little growl. Cradling her, he stroked her hair, gazed into her shining eyes, and whispered, “Sleep, Princess.”
With a soul-deep sigh, she rested her cheek against the satiny warmth of his chest and, for once in her life, obeyed.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
“Let me tell you, Your Highness, I could get used to this,” Dani sighed in luxurious contentment as she sank deeper into the bathing tub of blue-veined marble that was big enough for two people.
Rafael sat across from her, resting his head back, his eyes closed, his arms slung over the rim of the tub. At her words, he opened his eyes and sent her a slow, lazy smile. “Royalty has its advantages.”
As he reached for a slice of almond biscotti from the silver tray that held their breakfast, she watched the play of sculpted muscle in his arms and chest with his simple movement. Beads of water sparkled on his bronzed skin in the slanted morning light that filtered through the high windows of the prince’s private bathing room.
Their bath was an inexcusable decadence in light of the drought, but Dani had awakened sore enough from her deflowerment to allow herself a little pampering.
Rafael washed down his biscotti with a swallow of dark, strong coffee, then noticed her smitten gaze and smiled, leaned toward her in the water, and kissed her cheek with boyish sweetness, then resumed eating. She lifted her crossed ankles and rested them on his muscled thigh.
“I have been thinking about this business of your father possibly disinheriting you for marrying me, and I think I have a solution,” she announced.
He lifted his eyebrows. “Now, that’s my national heroine talking. By all means, let’s hear it. I need all the solutions I can get.”
“I think if we work together the way you originally suggested that mad day in the jail—if we reach out to the people of Ascencion—travel around meeting them face to face, for instance—everything would be different.”
“How do you mean?”
“They want to love you, Rafael, but so far they only know you by your notorious reputation in the scandal sheets. They need to know the man you really are. You could see the places where the ordinary people live. I’ll take you there. Then you can get to know them, talk to them. Find out what their fears are and their dreams for themselves and their children. Between the two of us, I’m sure that we can find a few practical ways to help them, and if we do that, I know they will fall in love with you, as I have. Since Ascencion is your father’s first priority, then perhaps he will see what we can accomplish together for the good of the island, and he’ll give our marriage his blessing.”
He was staring at her.
“What do you think?”
Snapping out of a dazed look, he shook his head at her. “You are my needle in a haystack, you amazingly brilliant, beautiful woman.” He leaned toward her and kissed her soundly. “Let’s do it.”
She smiled against his mouth. He lingered, brushing his nose against hers.
“Daniela?”
She stole a quick kiss and murmured, “Yes, sweetheart?”
He smiled softly at the endearment and caressed the line of her jaw with his fingertips. “I take it you have made peace with the matter of childbearing.”
She lowered her lashes and nodded shyly.
He lifted her gaze to his with a gentle touch under her chin. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you. Besides, it could be weeks, even months before you become pregnant. But when the time comes, I swear to you, you’ll have the finest doctors, midwives, experts—”
“Will you be there with me?” she whispered pleadingly.
His eyes widened. He considered for a heartbeat, staring at her. “If it’s what you want, yes. Yes, I will.”
“If you are there, I know I’ll be too proud to cry.”
He linked his hand through hers beneath the water, drew it to his lips, and kissed it. “Then I will be there for you, Daniela. Always.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tightly.
From entwined embraces and sweet, small kisses, they began washing each other playfully, lovingly, when all of a sudden their caresses were interrupted by an ominous knock at the door.
“Rafe!”
He frowned toward the door. “Elan? What the devil do you want? I’m busy! Privacy is the one luxury royal life does not afford,” he added in a rueful aside to her.
“Sorry, Rafe, but I thought you’d want to know—I’ve just been given some rather shocking news.”
“What is it?” he called impatiently.
“Ah, Your Highness may wish to hear it privately.”
“Our wife is entirely in our confidence, my lord. Spill it,” he ordered Elan through the door, casting Dani a roguish grin.
“As you wish,” Elan called through the door. “Count Bulbati was found dead last night in his cell.”
Dani gasped at the news about her unpleasant neighbor. With a question on her lips, she glanced from the door to Rafael. At once, she saw that his smile had faded. His face had gone hard and grim.
“I’ll be right there,” he said in a steely tone. He brushed his knuckle reassuringly over her cheek as he rose from the bath, but his eyes were far away, their green-gold depths churning with veiled anger under his silky, gold-tipped lashes.
He stepped out of the tub and reached for a towel, his magnificent body streaming with water, glistening bronze in the morning light.
“What’s going on, Rafael?”
“It’s a long story.”
Warned off by the aura of threat around him she made no move to follow him out of the tub, watching him as he toweled himself dry. Slipping into his dark silk banyan, he tied it loosely around his lean waist. The voluminous silk flowed gracefully around him as he strode back to her and leaned down, cupping her face between his hands. He gave her a last, lingering kiss. The passion between them sparked to life. Dani quivered under his kiss, parting her lips for the lush caress of his tongue on hers.
Ending the kiss, he held her in a smoldering gaze. “I’ll see you as soon as I can.”
She smiled wanly at him. He pressed another kiss to her forehead and rose, turned, and marched out to his adjoining room in a swirl of dark silk, like some pagan warrior-chieftain of old with his golden mane spilling damply ove
r his shoulders.
An hour later, dressed in one of her pretty new muslin morning gowns, her hair coiffed, her body not as sore after the soothing bath, Dani was making an earnest study of a manual on court protocol when one of her maids came into the doorway of the sitting room holding a gleaming silver tray.
Dani looked up from the tedious book. “Yes?”
“A letter’s come for you, Highness.”
“Thank you. Bring it, please.”
The servant obeyed. Dani plucked the folded letter from the polished salver and nodded her dismissal. She unfolded the fine linen paper and scanned the authoritative, flowing handwriting with interest.
To Her Royal Highness Principessa Daniela di Fiore, lately Lady Chiaramonte
From Mother Superior Bernadetta Rienzi of the Sisters of Santa Lucia.
She read the heading in amazement. Sister Bernadetta? Why, she remembered that terrifying, black-robed dragon lady from the second convent school that had tossed her out for misbehavior! She had not seen the woman since she was eight years old.
Why on earth would Sister Bernadetta be writing to her now? Probably to scold her for something, she mused wryly, then read on.
Dearest Princess Daniela,
As my former pupil, you were always a bright girl. It was unfortunate that you could not finish your education with us.
“Ha,” she snorted aloud. “Unfortunate for whom?”
I understand that as the Masked Rider you have often lent your help to those in need. Forgive my brief greetings after all these years and my presumption upon our past acquaintance, but if you are still in the habit of coming to the rescue of those in danger, know that now there is one who craves your aid most desperately and whatever protection your influence allows.
Fascinated, Dani narrowed her eyes.
The young unfortunate in question is a ruined girl who has occasionally come to seek aid of our charities. Her name is Carmen. Last night she appeared on our convent’s doorstep in a state of terror, claiming that she had witnessed a terrible murder and that now her own life is in danger. The victim, according to the girl, was a chef in the royal kitchens. We have kept her safe through the night in the convent, but beyond God’s grace, I know not how to protect her, if her tale is true.
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