by Maisey Yates
And as difficult as it was to deal with him sometimes, she needed to continue to interact with him. So that she could play her part as lover to his satisfaction when they had to go to that party of his. So that he could begin to see her as a person and not simply a means to an end.
Or a means to his physical satisfaction.
That thought made her shiver. And she drew her arms tightly around herself as she continued to wander down toward the dining room.
She moved through the labyrinthine halls, and came around the corner, pausing in her tracks when she saw Adam standing there, large, imposing and more than a little bit terrifying. But not in the way he had been the first time she’d seen him. This was different. Deeper. Something that whispered in her ear that he was dangerous in a way she had never experienced before.
“There you are,” he said, a dark light in his eye that made her feel...something. A kind of strange, shimmering heat that started in her midsection and radiated outward.
“Were you looking for me?”
“I was about to be.”
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I was just going to get coffee.”
“It will have to wait.”
“Come on now. Coffee waits for nothing.”
“It will wait for me. I am Prince Adam Katsaros.”
She couldn’t help it. That made her smile. It even made her laugh a little bit. He frowned.
“Are you laughing at me?” he asked.
“A little bit. I suppose it’s been a long time since somebody has laughed at you. So, it’s probably good for you.”
“That is open for debate. However, I have something to show you, so I’m not going to stand here and engage in one with you.” He extended his arm. “Come with me.”
She eyed him. “Suddenly you have manners?”
“Perhaps I’m beginning to remember them. As you remind me of other things long forgotten, as well.”
“What is that?” she asked, stretching her arm out slowly and curling her fingers around his forearm gingerly.
“My desire.”
She nearly drew back as though she had been burned, but he pressed his hand over hers and stopped her. His dark eyes burned into hers, and she really did feel like she was being scalded. From the inside out.
“I’m not sure what to say to that,” she said.
“Well,” he responded, “then I consider it a good topic of conversation. Because I think this is the first time I have successfully shocked you into silence. Did you suppose that I was entertaining women here in my isolation?”
“I know some girls like to think they’re the first, Adam, but I never really considered that I might be the first of your captives.”
“You are. Until your father breached the security of my palace, no one has tried to draw me out of my seclusion. My story is far too tragic for such a thing. And, until your father, when the media realized they weren’t going to get a story out of me, they left me alone. Actually, I imagine it’s because the press caused my accident that they do leave me alone. It wasn’t enough they had done it once before to royalty, but then they did it again. Things need to change.”
“I know.” She admitted that she had a little bit of a purposeful blind spot when it came to the kind of work her father did. Mostly because it had put food on the table all her life. And also because in her opinion her father was a good man. He did what he could in the economy they lived in. But...when things went this far, when they put people in danger, cost people their lives, he was right. It had to change.
“You know,” she said, still clinging to his arm as he led her down a hall she hadn’t been in before, “my father wasn’t always a paparazzo. He used to travel around and take pictures of world events. Go behind enemy lines, all of that. But, then he ended up taking care of me, and he couldn’t travel the way that he used to. Plus, it’s hard to make a living that way. People don’t like to see how ugly the world is—they would rather get a look at the beautiful people. And yes, to a degree get a look at the ugly side of the beautiful people so that all the normal ones don’t feel like they’re quite so bad off.”
“Well, I will certainly have that effect on the masses. A little bit of tragedy porn to go with dinner.”
“You make me see the other side of it,” she said. “Not just the fact that sometimes the photographers go to dangerous lengths to get the picture, but...the fact you didn’t do anything to have your privacy invaded like this. Apart from the accident, nobody has a right to you. They don’t own you just because they know your name.”
“Well, thank you for that stamp of approval,” he said. “Without it I’m not sure how I would have held to my conviction that I was entitled to my privacy.”
She stopped moving and stamped her foot. “I’m trying to tell you that you changed my mind. Maybe you could be a little bit nice about it.”
“Maybe,” he countered, “you could stop expecting me to be nice.”
She huffed. “I should.”
They stopped at a pair of double doors at the end of the hall, and she looked at him questioningly. “I have something to show you,” he said simply. Then he pressed his palms flat against the doors, pushing them open.
The room was dark, curtains that stretched from floor to ceiling covering all the windows. He turned, pressing a button, and she heard the faint rustle of fabric, followed by a shaft of light piercing the darkness. All the curtains began to part, revealing bookcases. Everywhere. Extending from the high arched ceiling down to the marble floors, ladders stationed every few feet, to allow access to the upper shelves.
“What is this?”
“The library.”
“But, you said that I was in the library yesterday.” She turned in a circle, feeling awed by her surroundings.
“You were in one of the libraries. This is the main library, the one that houses my entire family history. The history of the country. Additionally, every great work of literature to come out of Olympios. Also, classics from the rest of the world. There are some modern works of fiction over here...popular works and more obscure works. If it’s been written, it may very well be in here somewhere.”
“I don’t...why are you showing me this?”
She turned to look at him, at that scarred, rough face that was starting to become familiar to her. He was no longer shocking, and she didn’t view the ridges on his skin as imperfections. Rather, they were simply a part of him. And those eyes, dark and fathomless, containing a wealth of pain...they made her feel.
“You said you liked books,” he said, his voice flat.
“So I did,” she said, taking a tentative step forward, walking to the nearest shelf. She let her fingertips drift over the spines, marveling at the collection in front of her. “Of course,” she turned back to him, trying to steel herself against the feelings that were rioting through her, “I also said that I liked my boyfriend,” she pointed out, “but, he didn’t materialize. Neither did a way for me to contact him.”
“Sadly,” he said, “that is still not possible. However, I would like to point out that you look far more enraptured when you talk about books than you do when you talk about him. And, frankly, you look more excited when you kiss me than you do when you speak about this other man.”
“It’s not all about excitement,” she said, her tone dry. She sounded prudish to even her own ears. How annoying. “Sometimes it’s just about feeling taken care of. Feeling like someone is there for you. They’re stable. He cares about me. I feel like we have a future together. When I’m done with school.” She ignored the fact that she didn’t feel the kind of churning sexual excitement that she felt when she was around Adam. Ignored the realization that hit her just then that suggested if she felt even half what she felt for Tony as she had felt for Adam over the past couple of days, there was no way she would still be a virgin. Resisting Adam—who had taken her captive, who was hard and scarred and nothing like anything she should be attracted to—was much harder than an
ything ever had been before. But somehow, she had managed to resist Tony for eight months of dating.
Adam wasn’t wrong. She did find books more exciting than she found Tony. And that was somewhat problematic, she realized.
“Passion is a key part of love,” Adam said. “And if not of love, then at least of life. My life...what you walked into, that is what life looks like without passion. It is dark, and it is isolating. You have not lost anyone the way that I have. You could have passion. Why don’t you?”
“I didn’t say we didn’t have passion. I just said passion wasn’t everything. My mother...she...she’s famous. Well, she’s the daughter of a very famous actress. And she essentially paid to have me swept under the rug. My father could make a spectacle of her, I suppose, but it would compromise certain things that were put in place for me. And, not only that, it would drag me out into the press, and he doesn’t want that for me.” She laughed. “I suppose that highlights the fact that he does see what he does as an invasion of privacy, since he wouldn’t want it for his own daughter. But my point is she’s the kind of person who follows passions. Drinks deep of life, and does all that stuff that’s fun and New Age sounding. But, she didn’t do anything with her responsibilities. She didn’t want to take care of her own child. I would rather have stability. I would rather have security than anything so capricious as passion.”
“I suppose you have felt loss,” he said, something changing in his expression. “I underestimated that.” He shook his head. “Emotional passion... I have no desire to experience such a thing again. Hope destroyed is something best never resurrected. But physical passion...” He took a step toward her, that light in his eye turning predatory. “Getting caught up in that, getting burned by that...that is something that I miss. And I wonder, have you ever experienced it? What does your boyfriend make you feel, Belle? Is he a pretty-boy surfer? Or maybe just a model with soft hands. A hollow chest and that kind of hungry look about him with sunken-in cheekbones. That’s very Californian, isn’t it? Probably nice to look at, but does he know how to touch you?”
His voice grew rougher, lower as he drew closer. “I am not a pretty man—that point can’t be argued. But I would know how to touch you. I can give you so much more than just a library. I can make you forget your name while you call out mine. Can he do that? Three years. Three years and I haven’t wanted another woman. How could I? My wife...she was beautiful. And more than that, I loved her. But I am tired of having an empty bed. I’m tired of walking around with all this fire inside of me and nowhere to spend it. Something tells me you’re more like me than you would care to admit.”
Belle couldn’t breathe. She was lost in this moment, lost in him, in the tendrils of flame that wrapped around her with each word he spoke, stoking the heat inside her hotter, higher.
It wasn’t him she was afraid of. No, it really wasn’t. It was herself. Because for the first time in her life she wanted to reach out and take the reckless thing. The wrong thing. She had always felt so grateful for the stable environment provided by her father. Because she could remember living in her mother’s house. Living in all that turmoil until she had been shunted off, sent to live in that little beach bungalow with her dad.
And there at least had been stability. He had loved her, once he had known she existed. He had taken her in gladly. Then she had met Tony at school, and he had seemed perfect in that very same way. Nice. Caring. Patient.
Adam was none of those things, and yet she felt like she was perilously close to being carried away on a tide of something that felt a lot like lust.
“Tony is very nice,” she said, the words sounding as bland as Adam had implied her boyfriend was.
“I imagine he’s very nice in bed, as well,” Adam said.
He did not say “very nice” as though it was a compliment.
“He...he respects me.”
“That’s very interesting. What does it mean, I wonder? Does it mean what I suspect? That he doesn’t want you? At least, not in the same way that I do. Which has somehow been conflated with respect. An excuse, perhaps, that allows women to put up with tepid bedroom experiences?” He laughed. “Respect. Synonymous with beige walls and sex once a week that takes less time than the human-interest piece on the evening news.”
Her cheeks got hot. “No,” she said, “that isn’t what it means.”
“Oh, I think it does in some circles. Why is it that respect is never equated to a man worshipping his lover’s body? To being so hungry for her he can be satisfied by nothing else? In my opinion, if a man you’re sleeping with respects you, he should respect you enough to make your knees weak and your throat raw from screaming his name all night.”
She didn’t correct him and say that he was respecting her desire to wait to be intimate. She didn’t know why she held that bit of information back. Possibly because her airway was currently constricted, and it was making it difficult for her to talk. And her thoughts were a little bit jumbled, which made forming sentences difficult, as well.
She didn’t want to tell him that she had no idea what he was talking about. That she had never screamed any man’s name in her entire life. And that she wasn’t exactly sure what could feel quite so intense that it would induce her to do that.
It hit her then, that the low, twisting sensation in her stomach, the slow, long pull that she felt starting there and moving down lower, was connected to a deep desire for him to show her.
It was embarrassing, just how innocent she was. How little she knew. She blamed her mother in that regard. Not just her absence, though, it wasn’t as though her father wanted to sit down and have a conversation with her about the facts of life.
No, she wasn’t sheltered. That wasn’t it. It was just that she had chosen, deliberately, to ignore as much about that sort of thing as she could. Because she connected her mother’s abandonment with passion. A passion for life, for men, for money and clothes and parties that had been severely curbed by the addition of a young child to her life.
So, Belle had resented it. All of it. She had clung to her simple existence, to being happy with what she had. The breeze blowing in off the ocean, the feel of a book in her hands. Dating Tony was an experiment, for sure. She enjoyed his companionship, she liked kissing him, but she had shied away from the rest of it because she was afraid.
Afraid of something she hadn’t quite been able to put a name to. But, she could put a feeling to it now. It was fire. That fire that Adam ignited low and deep inside of her. A fire she was afraid—once it was able to burn freely—would never be extinguished.
She was afraid she would forget herself. Forget who she was, and what she had once wanted. Because certainly, that was the fate of her mother. Who had forgotten about love, and about the important things, because of that restless fire.
She also realized that while she was rejecting all of it internally, while she was keeping silent to avoid drawing herself in deeper, she also wasn’t running away. No, she was standing here in this library, in a shaft of light, with Adam advancing on her, his dark eyes glittering. Just standing there, doing nothing to try to put distance between them.
She wanted this. She wanted him to take control. To make it so the decision was no longer hers. She was too afraid to decide on that last step. To close the distance between them. To admit to herself that she wanted to know. That she wanted to know what might make her cry out his name, and that she wanted it to be his name specifically.
How was that fair? How was that possible? When Adam had taken her father prisoner, taken her captive, as well? When she had a nice, sweet, patient man waiting for her back in California? How could she feel any of these things for this dark and tortured soul in front of her?
She didn’t know. Perhaps, it was that element of helplessness. Of the choice being taken from her. Perhaps, that was why it felt possible. Why it felt necessary.
In this castle, removed from the reality of the world, far removed from that little piece of the world she had ca
rved out for herself. From school, from friends, from books and boyfriends. From the familiar California coastline and the easy breeze that blew through there.
She was in his domain. His country. This mountainous island nation, where the wind ripped sharply through the crags and peaks of the unbending mountains, where it whistled around the turrets of the palace and created a sense of restlessness rather than a sense of ease.
It was also far removed from reality, like something in a fairy tale.
Or, something from a fantasy that she would never have allowed herself to have anywhere else.
“I like it when you say my name,” he said, his voice rough, the dark notes skimming along her skin, making her shiver. “I should like it even more if you said my name in bed.”
She looked up at him, her lips feeling suddenly dry. She slipped her tongue out, traced the edge of her own mouth. And suddenly, she was very aware of the fact that he had done the same the last time he had kissed her.
She didn’t think that she had been drawing his attention to her mouth intentionally, but when his gaze sharpened, when his focus moved lower, she wondered. Questioned herself a little bit more deeply than she wanted to.
Yes, she was trying to remove her own culpability in this situation. But, if she were honest...and then she couldn’t think anymore.
He reached out, his fingertips brushing her chin, tilting her face upward. Then he traced along the line of her jaw, to her lower lip, following the path her tongue had just forged. Then he continued on, at the other side of her face, along her cheekbone and back again, to that delicate spot just beneath her ear, and down the side of her neck, which made her tremble.
Those strong hands on such a vulnerable part of her should have been terrifying, or at the very least somewhat repellent. But, she found herself entirely unrepelled. Instead, she wanted to melt into that firm touch, encourage him to take an even firmer hold on her.
She gloried in it. In his strength, his power, next to her delicate frame.
