by Maisey Yates
She couldn’t explain it. She couldn’t even rationalize it to herself. But, that didn’t make her move away from him. Didn’t entice her to break their contact.
She looked up, meeting his eyes. Those eyes that she had seen lit with happiness in a photograph, but were so dark now. She lifted her hand, her fingertips brushing the rough skin on his cheek. Then she drew back quickly, as though she had been burned.
Adam reached out, curving his fingers around her wrist, holding her tight. He raised her hand slowly again, placing it back where it had been a moment before. There was something needy there, written across his face.
She adjusted her position, so that she was facing him square, both of her hands on his face now, resting just above his jaw. Her thumbs touched the corners of his mouth, and a deep sound rumbled in his chest. Something that sat between a growl and a purr of satisfaction.
Her fingertips brushed up against the scar tissue next to his lips, but she didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. She hadn’t known him before. Yes, she had seen that photograph, but it wasn’t the Adam she knew. It wasn’t the Adam she found so compelling. It was a piece of the puzzle that was the man who stood before her, a piece that mattered. That meant something. But, it certainly wasn’t what compelled her. The idea that he had been a more beautiful man once.
He was the man who drew her in now. The man who compelled her to leave behind a lifetime of restraint. The man who made her question so many things about herself. About what she wanted.
He dropped his hands to his sides, then reached out, grabbing hold of her hips and holding her steady as she continued to touch his face, slowly, softly.
She raised her hand, sliding her thumb down that thick ridge that ran through his eyebrow, down along to the edge of his eye. “You can see all right?” she asked.
“Yes,” he responded. “Lucky, I suppose. Though, I have never considered much about the accident to be lucky.”
“Well, I guess lucky might be a stretch. But not adding more trauma by losing your sight is certainly something.”
“Honestly, I would not have cared. Until recently, there was nothing to look at.” Those words sent a spiral of pleasure winding through her. She tried to remember if Tony had ever told her she was beautiful, or ever implied it the way that Adam just had. If he had, it didn’t stand out to her. But, she knew for a fact that Tony had kissed her, and right now she couldn’t remember it at all.
She could only remember what it was to kiss Adam, which was something else entirely. Something new. Something fully unto itself.
“In all of this darkness... I had forgotten that I could see,” he said. “Looking at you—at your beauty—it reminds me. You remind me of the few pleasures that are left to be had in this world.”
Sex. He meant sex. Nothing deeper, nothing more lasting than that. And even if he did, she couldn’t leave her life, she couldn’t leave her father, and...what? Marry the Prince of some small island country? A man she barely knew? No.
So it was fine, really. That he was only talking about the physical. Because it was the physical that held her in thrall at this moment, surely. It certainly wasn’t anything else. Certainly wasn’t anything deeper. It couldn’t be. It was impossible.
She wasn’t sure that it mattered. At least not now.
Because whatever this was, it was stronger than anything else. Stronger than any other force, than anything tethering her to the past, or reminding her of the future. This moment, this feeling, this need, was bigger, brighter, fiercer than anything could ever be.
“Adam...” And she didn’t know what else to say. Because the feelings, the need, had grown too big and it blocked out all the words, all the things that were spinning around in her head. She wanted to tell him that he wasn’t ugly. That he might be a beast, but that she wasn’t certain she cared.
Words fled, but desire didn’t. And so, keeping her hands on his face, she pulled upward onto her toes and leaned in, closing the distance between them and taking his lips with her own.
It took only a moment for Adam to claim control. For him to wrap those arms tightly around her and press her back against one of the bookshelves, a shelf digging into her lower back. She didn’t care. She didn’t care at all. Not about the discomfort, not about anything but the hot, hard press of his mouth against hers.
But this time, his hands did not stay contained to one place. This time, those large, warm hands roamed over her curves, sliding up to cup her breasts, his thumbs moving over her nipples. She gasped, arching against him, ignoring the slight pain when her shoulder blades met with the corner of a book.
No one had ever touched her like this. No man had ever touched her there.
She should be outraged, she should be...something. Virginal. Afraid. She didn’t feel any of that. She felt completely caught up, swept up in this madness that had rolled in between them like a cyclone.
Then his hands moved lower, gripping hold of her hips tightly, drawing her against the hardness of his body, showing her the evidence of just how much he wanted her. She moved her hands, sliding them around behind his head, then pulling herself closer until she was wrapped around him.
His hands moved lower still, down beneath the waistband of her pants, between her thighs. She gasped as his fingertips slid over the smooth, silken fabric of the panties she was wearing. She was...well, she was terrified of the feelings that were rioting through her, but she was also completely enraptured by them. He pressed harder, and she could feel dampness gathering there, and she wondered if he could feel it too, through that thin fabric as he continued to torture the sensitive bundle of nerves.
She forgot to be horrified. Forgot to be embarrassed. There was nothing but the fierce, blinding need that he was creating with the magic of his touch, with each pass, each stroke. She arched against him, moving her hips in time with the movement of his wrist.
She was shivering, shaking, a coil drawing tight down at the base of her spine and spreading down even farther, internal muscles she hadn’t been aware of before pulsing as he continued the sensual assault, continued kissing her, long and deep, his tongue sliding against hers. Continued stroking her between her legs, amping up her arousal to an impossible capacity that she hadn’t known existed inside her.
Then one fingertip drifted beneath the edge of the fabric of her panties, his hot skin making contact with her slick flesh as he drew his finger slowly forward, using her own wetness to ease the friction while he tormented the source of her desire.
And she broke. Shattered utterly, completely, waves of need washing over her, followed by shivers of satisfaction that went deep and seemed to ebb and flow on and on. She couldn’t take any more; she was sure of it. But she didn’t have the words to say that, couldn’t form a coherent thought. And so, he didn’t stop. He moved forward, pressing one finger deep inside her, the invasion so intimate, so unexpected that she cried out.
“Adam!” Then he rocked his palm forward, pressing down hard on the place where she ached for him. She had been wrong before. She hadn’t shattered. That had only been a crack. Now she shattered completely, reduced to nothing but glittering dust at his feet as she cried out his name over and over again, clinging to his shoulders as the intensity of her release swamped her, left her knees weak, left her body spent.
And when it was over, her throat was hoarse from calling out his name.
She understood why now.
She forced herself to meet his gaze, her cheeks turning pink as she did so, as she looked at the pure, unmitigated hunger in his dark eyes. Oh, yes, she understood. Why women lost their minds for passion, why they would spend their nights gladly with a man like him, and forget everything else.
And it was that that had her wiggling out of his embrace, fighting to get free, to get some distance.
“I need to...” She gasped, trying to take a breath. “I can’t breathe.”
He let go of her, taking a step back, his hands raised slightly as though to demonstrate that he was goi
ng to allow her this distance.
Her eyes filled with tears, her whole body beginning to tremble. She felt...well, in spite of the fact that she was fully clothed she felt naked. Exposed. He hadn’t even seen her body, but she felt as though he had seen something even more private, something that she had kept hidden, desperately, even from herself.
“I need coffee,” she choked out.
And then she ran from the room, leaving behind the first man to make her understand passion. The first man to ever make her confront what she had always feared about herself.
That given the chance, she would prove no better than her mother, no better at all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BELLE AVOIDED HIM rather skillfully over the next few weeks. And his body rebelled against it. But, Adam himself thought it was perhaps best not to push. He had to keep his eyes focused on the prize before him. Which was the party, and his great debut to the public.
His Viceroy had announced that Adam would be making a public showing, and had intimated that it was time for Adam to resume his rule.
All was going according to plan.
Other than those photographs, hastily published the previous week.
But, they had been poor quality, and while the story had certainly created a sensation, it hadn’t done as much damage as he’d thought they might. They had also paled in comparison to the real story. The fact that he had decided to step back into power.
Ultimately, the real control was still with him. He had a chance to write the next headline, and it would all come down to how he—how they—presented him on the world stage.
Considering that, he needed to keep Belle from looking like she was terrified of him. As she had looked at him in the library. He had to wonder if she was afraid of him, or if she was disgusted with herself. For losing herself in the arms of a man who might as well be a beast. Who was wholly unattractive and possibly the absolute opposite of the man she fancied herself in love with.
He was not vain. But for the first time he allowed himself a moment to mourn the loss of his looks. Now that he actually wanted to seduce a woman, it mattered.
Of course, in many ways he had seduced her; it had just left him unsatisfied. Had he been thinking clearly, he would have ripped her clothes from her body and buried himself inside her before satisfying her the first time. That way, they might have both come to a better conclusion.
He scowled, pacing the length of his room. Felipe’s party was tonight, and Adam was wearing a tuxedo for the first time in years. A new one had been made and fitted for him just this week. He’d had nothing to do over the past three years but spend time working out in his gym, and he was far too large now to fit into the suit he had once worn.
As Fos finished straightening his tie, Adam looked at his reflection and thought it fitting. That he could no longer even wear the clothes he had once worn, and that the more streamlined physique he had once sported was also gone.
Three years ago he’d had the sort of aristocratic form suited to a tuxedo. And the face to go along with it. Now, even with a suit that had been custom made, he looked like a panther being dressed up as a house cat. And his scars certainly didn’t help.
In some ways though, he found it fitting. Why should he step back into this life with ease? Looking as he had? He had changed. Utterly and completely.
“You might consider being a bit nicer to the girl,” his adviser said, partly under his breath, as he brushed something off the shoulder of Adam’s suit jacket.
“I gave her a library,” Adam said.
“Yes,” Fos returned. “And yet, she still avoids you as though you carry a particularly virulent strain of the plague.”
“I’m a monster—haven’t you heard?”
“It is not your face that makes you a monster, Your Highness.”
“I don’t think I asked for a commentary,” Adam said.
“You didn’t. But, you intend to make your debut with her tonight, and it might be best if she didn’t look afraid of you.”
“I have no control over that. I have done my best, at least, as well as I can do under the circumstances. The circumstances being that she is my prisoner.”
Fos nodded. “I can see how that might make it difficult. Perhaps, make an effort to appear human. That might help both with Belle and with the ball.”
“I didn’t say I needed help with either.”
“But you do.”
Adam snorted. “Trust me. It isn’t that she doesn’t like me. It’s that she likes me a little bit too much.”
“Yes,” Fos said, “I get that feeling. But how are you going to entice her if you don’t remove the fear?”
“Some women like fear.”
“Some women who are not as sweet as she is, I think.”
“I don’t want her to like me,” Adam insisted. “I might want her in my bed, but that is a different matter.”
“You’re determined, then. To stay under this curse? To stay miserable? Because I think she’s the one that could fix all of this.”
Adam turned to his friend, forcing a grim smile. “There is no fixing this. What’s done is done. All I’m after is a little bit of satisfaction, if it’s on offer. And a chance to take back my reputation. A chance to assert myself as a strong leader for my country. I’m not asking for anything else.”
“And if you could?”
“I have no interest.” He looked back at his reflection, a reflection that he didn’t often ponder. What point was there? All he could see on his face was a road map of the destruction that had been wrought in his life. He didn’t like pondering it at all. “I suppose,” he said, “this is as good as it gets.”
“You have yet to see your date,” Fos said. “Believe me. She is as good as it gets.”
* * *
The old man had not been wrong, neither had he been exaggerating. When Belle appeared in a golden gown that conformed to curves he had had his hands on, glittering like a trophy, her dark hair swept to the side, cascading over her bare shoulder in ringlets, he felt as though he had been punched in the gut.
Arousal that had been with him, clinging to him, gnawing at him like a wild beast made itself known all the more as he looked at her. He wanted her. He wanted her more than he had wanted anything in the past three years. In truth, she was the first thing he had wanted in all these years. Because there had been nothing he wanted beyond drawing the next breath since his loss.
But she was a hunger. Fierce and unquenchable.
He extended his arm, and she looked at it as though he were offering her a snake. “Come,” he said, his tone much harder than he had intended. “You can’t look afraid of me when we walk into the ballroom. It will not do.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, stepping toward him, the dress swishing around her legs. “There.” She looped her arm through his. “See?”
He led her through the corridor, more brightly lit than usual. The double doors to the palace opened wide, and outside was a car. He had a strange sort of flashback, a return to a life that lived only in dreams now.
He stopped, a sudden lump in his throat surprising him, an ache that started there and extended all the way down through his chest, immobilizing him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, looking up at him with luminous blue eyes.
“I haven’t... I haven’t actually been in a car since my accident. Not that I can remember. Yes, I got a ride home from the hospital, but I was heavily sedated at the time. Otherwise, all my treatment has occurred here at the palace.”
She tightened her hold on him. “Are you afraid?”
He shook his head. “No.”
It was just that this felt a lot like the night he had left the palace with Ianthe. And only one of them had returned. He didn’t think that would happen tonight; he was not so superstitious. It was just...it was difficult not to feel connected to that other time. To that old grief.
He felt a featherlight touch on his cheek, against his ruined skin, follow
ed by the slow, hot press of her lips just by the corner of his mouth. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said again. “And everything will be fine tonight. It will.”
She moved her hand down his arm, slipping her fingers through his and drawing them down between the two of them. She was holding his hand. Such a simple gesture, and utterly unsexual, and yet, he felt it burn hot inside him.
He imagined that every touch from her would burn hot inside him now.
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice soft.
He didn’t need comfort. But, there was something to be said for it.
It was surprising to him how easy it was to get in the car, how easy it was to go on those winding roads he had been on the night of the accident. All the way to the airport.
Her mouth dropped open slightly when he told her they were going on a private plane to Santa Milagro. “I didn’t realize...”
“Well,” he said, “we are on an island. You didn’t think we were going to drive the whole way, did you?”
“I guess not.”
An hour later the wheels on the plane touched down in Santa Milagro, a mountainous country wedged in between Portugal and the Andalusian region of Spain. Sun washed and golden in the day, it glittered tonight. The lights of the city twinkling in the hillside, mirroring the stars that glittered overhead in the velvet blue sky.
When the door to the plane opened, and a limo pulled up to the base of the stairs, Belle’s eyes went wide.
“Okay,” she said, “this is definitely the most extravagant arrival I’ve ever made a party. But then, I’m wearing the most extravagant dress I’ve ever worn. With the most extravagant man I’ve ever known.”
He looked down at her, smiling slightly. “You think I’m extravagant?”
“A massively muscled prince who looks like he might Hulk out of his suit at any moment? Yes, that is a little bit extravagant.”
By the time they got into the car, the similarities between tonight and the night of the accident had begun to fade. He didn’t even think about it when he got into the back of the limousine, and Belle took her seat right beside him, her hand still linked with his.
