Lessons in Seduction

by Sandra Hyatt

  “But you expect me to stand by and watch you? This is my job, Adam. It’s what I’m here for.”

  “What you’re here for is completely separate.” He sidestepped but she moved with him.

  “Not separate, because, in case you’ve forgotten, I drove you here. Your Highness.” The title was supposed to remind him of their respective roles. It was also intended to let him know how irritated she was with him right now.

  Snowflakes drifted between them. “Looks like you just solved our problem. I warned you what would happen if you called me Your Highness. You’re fired. Which means you’re not my driver, so stand aside.”

  Her temper flared. “You can’t fire me without written warning.” She had no idea if that restriction held true for the palace, a world that operated with its own rules. She only hoped Adam didn’t know either—terms of employment for staff not being a major diplomatic concern. “So, as far as I’m concerned,” she pressed on, “I’m still your driver and I’m going to change the wheel.”

  “No. You’re not my driver and you’re not going to change the wheel.” He stepped closer, intimidating her with his size and his very nearness. Another inch and they’d be touching. She looked up and met the obstinate light in his eyes with what she hoped was its equal in hers. His breath mingled with hers. His warmth surrounded her. And a very different kind of warmth leaped deep within her. Her heart beat faster, her breath grew shallower. It took her a moment to register and recognize the sensation.

  Desire. Need.

  No. This couldn’t be happening. Not with Adam. It was just the proximity. It was his very maleness, it was the insular life she led, lately devoid of male relationships that weren’t purely about camaraderie.

  The light in his eyes changed and darkened, the anger and stubbornness replaced by something she couldn’t name. Time hung suspended. Slowly, he lowered his head. She breathed in his scent, and without meaning to, moistened her lips and swallowed. He was going to kiss her, and she shouldn’t want it.

  But she did.

  In a single deft movement he slid his hands beneath her armpits, picked her up and set her to one side.

  He smiled. Then dusted off his hands. Victorious. Satisfied with his win. Damn him.

  It took seconds for her equilibrium to return, for her to get past the fact that she’d thought of Adam that way, and not just in some dim imagining, but with him right here where she could have, and almost had, reached for him. Because he was right there. She’d ached to know the taste of his lips on hers. It had seemed imperative.

  And he had seen her thoughts and shunned her.

  He crouched beside the wheel, positioned the jack and reached for the wrench, relegating Danni to the position of observer or at best support crew unless she wanted to tackle him out of the way. Which would get her precisely nowhere. She was left alternating between mortification at her reaction to him, and frustration at the fact that he’d so easily brushed her aside both as his driver and as a woman.

  “If you fire me you’ll have to drive yourself home. You’ll lose all that time you could have spent working.”

  “With pleasure,” he said, sounding as though he meant it. “At least I’ll know I’ll get where I want to go.”

  “You’ll have to help yourself with your dating issues. Help yourself unwind and lighten up.”

  He raised his eyebrows and looked about them. “If this is your idea of helping me unwind, I can live without it.”

  He had a point. All she’d succeeded in achieving was to make matters worse.

  Adam set to work on the wheel and Danni stood to the side and watched him. Snow dusted his head and shoulders. Petty as she knew it was, she silently tried to find fault with even the tiniest detail of how he changed the tire. He gave her no opportunity.

  Usually she found strength and competence attractive. In Adam, now, coming after everything else, these traits were irrationally annoying. As he set the old tire on the ground she reached for it.

  “Leave it,” he said. “I’ll get it when I’m done.”

  It sounded like an order. She ignored him, and to the sound of his sigh, wheeled it to the back of the car.

  Sacked. She’d been sacked. Again. That was three times now.

  If they were no longer employer and employee and they weren’t friends, then what were they? Two acquaintances temporarily stranded on the side of the road as the snow began to fall more heavily. Everything was too unpredictable. Including Adam.

  Maybe she should have expected his annoyance at her decision to override his request, but she hadn’t expected his obstinacy over changing the wheel, and never could she have predicted that flash of awareness that passed between them as they’d faced off. Out of everything, that bothered her the most. The sudden fierceness of it had come out of nowhere.

  No traffic passed by on the road. She walked back and continued watching, trying to figure him out. Adam was older, though not that much older; it had just always seemed that way. But because of that and, more importantly, their respective positions, he was untouchable. He was also supposed to be imperturbable, safe and predictable, a touch on the staid side, considered and considerate, dependable. Anything listed in the thesaurus under safe would do to describe him. That’s who he was.

  Until now.

  And if Adam wasn’t being Adam, it turned her world upside down.

  She tucked her gloved hands beneath her arms and bounced on her toes, trying to keep warm.

  He lowered the car back to the ground and began giving the wheel nuts a final tightening. “Get back in the car. You’re cold.”

  “I’m fine.” She crouched beside him and reached for the jack.

  He glanced at her steadily. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re stubborn?”

  “A lot of people as it happens, but it’s a bit rich coming from you.”

  “Insolent?”

  “I might give you that one.”

  He shook his head. “Provoking?”

  “No more than you.”

  He stood. “Exasperating?”

  She stood too, glaring up at him. “Pot and kettle.”

  Adam looked skyward, as though seeking help from the gray and darkening sky, before his eyes met hers again. Apparently he hadn’t found the help he sought because frustration tightened his features.

  And there it was again, that something else in his gaze. That something that did ridiculous things to her insides, made the world seem to tilt. She studied him, trying to hide her reaction and trying to figure out what it was that had changed. If she could pinpoint it, she could deal with it.

  “Way more than me,” he insisted, incredulous.

  “No, because I—”

  His hand snaked out, cupped the back of her head and drew her to him.

  Adam’s lips covered hers, stealing her words, replacing them with the taste of him, overwhelming her with the feel of him, the exquisite heat of his mouth against her cold skin, and the answering heat it ignited within her. He coaxed and dominated and she gave back and gave in, welcoming and returning his fervor.

  This was what she’d wanted.

  He was what she’d wanted.

  Danni slid her arms around him, held him and angled her head, allowing him to deepen the kiss. Allowing him to draw her deeper under his spell. She welcomed the erotic invasion of his tongue. And the flames within her leaped higher as though he’d touched a match to gasoline.

  The flash point of her response told her how much more she’d wanted this than she’d ever admitted. She lost herself in sensation. Enthralled, enraptured, ensnared.

  In seconds he had her backed against the car, his hands cold and thrilling against her jaw. A counterpoint to the heat of his mouth. His fingers threaded into her hair. Fierce, possessive. His body pressed against hers and she arched into it, breasts to chest, hips to hips. Meeting and matching him. Governed by hunger. Slave to sensation. He was everything she wanted and more and he was everything she’d thought—almost hoped—he wasn�
�t. Cool reserve replaced by searing passion.

  He kissed her as though starved for her and awakened the same hunger within her.

  Danni groaned, weakened and empowered, aflame.

  Abruptly, he broke the kiss and drew back. His eyes, passion-glazed, met hers, and she watched as shock and regret replaced that passion. He snatched his hands from her head as though burned and clenched them into fists at his side.

  A terrible silence welled.

  Her frantic heartbeat slowed and she fought to calm her breathing. Adam swallowed. “Danni, I—”

  “Don’t.” She turned away from him and picked up the jack and the wrench and strode to the back of the car. She couldn’t bear to hear him apologize, to voice the regret written so clearly on his face. She didn’t want to hear the word mistake from his lips.

  Gritting her teeth, she stowed the tools in the back, mortified by her untutored and revealing response to him. And despite everything she knew, all the things about Adam that would make it impossible for him to want her, or let himself want her, she waited, hoping against hope, that he would speak—not words of regret but something else.

  But she could wait only so long.

  In silence, Danni headed for the driver’s door. Since protocol had clearly been abandoned and left twitching in the snow, she was going to make sure she was the one behind the wheel. It was the only chance she had of control. It would remind them both of who they each were.

  He got in beside her, bringing strained silence with him.

  There were no guidelines for this scenario.

  Danni started the car and took a deep breath as she looked out into the near darkness and the now heavily falling snow. Just as Adam was remembering who he was, she had to remember her role, too. This was not the weather to be driving back in. Visibility would be almost non-existent and the road would be icy and soon snow-covered. Common sense, much as it pained her, had to prevail. She wanted nothing more than for this to be over. She was no coward, but she wanted to run and hide. Instead she took a deep breath and said, “I don’t think we should head back to the palace this evening.”

  Six

  Adam glanced at Danni sitting stoically behind the wheel, all her attention focused ahead. The atmosphere inside the car was more frigid than outside, and it wasn’t because of the snow coating her hair and shoulders. A new tension tightened her jaw that had nothing to do with the deteriorating driving conditions and everything to do with that kiss.

  She’d smelled of pine and snow and tasted of the mints she kept in the car, and for a second she had melded with him, her lithe body pressing into his even through the barrier of their clothing. He’d felt her surprise. He’d caught her reciprocated desire. As surprising for her as it had been for him. And for a moment nothing else had mattered.

  She had come alive in his arms, fire and light. But perhaps that was just Danni. She probably made love that way. His groan almost escaped out loud.

  He had to stop remembering and reliving the kiss.

  He’d messed up. Royally. And he had to make it right. He had to find a way to get things back to the way they were before he’d kissed her.

  The kiss that should never ever have happened. The kiss that, in the moment, had seemed like the only right thing in the world. The kiss that had wrenched control from him and plunged him into a place where there was no thought, only sensation and desire.

  But as he watched the snow falling outside he knew they had a more immediate issue to sort out first. “How far are we from the chalet?” he asked, his question more brusque than he’d intended. The control was difficult to reclaim. Even now traces of the consuming need lingered, pulsing through him, refusing to be suppressed.

  But she was Danni and he would not let himself want her.

  The kiss, the desire, was an aberration.

  “Twenty-five minutes,” she said quietly, pressing her lips together as soon as she’d spoken.

  Those lips. The compulsion to taste her had overwhelmed him. The feeble justification flitting into his mind, that, as of a few minutes ago, she was no longer officially his driver had seemed a valid excuse. And stopping that kiss had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Only her groan of pure desire had cut through the fog of passion, allowing a moment of sanity.

  Sweet, sassy Danni kissed like a dream. The most erotic of dreams. The way she’d responded, the way her mouth had fit his, the feel of her body against his—all had felt…perfect. All had promised forbidden pleasure.

  It was afterward that regret had surged in. Once that last shred of sanity had warned him to end the kiss, he’d seen the shock in her eyes and realized what he’d done, the boundaries he’d trampled over, the very wrongness of kissing Danni, no matter how right it had felt.

  His responsibility, much as she’d disagree, was to protect her, not to claim her, to assault and insult her. “Let’s go to the chalet.” Going to the chalet was the best option given the deteriorating weather, though it carried its own risks being alone with her there. But if he kept duty to the forefront, perhaps it offered him a glimmer of a chance to make it right with her. To get things between them back to a place that was as close to normal as possible. Because otherwise once they got to the palace, they would go their separate ways and he would lose her—their relationship irreparably damaged. Because of him.

  He studied her profile, searching for words. He was reputed to be diplomatic. It was failing him now. Had failed him already because that talent ought to have stopped him from getting into this situation in the first place.

  He always thought before he acted or spoke.

  Always.

  Until that moment. And it was all to do with Danni. She stirred him up in ways he couldn’t like. She made him forget to think.

  “Danni—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Adam.”

  She had to. They had to clear the air. “It was an accident.”

  “What, you slipped and fell and your lips landed on mine?” She shook her head and a slight smile touched her lips.

  “I—”

  “Just don’t. I know everything you’re going to say and you don’t have to. It shouldn’t have happened. We both know that. You’re going to try to take all the blame yourself, as though it had nothing to do with me. As though I hadn’t wanted it, too. Just once. Just to know. You’re going to say we should forget it happened, put it behind us and move forward.”

  He wanted to refute her words. But she’d gotten it right.

  “So let’s do that,” she said. “We’ll forget it.” She clenched her jaw and glared at the road ahead.

  One of the things they had in common was that neither of them liked to admit an injury or a weakness. Perhaps that would work in their favor here. “Do you really think it’s possible? That was no ordinary kiss.” His head still spun, the blood still surged in his veins.

  “I’ll give you that, it wasn’t ordinary. Far from it. And I should probably retract my implication after your date with Clara that there must be something wrong with your technique. Because clearly there’s not. But we can leave it at that.”

  “Can we?” It was the right thing to do, the only way forward.

  “Of course we can. It was a heat-of-the-moment mistake and that moment has passed. It was one minute out of all the years we’ve known each other. The years should count for more than the minute, don’t you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, if you’re going to apologize for anything it should be for sacking me.”

  “You called me Your Highness.”

  “You were being a pompous ass.”

  “Good thing you’re already fired.”

  She grinned, and that small flash of smile lifted a weight from him.

  “That’s three times now you’ve sacked me. Each time unjustified.”

  “You made me spill coffee on my shirt.”

  “I didn’t want to hit the pothole.”

  The truth had nothing to do with the coffee
and everything to do with the look that had passed between them when he’d taken off his shirt. The surge of desire he’d felt for her. She’d only been twenty-one, and his friend, and he hadn’t wanted to feel that for her. But he’d stepped away from the friendship anyway. And he’d missed it. Not often, but sometimes in the quiet moments he thought of her.

  “So can we talk about something else? Please?”

  If she was prepared to try, if she was prepared to move on, then he could, too. “Tell me about the Grand Prix.”

  “Thank you.” She sighed her relief, and filled him in on the latest developments in bringing a Grand Prix to San Philippe. And while at first there was an obvious strain to her words, over time, as they talked, it really did become easier, a little more natural. Neither of them had forgotten the kiss, but the conversation, the finding of common neutral ground, gave him hope that the damage wasn’t irreversible.

  After ten minutes their headlights picked out a sign through the swirling snow. It advertised an inn he didn’t remember seeing before. He glanced at Danni. She wore driving gloves but he was certain that if he could see her hands, her grip would be white-knuckled. And they had another fifteen minutes of driving to go, at least, possibly longer given the speed with which conditions were deteriorating. “Let’s try here.”

  “But—” Her argument died on her lips and she did as he suggested.

  She stopped beneath the portico in front of the Austrian-style chalet. It was smaller by far than the Marconi chalet but offered respite from the driving and shelter from the weather. That was all they needed. That and somewhere he could put some space between them.

  “I’ll go in and check that they have rooms,” she said, in the guise of chauffeur not friend, as she reached for her door. And maybe chauffeur was safer.

  His hand on her arm—a new but hardly significant breach of protocol given what had already happened—stilled her before she could open her door. Despite the thaw of the last ten minutes, he at least, couldn’t move on without actually apologizing.

  She turned back but only enough that she could look straight ahead through the windshield. “Don’t,” she said, reading what was on his mind. “It never happened. We’re moving on.”