He bent his head to worship her.
He cupped one rounded breast. Brought it to his mouth. Kissed the silken slope, then touched his finger to the softly pink nipple and she cried out in shock.
He knew what she was feeling because he felt it, too. The excitement. The hunger. He’d felt it before, the hot demand of sexual craving, but never like this.
Never like this.
He looked at her face. Her eyes were clouded, unseeing with passion.
Slowly he drew the nipple into his mouth, sucking, gently biting, laving her flesh. A cry broke from her throat, so wild and raw that he groaned.
He kissed his way down her torso, touched the tip of his tongue to her navel, kissed her belly and finally reached the soft curls that guarded her feminine delta.
She dug her hands into his hair.
“No,” she said brokenly, “Lucas, you can’t—”
He caught her wrists, brought her hands to her sides. Nuzzled against the dark curls, found her center and kissed her.
She cried out again and arched against him.
“Lyssa,” he said hoarsely, and he let go of her wrists, slipped his hands beneath her and lifted her to him. Her hands were in his hair again but, this time, she wasn’t trying to stop him.
She held him to her, sobbing as he put his mouth to her, found that sweetest of flowers and kissed it, sucked on it, nipped it until she screamed into the night, a scream of release, of the ultimate completion.
He could feel her orgasm rip through her body, feel it consume her and as it did, he sat back, tugged down his sweats, kicked them off and came back to her.
“Lyssa,” he said.
Her eyes cleared and he felt his heart expand when she looked up at him.
“Lyssa,” he said again, “amada…”
He held her gaze as he parted her thighs. As he guided his rigid length to her.
“Lucas,” she whispered.
Later he would play that one word over and over in his head and hear in it what his fevered brain had not been willing to let him hear this first time.
He bent to her and kissed her mouth and, as he did, he entered her, sank into her, groaned as she sobbed his name against his lips.
She rose to meet him, her hands around his biceps, her fingers digging into his muscles as her silken heat closed around him.
“Lyssa,” he said, “oh God, Lyssa…”
And then he stopped moving. Damned near stopped breathing.
Alyssa was a virgin.
For a heartbeat, he held still above her, his life, his breath seeming to hang suspended on the brink of eternity.
“Yes,” she said, “please, yes.”
Slowly, so slowly he thought it might kill him with pleasure, he sank into her. Her eyes closed. His name sighed from her mouth.
He could feel his own release rushing toward him. He wasn’t ready for it. Physically, yes, but in every other way he wanted this moment to go on and on.
He was poised on the very edge of a cliff with all the world spread out beneath him. It would take a god to stay still.
But he was only human. And when Alyssa moved, when her body arched, when her womb began tightening around him, Lucas knew he was lost.
She sobbed his name. She reached her hand to him. He caught it, caught the other hand as well, brought them to his mouth, then entwined his fingers with hers against the cool ivory sheets.
“Lucas,” she said again.
Her voice broke. She was afraid, he thought in wonder, and he bent and kissed her mouth.
“I’m here, amada,” he said thickly. “I’ll be with you this time. Just let go and fly with me. Fly with me…”
Alyssa sobbed his name. Lucas flung back his head. And, just as he had promised, they flew together into the inky blackness of the endless night.
CHAPTER NINE
WAS this really what it meant, to lie with a man?
Alyssa tightened her arms around Lucas, stunned by the transcendent passion of his lovemaking.
I’ll be with you this time, he’d whispered, and he’d kept his promise. The power of his climax had driven her higher, higher, higher…
Was this what sex was? Pure, white-hot magic?
Yes, she was a virgin but even virgins knew something about sex. That girls whispered about it and giggled. That some women rolled their eyes and said, in bored voices, it wasn’t all what it was supposed to be.
Alyssa had never had anyone she could ask. In private school, the girls moved in tight little cliques and she, shy and leggy and more comfortable around horses than people, was always on the outside looking in. By college, it was too late to ask. Feeling naive was bad enough. She didn’t want to feel stupid, too.
Once, right after her first period, she’d started to ask questions of her mother. Elena Montero McDonough had blushed, waved her hand at the horses that ran on the ranch back then and said Alyssa had all of nature for a classroom.
Maybe. But a stallion mounting a mare had nothing to do with what had happened in this bed.
Sex, it turned out, was not all about the stallion’s domination and the mare’s submission.
It was about giving yourself to a man. The feel of his body possessing yours. The heat of his kiss. The touch of his hand, the knowledge that he could make you want him, want him, want him…
Want the enemy. Want a stranger.
Alyssa’s throat constricted. She wanted to weep, not for what she had done but for what it should have meant. What it had meant, those wondrous transcendent moments as Lucas made love to her.
Except it hadn’t been love. It had been lust. Calculated lust, for all she knew. It was the stallion and the mare all over again.
The mare Lucas had crossed the ocean to buy.
How could she have forgotten that?
“Lyssa?”
His voice was husky. He was still lying on top of her, his weight bearing her down into the softness of the bed. She wanted to hit him with her fists. Wanted to wrap her arms around him and tell him—tell him—
“Amada, are you all right?”
She swallowed dryly. He lifted his head, his hazel eyes questioning. What did he think she would say? That what had just happened changed everything? That she would do whatever he wanted? Go home, accept that nothing she could do would save her mother’s land?
The truth was, she had no idea what he wanted her to do…
Except bend to his will.
In the short time she’d known the Spanish prince, she had lost everything to him. Her home. Her future and now, her virginity. The only thing she had left was her pride, and she would never let him take that.
“Would you get off me, please? You’re heavy.”
He blinked. Apparently he was accustomed to a different kind of pillow talk. She was probably supposed to be telling him how wonderful he was, how exciting…
He was. He was all that and more.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize…” He rolled off her. Her body was damp; the air felt cold on her flesh. The robe lay crushed beneath her and she grabbed the edges of it and pulled them together.
Lucas leaned over her.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t realize…” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t think you were—”
“Really?” She sat up, her back to him. “But that was part of the deal, wasn’t it? Aloysius’s assurance to Felix that I was a virgin?”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Amada. I’m sorry you’re upset. I didn’t…I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
His voice was low. Husky with remorse. Somehow, that made it worse.
“Didn’t you?”
The clasp of his fingers tightened. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Alyssa shrugged off his hand, stood up and knotted the sash of the robe at her waist.
“I’ve been around horses all my life.”
The bed creaked. She heard the pad of Lucas’s feet and then he was sta
nding in front of her, his eyes narrowed.
“And?”
There was warning in the single word but she didn’t care. The only warning that mattered was one that would have kept her from surrendering to him half an hour ago.
“And,” she said, wishing she were wearing more than this thin robe, wishing he weren’t so flagrantly, magnificently naked, “and I know all those theories about the best ways to make a mare submit to a stallion.”
Silence filled the room. Then Lucas reached for his sweatpants and stepped into them. His voice, when he spoke, was frigid.
“You think I seduced you to force you into some kind of obedience?”
An image of him kneeling between her thighs flashed through her mind, along with the memory of how it had felt to have him deep inside her.
“Alyssa? Is that what you think?”
Looking at him, hearing the taut anger in his words, she didn’t know what to think. All she was sure of was that admitting doubt would be a sign of weakness.
“What I think,” she said evenly, “is that I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his face stony. Then he nodded.
“I agree. It was the worst possible mistake. Unfortunately we cannot undue it.”
“No. We can’t.”
“I took your virginity.”
That was what he said but the words sounded wrong, as if he meant something entirely different.
“I should have believed my grandfather when he told me you were intact.”
Color flooded her face. She supposed the term was correct but it sounded cold, as if it were a description in an auction-house brochure. The piece for sale is intact…
“And now you’ve lost your bargaining chip. Deliberately, but you’ve lost it, nonetheless.”
Alyssa blinked. “My what?”
“Ah, chica, it’s too late for that innocent look. You know damned well what I’m talking about. Felix’s values are those of another time. He saw your virginity as a requirement for your bride price.” Lucas’s mouth thinned. “But I don’t give a damn whether a woman’s a virgin or not and most certainly, I am not looking for a bride.” He flashed a thin smile. “Which is why, I suppose, you felt desperate enough to toss me this morsel.”
“You think that I…?” Enraged, Alyssa flew at him, hand raised, but he caught her by the wrist and twisted her arm behind her back. “You were only in this bed because I felt sorry for you, and God knows why I was that stupid! You were the one who turned an act of—of kindness into a—a lesson in seduction.”
“Seduction?” His teeth showed in a lupine smile. “What happened in this bed is the same as what happened the day we met. You couldn’t control yourself here any more than you could control that horse.”
“Bastard,” she hissed, “you no-good, egotistical—”
She went for his eyes with her free hand. Lucas caught it, drew it behind her where he manacled both her wrists. The action lifted her to her toes.
“Do you take me for a fool, chica? Nothing you do will persuade me to honor the stipulation you keep insisting you don’t want me to honor.”
“I’d sooner marry a—”
“So you have already said.” He smiled, though his eyes remained cool. “I have known many clever women, too many to be taken in by you.”
“I wouldn’t doubt that for a minute,” she panted as she struggled to free herself from his grasp. “I saw one of them, remember? That—that wind-up toy with the bleached hair, big boobs and a brain the size of a walnut!”
Lucas grinned. “An excellent description, amada. But at least she admits she’s after something when she lures a man into her bed.”
“Pig!”
“Is that the best you can do?” He let go of her and strode to the door. “Tomorrow,” he said grimly, “I will speak with my attorneys.”
“It’s today,” she said, flinging the words at him. “And at least you finally said something intelligent.”
“Here’s something even more intelligent. I am sure they will see that the entire contract is a farce and I am liable for nothing.”
“You are liable for the money you owe me!”
“My corporation owes it, and not to you. To Norton, as executor.”
“Dance around all you like. Your grandfather made a deal and you’re stuck with it.”
His eyes flashed. “But not with you, chica.”
“Trust me, Your Mightiness. The feeling is mutual.” Alyssa glared at him. “When will you meet with your lawyers?”
Amazing, Lucas thought. She had to know she was on the losing end of the battle, that his attorneys would find a way to void the entire contract, but she was still behaving as if she were his equal.
She’d been like that in bed, too. Shy, at first. Holding back. Then, little by little, coming to life beneath his hands and mouth. Showing him what she wanted. What pleased her.
What had pleased him was the simple act of making love to her. Not that it had felt simple. He’d been with a lot of women, more women than most men, perhaps, but what had happened in this room, this bed, had seemed far more complex than anything he’d known in the past.
The act had seemed richer. Fuller. At the end, when she’d trusted him enough to let go and come with him…
When she’d done that, when she’d contracted around him even as the power of his own orgasm shot through him, he’d felt—he’d felt—
“Don’t just stand there, Your Highness! I want to know when this meeting will take place! And, of course, I intend to go with you.”
She intended to go with him? He almost laughed. She had no more right to attend a meeting with his lawyer than she had to keep claiming El Rancho Grande should be hers.
He looked out the window. The sky glowed pink with the morning light. No one would be in the Madrid offices of Madeira, Vasquez, Sterling and Goldberg, but that presented no problem.
The answering service would take the message. Ricardo Madeira himself would return the call within minutes.
There were occasional benefits to being Prince Lucas Reyes, even if this woman chose not to see them.
And having Alyssa with him might be an advantage. Let Madeira see precisely what he was up against.
“Be downstairs in one hour,” he said brusquely. “And be prompt, amada. I do not like to be kept waiting.”
Could an enraged woman pass up such an opportunity? He had taken all the time in the world to make love to her and she knew it, but she had the feeling she was losing their verbal war. Here was a chance to make points.
“Yes,” Alyssa said sweetly, “I know how quickly you like to do things.”
She knew instantly she had pushed him too far. His eyes went from gold to green; the bones in his face stood out in harsh relief.
“Really,” he said, very softly.
She stumbled back. “No,” she said, the one word a terrified breath.
It didn’t matter.
Lucas grabbed her. Drew her to him despite her struggles and caught her face with one hand.
“Watch what you say, amada. Or I may have to take you to bed again and make love to you until you beg me for release.”
“In your dreams!”
He laughed softly. “No, amada. In yours.”
He lowered his head and kissed her hard. Deep. Kissed her with a passion that bordered on cruelty. Then he flung her from him.
“An hour,” he said coldly. “Or I leave without you.”
The door slammed shut behind her. Alyssa didn’t move. Then, after a long moment, she touched the tip of her tongue to her lips, tasted Lucas, his heat, his possession…
And closed her eyes in despair.
There were tiny spots of blood on her thighs.
On the sheets.
The blood on her thighs was easy to deal with. A hot shower, plenty of soap and the blood drops were gone even if the pain in her heart was still there.
The sheets were different. She agonized over what to d
o with them. The thought of one of the maids seeing that blood and knowing what had happened was more than she could bear.
Quickly she stripped the bed, carried the sheets into the bathroom, sponged them clean, then dried them with the built-in hair dryer.
She dressed in the same clothes she’d been wearing since the evening Lucas had taken her from the ranch, whenever that was. One day. Two days. Three. She’d lost track.
One of the maids had been thoughtful enough to wash and press the garments. They looked like hell but they were, at least, clean. Not that she gave a damn. Who cared how she looked? She certainly didn’t.
She left her room fifteen minutes before the hour after giving the timing some thought. Instinct told her to saunter down the stairs a few minutes late. That same instinct warned that if she were late, Lucas would leave without her.
Being early, waiting for him so that he’d seem to be the one who was late, seemed the best solution.
No such luck.
He was already in the vast entry foyer, lounging carelessly in an elaborate leather and wood chair that reminded her of a throne. Deliberate on his part, no doubt, she thought coldly.
He rose when he saw her and she knew she’d lied to herself about not caring how she looked. Lucas looked—why not admit it? He looked magnificent. His dark blue suit had surely been custom-made to suit his broad shoulders, narrow waist and long legs. Beneath it, he wore a crisp white shirt and maroon tie. She could tell he’d just showered: drops of water glittered like tiny jewels in his midnight-black hair.
He’d shaved, too. The dark stubble that had covered his jaw was gone.
The dark, sexy stubble that had felt so delicious against her thighs, her breasts…
“You need new clothes.”
Alyssa drew herself up. “I need nothing from you, Your Mightiness.”
A dangerous glint flared in his eyes. “Clothes, and manners. We are about to meet with Ricardo Madeira. You will not address me with disrespect, nor will you argue with what I say.”
“I also will not curtsy,” she informed him as they stepped into the back of the long black Rolls-Royce waiting in the driveway. “I suggest you keep that in mind.”
To her surprise, he laughed. “I think I would have known you had Spanish blood even if no one had told me your middle name was Montero.”
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