Once a Princess

by Johanna Lindsey

  "There was no one in the house, Princess, and all the doors were locked."

  He didn't mention the windows and she didn't ask. Of course they had found no one. But did he have to sound as if that had been a foregone conclusion? The man didn't believe—nor had he believed mo­ments ago—that she had had a harrowing experience. Did he think she had deliberately lied?

  Before she could say anything in her defense, whether she would bother to or not, he snapped, "Where do you think you're going with that?"

  His eyes had dropped to her knife. Her grip tight­ened on it, but her voice was perfectly calm when she replied, "I'm going to take care of this little matter myself, since you obviously won't."

  He tried for a calm tone himself, but it came out more a growl. "Put that down and admit you merely had a nightmare. "

  "I don't have nightmares."

  He was getting exasperated. "Fine, we'll assume an intruder bothered you. We'll even assume he might still be around, even though we've searched through every . . . damn . . . room . . . in the house."

  "Not all, you didn't."

  "Your room is next to the stairs, so if anyone was here he would have gone that way, since all the other rooms up here are presently occupied. "

  "Exactly."

  His eyes narrowed at what he assumed she was implying, but he didn't address it. "It's over," he said with finality. "So either you can lose more sleep while I have a lock put on your door so you'll feel safe, or I can sleep in here the remainder of the night."

  "Suit yourself. There's ample room on the floor. But I'm going to carve your mistress into little pieces first, so you'll have to excuse me for a few minutes."

  She took one step, only to hear him command, "Stop right there! Did I hear you correctly? You think Alicia tried to do you harm?"

  Did he realize he had just admitted Alicia was his mistress? She doubted it. And why should she care at this point? She'd already been told. Yes, but you were hoping that vengeful witch had been lying, missy, or at the very least that she was going to be his ex-mistress.

  With the anger churning inside her came pain. It was a wicked combination that she could barely con­trol.

  "I don't think it, Stefan Barany, I know it. She was in this room when I screamed, or she sneaked out a moment before, but in either case—"

  "Either case is an impossibility, you little liar," he cut in sharply, his eyes starting to glow again. "Because she was with me when you screamed!"

  In the middle of the night? And he was only half dressed, she realized now, with no shirt, his trousers not even done up completely, as if he had put them on in a hurry. And Alicia had been with him?

  It didn't occur to Tanya that Alicia had just been exonerated, which meant someone else had tried to kill her. She wasn't thinking about that now, wasn't thinking about anything except Stefan making love to another woman. Little wonder that she lifted her arm and threw her knife at him.

  Chapter 40

  Tanya was as amazed as Stefan that she'd thrown the knife at him, and she regretted it immediately. Not that she even came close to hitting him. The knife struck the wall to his left, then clattered to the floor. And she'd needed to throw something, to hurt him as she was hurting. It just shouldn't have been a damn knife.

  Her regret, however, came more from the fact that his amazement didn't last, but changed almost immediately to furious rage. His devil's eyes weren't just glowing, they were now as bright as she'd ever seen them.

  She was in deep trouble and knew it, so she offered, albeit lamely, "You weren't in any danger. I never did learn how to do that properly."

  No answer. No change in expression either. And her nervousness was making her own anger return.

  "But I wish I had," she added. "What the hell did you expect me to do when you tell me you're off making love while I'm being murdered? Nothing?"

  Again no answer. But he closed the door and started to walk toward her. Tanya didn't hesitate. She whirled and ran. A hand in her hair jerked her to a stop. Another on her shoulder whirled her back around.

  "You weren't being murdered," he said in a voice that was more ominous for being so low. "And I wasn't off making love."

  "Liar!"

  "I was refusing the offer that was made," he continued as if she hadn't got that "liar" in and wasn't pounding on his chest. "Because I decided that if I was going to have a harlot, I might as well have the one I really want."

  The mouth crushing down on hers told her she was the harlot he was referring to, and for the moment, that was all she registered out of what he'd said. But she also registered that he'd been drinking, and anger and liquor were a frightening combination. So although she might have yearned to be in this position again, she continued to fight furiously to get out of it now. But she couldn't get out of his hold, and she suddenly knew why.

  Lord help her, she had forgotten that this was how he dealt with his extreme anger. She had even contemplated doing something really foolish just to get him angry enough so she could have this again, so how could she have forgotten? But that was before they had joined up with Alicia. Stefan was accustomed to going to his mistress to relieve his anger. Vasili had said so. And with Alicia here, just down the hall . . .

  That was when it clicked, the rest of what he'd said, that he'd turned Alicia away because Tanya was the one he really wanted. And he hadn't gone to Alicia, even though she was just down the hall, in his own room even. He was taking his anger out on the one who'd caused it instead.

  Tanya didn't know what to make of that, though she stopped fighting for the moment. But her con­fusion kept her from yielding completely to Stefan's mouth.

  Did she really want him to take her in this mindless fashion, merely as an outlet for his anger? If that was the only way she could have him, then yes. But was it the only way now, when he'd said that he'd decided to come to her, not in anger, but in need, because he wanted her? He'd made that decision before he got angry with her tonight, so angry that this was the result. And if she stopped him, he might not come to her as he'd planned to, because of his new anger with her.

  He was furious that she had tried to kill him—as he saw it. Furious that she was lying about someone trying to kill her—as he saw it. So if she tried to calm him down now so they could make love for no other motive than mutual desire, his calm might take him right out of here and right back to Alicia, because his fury with Tanya would still be there, just under control again.

  The decision was almost out of her hands, her senses already heightened, her innards already whirl­ing with excitement. So she asked herself the simple question, did she love Stefan Barany?

  She was afraid she just might, but she wasn't pos­itive yet. But she was positive that she wanted him, and did not want him to go to another woman to satisfy his needs, even his present need to slake his anger with mindless fornication. So she had her an­swer. She'd take him this way, even if it was savage and over quickly . . . but it wouldn't be that way, would it? She'd been thinking only of the anger, and comparing Stefan with other men under similar cir­cumstances, forgetting that even in anger, Stefan took his time at this, and wasn't rough with her, merely ruthlessly determined.

  She was forgetting one other thing, too, Tanya thought with a shiver of pleasurable anticipation. There was very little that could stop Stefan from having his way. She had never been able to. But he had been stopped those other times, by a noise, by an imminent intrusion. Suddenly a measure of ur­gency entered her own responses. She let everything he'd already aroused in her loose, and began kissing him back with every bit of it.

  He had been moving her slowly, unknowingly, toward the bed. The backs of Tanya's legs came up against it now and gave her a start of surprise. She wasn't surprised when she was lowered to the mat­tress, however, and that, too, was done slowly, care­fully, without releasing her mouth. She couldn't seem to impart her urgency to him, but that shouldn't sur­prise her either. He was oblivious of everything but the anger, the compelling nee
d to release it, but in his own way, not as she'd like, and his way was without haste, instinctively similar to how it would be if he weren't angry. She should be grateful for that, and she would be—if there were no interrup­tions this time.

  The back of her sleeping gown had been raised before she was lowered to the bed. The front lacings had been untied without her notice. The kiss broke now as the white linen was whisked over her head, but his lips came back almost immediately. And now she had his heat, what she associated with his anger but was always there, his skin so hot to her touch. And his weight, glorious sensation, pressing against her breasts, her belly, settling between the legs she opened for him quite willingly.

  While his tongue swirled with delicious languor inside her mouth, his hands slipped between their bodies, one to fully cover each breast, kneading, gently plucking at her nipples, then not so gently squeezing once they were quivering buds. It all had the same effect, however, making her wild to have more, the heat in her loins igniting, fast becoming an ache.

  He was caressing her arms now, her face, kissing her fiercely one moment, gently the next. And she thought she would go mad because he still wasn't reacting to her own passion, which had already sur­passed anything she'd ever felt before. Nor would he stop kissing her long enough for her to tell him. But she was hoping she wouldn't have to, for the fear was there that if he did stop, if he heard her voice now, he'd come to his senses and stop altogether, leaving her in this agonizing state of need.

  She tried to calm herself, to relax, reasoning that she must not be going about this right, that she should just follow Stefan's lead, because although she might know what went where, she was basically ignorant about lovemaking, at least the subtleties of it. But she couldn't do it. She writhed, she arched, she pulled at his hips, his hair, his skin. He was in no tearing rush, but she was going to be a cinder before long.

  Finally, she found the thick bulge pressed to her loins and undulated against it in a simulation of what she wanted. That brought his hand to that area, but he didn't actually touch her there. When she realized he was removing his trousers instead, she almost melted with relief. And then he was entering her and she held on tight.

  Somewhere deep in Stefan's mind, he knew Tanya wasn't fighting him anymore, was instead wantonly responding to him, and he knew there was something that should bother him about that. But what it was never quite surfaced in the quagmire of his thoughts, blessedly blank for the most part, rife with rage and passion the rest. He was functioning purely on in­stinct, primitive in nature, and thanks to too much alcohol, on the drunken assurance that he wasn't taking anything that didn't belong to him.

  The anger was still there, but lust was now over­riding it, and that was suddenly so strong at finding her so wet and tight, he didn't even notice his dif­ficulty in entering her. The slight tug and give of her maidenhead was nothing next to all that moist heat squeezing him. And when he reached her depths, he stayed there, the pleasure so great he couldn't bear to move.

  It was that pleasure that brought him to his senses, wiping out his anger completely. And with the anger gone, he knew exactly what he had done, and that damn near sobered him completely. He was inside her, deep inside her at last, and he couldn't recall with any clarity the details of having got there.

  Guilt washed over him in waves and would have unmanned him, but he was still encased in the tight­est, warmest sheath he had ever entered, and that exquisite sensation was separate from everything else he was suddenly feeling.

  After the last time this had almost happened, he had sworn to himself that he would never take Tanya in anger. That was one of the reasons he had stayed away from her on the ship, where forced confinement could so easily make tempers flare. But he hadn't been back with her one complete day before he took her anyway. Only she had responded to him—hadn't she? Or was that wishfulness on his part, her wanton wildness actually resistance?

  Even as he thought it, her arms suddenly tightened around his neck, and in his stillness he felt it, un­believably, without his having moved at all for the past few moments, she was climaxing, the pulse of it surrounding him, squeezing him with each glorious throb, and firing him with a savage exultation that whipped his desire for her to a frenzied peak. He thrust, and thrust again, and went over the edge so explosively, he wasn't sure he would survive it.

  Tanya held on tight and smiled very smugly to herself when Stefan finally went wild in his release. She'd caused that, and if it was anywhere near what she'd just experienced, then the man ought to get down on his knees and kiss the ground she walked on. She was certainly ready to make that concession. Having someone tell you, "It's wonderful. Try it," just doesn't prepare you for that maelstrom of sen­sation. Nothing could.

  He dropped his head on her shoulder now, his heartbeat slamming against her breast, his breath stir­ring the hair tangled about her neck. Her fingers smoothed his black mane, her other hand caressed his back. She felt so close to him just then, and that was a wonderful feeling in itself. She didn't want him to move, didn't want him to remove that part of him that was inside her, because it still felt so deli­cious, having him there.

  He did stir at last, not to actually raise his head, but with a sudden tensing of his body. "Did I hurt you?"

  The pain of her maidenhead breaking had been so minimal, it wasn't worth mentioning. "No, but why is that always your first concern when you calm down?"

  "Tanya, I am anything but calm. Did . . . I . . . hurt ...you?"

  "Well, of course it hurt a little bit, but only for a second."

  Stefan's guilt escalated. Only for a second? Dear God, had he hit her? He reared up to look at her face, but he could see no bruises. That didn't mean she wouldn't have them elsewhere, if not now, then tomorrow. Alicia had always claimed bruises galore, though he'd never actually seen any. If he had bruised Tanya...

  Tanya groaned inwardly when he rolled away from her and swiftly fastened his trousers. Then he left the bed and started heading toward the door. Was that it? she wondered. Not even a reaction for discovering she wasn't the whore he thought her to be? Vasili had said he would be furious if he discovered her a virgin, but he wasn't. He was in the strangest mood, as if he felt guilty for taking her innocence, which was ridiculous, since it would have been his on their wedding night anyway, in the not-too-distant future.

  "I really am fine, Stefan," she told him, stressing each word. "Better than fine, actually. You should know by now that I'm not some fragile flower you have to worry about touching."

  He turned at the door. There was a glow in his eyes. She didn't know it was self-directed, or that he was referring to taking her in anger when he said, "You may be accustomed to variation in lovemaking, but that doesn't excuse . . . This won't happen again, Princess. You have my word on that."

  Tanya stared at the door after it had closed, her eyes incredulously wide. Had he just promised what she thought he had? Never to make love to her again? And then the rest of what he'd said hit her. My God, he still thought she was a whore! He'd been so caught up in his rage, he hadn't even noticed her virginity!

  Tanya almost laughed. It was too fantastic! Her only proof of innocence was gone now. He'd taken it and didn't even know it. God, what a joke—on her. Well, she'd wanted him to want her despite what he thought, and it looked as if that was the only way it could be now—except he'd had his "one night," and obviously, that was really all he wanted from her.

  Chapter 41

  "What does that look like to you?"

  "Blood."

  "Not that," Tanya said in exasperation tinged with embarrassment. "The tear in the sheet."

  Serge moved up to the side of the bed for a closer examination. Tanya waited impatiently. She wished she hadn't had to do this, to drag him out of bed a second time that night to show him the proof of her attempted murder. If he and Stefan had had the decency to believe her before, she wouldn't have had to. And the only reason she had discovered the proof for herself was because that da
mned virgin's blood was right next to it on the sheet, and that had drawn her eyes to the spot. But when she did notice it, she had stopped fretting about Stefan and had gone straight to Serge's room. Someone had to believe her about what had happened tonight, and she wasn't about to try to convince Stefan again.

  Besides, after she'd thought about it, and got angry about it, she decided she didn't want Stefan seeing that blood on the sheet, so she hadn't even considered going to him with what she'd found. If his anger was so blinding that he could miss something so monumental, the fact that she had willingly given him her virginity, then he could rot before she'd tell him—or show him.

  That she hadn't heard Alicia return to her own room possibly had a little to do with her decision. And she had listened for her, too. But obviously Stefan had gone back to spend the rest of the night with his mistress, was curled up in bed with her now, sleeping or . . . He could definitely rot.

  She watched Serge as he stuck his finger through the hole, right into a similar hole in the mattress beneath. "It's the cut of a knife, your Highness," he said, drawing the same conclusion she had.

  "Exactly. "

  "I'll get Stefan."

  "Don't bother. He'll just think I put it there. But I want at least one of you to believe me and take precautions, because I wasn't dreaming tonight. A sound woke me, I reached for my knife, but I was too slow. My pillow was used to try and suffocate me. I finally must have pricked one of the attacker's arms with my knife—"

  "Then that is his blood on the sheet?"

  "No," she gritted out. "As I was saying, he released the pillow and I immediately rolled off the bed. But it was so dark in here, he might not have realized I wasn't in the bed anymore. It looks like he tried to stab me then, and I guess he might have tried again if I hadn't started screaming."

  "Then you were cut?"

  She wished he would stop worrying over that red stain. "No, I wasn't."