by Annie West
A flash of something that might have been astonishment lit his features then disappeared. His lips rucked up at one side in a derisory smile that perversely reminded her of how wonderful his mouth had felt on hers a few nights ago.
‘No danger of that, Caro. There are always women chasing me. Some even smuggle themselves into my life undercover.’ Her breath caught at the steely light in his eyes. ‘But I can tell a woman on the make. They don’t have a hope of getting what they want, no matter what inducements they offer.’
His gaze dropped slowly, insolently, to her mouth, then lower, to her throat, bare of jewels, then across her décolletage. Suddenly the beautiful dress she wore seemed totally inadequate to protect her from that scorching, lazy stare.
Indignation rose, fiery and glorious, eclipsing nerves and her innate dislike of scenes.
Abruptly, after months, no, years, of coping and carrying on despite the hurt, Caro reached breaking point.
She was tired of being wrong-footed. Of being assessed by men and found wanting. By her father, who’d ignored and belittled her because she wasn’t a boy. By Mike, who’d read her gullibility then turned nasty when he discovered she wasn’t the docile meal ticket he’d assumed. He’d taken cruel delight in telling her she was far below the standard of his usual lovers.
Now by Jake Maynard, who made her feel cheap. Because in a moment’s madness she’d dared to act on the attraction shimmering between them.
It hurt. All her life those rejections had hurt.
She’d had enough.
With a strength that surprised her, Caro wrenched free of his hold and stepped back. She saw his eyes widen then she swung away through the swaying couples.
There’d be speculation and shocked looks but she didn’t care. She marched on till she was out on the terrace, lit by flambeaux and still too full of people.
Behind her she heard something that might have been her name but it was drowned by the beat of blood in her ears. Turning, she headed inside again and down a corridor, the sound of her high heels clicking on inlaid marble matching the quick thud of her pulse.
Still she continued, past state rooms, dining rooms, libraries and offices, past startled footmen bringing supplies from the kitchens.
Her ball gown swung wide as she turned up a familiar staircase, skirts lifted for speed, her breath coming in raw gasps that betrayed her pain.
Along another corridor, right to the end of the palace furthest from the rest of the family’s rooms. There, highlighted on a wall, was the victorious knight in armour, running a lance through a whimpering dragon. Caro didn’t have to look to know the knight wore the same look of cold disdain Jake had as he’d stripped her soul bare.
Caro pressed a hand to her pounding heart and wrenched open the door to her rooms.
Sanctuary at last! At least for the ten minutes she’d give herself to regroup.
She swept in and turned to close the door but a dark figure loomed in the doorway. Before she could react Jake inserted himself into the closing gap, crossed the threshold then stood, looming over her.
‘Perfect,’ he purred in a deep rumble that danced along her bones. ‘Just what we need, a quiet place to continue our discussion uninterrupted.’
Fingers welded to the doorknob, Caro struggled for breath. His effrontery left her speechless.
‘No! I want you to leave.’
‘Why? Are you scared to be alone with me? You’d rather have witnesses for this discussion?’
‘It’s not that.’ Despite his anger she wasn’t scared of Jake Maynard. More of her inability to deal with him until she had her emotions under control. With him she felt as if she walked a tightrope, one false move and she’d fall into...she wasn’t sure what, but every sense screamed she couldn’t go there. Especially with so much at stake.
Caro drew herself up, projecting the regal assurance the rest of her family did so well and for which she’d had to struggle.
‘I didn’t invite you here.’ The sight of that big, brooding form in her private sanctuary sent a strange jolt through her. As if he trespassed on something more fundamental, more personal than a mere room.
‘That’s unfortunate, Princess Carolina.’ He said her title as if it were tainted. ‘We have so much to talk about.’
Caro hefted a breath that didn’t fill her lungs and tried to get a grip. ‘We do. But not here. Not now—’
Jake shook his head. ‘Yes, here and now. And as for you not inviting me, let me be absolutely clear.’ He bent towards her, thrusting his starkly sculpted face into her space. ‘I would never have invited you into my home if I’d known who you were. You owe me.’
Caro’s eyes bulged at the venom in his voice. ‘Look, I know my identity is a surprise and I regret not telling you in the beginning but I had excellent reasons—’
‘To lie and cheat? Perhaps to steal too?’ His eyebrows contracted in a mighty scowl and the atmosphere thickened as if a thunderstorm threatened.
‘I don’t cheat and I definitely don’t steal!’ Horror mixed with an anger she couldn’t suppress, despite the voice inside telling her she needed to be calm and reasonable. That had always been her default position.
And look where it got you!
‘So you say. But from where I stand you’re a liar and a cheat.’ He shook his head. ‘To think I almost felt sorry for you with your sob story the other night.’
‘I wasn’t lying!’ Her distress had been only too real.
‘Except your baby didn’t die, did it, Caro?’ He stepped so close his breath wafted warm across her skin. ‘Your child is alive and well.’
‘You know?’
How did he know? It didn’t seem possible. She’d never have believed it herself if she hadn’t finally been told the truth by someone who’d been there. The knowledge staggered her. Her numb fingers slid from the doorknob and Jake shut the door with a solid thud, closing them together in the shadowy room.
‘I know.’ There was no satisfaction in his eyes, only a burning emotion she felt like a brand on her skin. ‘And I tell you now, you can’t have her. You’ll never have her. I’ll do whatever is needed to make sure of it.’
‘No!’ She wasn’t aware of launching herself at him but suddenly she was grabbing his lapels, leaning into him as if she could change his mind by the force of her desperation. ‘Don’t say that.’
His big body froze, all except for the rise of that wide chest and the quick flick of the pulse at his temple.
‘Are you going to try using your body again to persuade me? It won’t work this time.’
‘I’d never do that!’
‘No?’ He looked so supercilious, staring down at her with hateful superiority. It dragged up memories of the many times she’d felt powerless, when others, principally her royal father, had twisted circumstances against her. ‘You’re saying you had no ulterior motives when you offered yourself to me? You weren’t using your body to get what you want?’
Caro didn’t want to think about what had happened that night by the spa, much less try to explain her actions. Not to this grim-faced stranger who bore only a superficial resemblance to the Jake Maynard she’d come to know.
That man was gone, if he’d ever existed outside her imagination.
Yet to Caro’s dismay even his piercing disapproval didn’t eradicate her profound response to him. Furious as she was, her body still registered the excitingly hard outline of his solid chest, the breadth of his shoulders that made her feel appallingly aware of her own feminine desires. A crazy part of her actually revelled in this flashpoint of physical intimacy though they were on opposing sides.
‘Don’t be insulting. I’d never do that.’
‘No? Because you’re a virtuous, responsible royal princess who never put a foot wrong?’ Jake shook his head, his eyes not leaving hers, his tone censorious.
‘
Because you’d never make the headlines for drug use and drunkenness, would you? Or have an illegitimate child and abandon it and the father without a second glance?’ Impossibly his expression hardened even more. ‘Did you once think about where your child might end up? Leaving a vulnerable baby to the mercy of total strangers because you couldn’t bother facing your responsibilities?’
Caro would have staggered back in horror except Jake wrapped a powerful arm around her waist, holding her against him.
‘You don’t deserve to be a mother.’ His voice hit a low note that resonated through her bones. It reminded her of the terrible, insidious voice of despair that had hounded her darkest days after the loss of her baby. ‘You might have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth but you’re nothing but a selfish sl—’
The slap cut his words off, rocking his head to one side.
Pain burst across her palm and up her arm. Belatedly he captured her hand, pressing it against his shoulder. She saw his jaw work and the bloom of dull red across his cheek.
‘You don’t shut me up so easily, Princess. I’m not one of your lackeys, afraid to offend royalty. I tell it as I see it and as I see it you—’
Caro couldn’t listen. Nerves stretched to breaking point, body shaking from the desperate surge of adrenaline filling her blood, she did the only thing she could think of to stem the flow of vitriol.
Rising on her toes, she smashed her mouth against his.
CHAPTER TEN
A THUNDERBOLT SHEARED through Jake, cementing his feet to the floor. His body rocked, hands clasping her tight.
As if he feared she’d step back?
Impossible.
She was a liar, a cheat. He couldn’t trust a word that came out of that beautiful deceitful mouth.
Yet as Caro’s lips sealed his and her soft breasts pushed against him something shuddered through him that wasn’t abhorrence or repudiation.
Desire. Hunger.
Need.
A need so powerful it made a mockery of the diatribe that he’d spewed out. Even her resemblance to his faithless mother, abandoning her children because they didn’t fit her chosen lifestyle, faded into the background.
In his arms he held fire and feminine passion. A desperation that matched his. She tunnelled her free hand through the hair at the back of his scalp, pulling his face down as she kissed him with an urgency that sent every sense throbbing into overload.
Already clinging to the borderline of control, Jake opened to her kiss, letting her tongue slip between his lips. He reciprocated, devouring her mouth with a thoroughness that spoke of this woman’s seductive allure as much as his own recent celibacy.
Somehow this physical attraction survived disillusionment. Incredibly, it wasn’t eclipsed by negative feelings. Fury and desire coalesced into something headier, stronger, hotter than he’d ever experienced.
He wanted to despise himself, wanted to wrench away from her pliant body and the addictive sweetness of her mouth. Yet he couldn’t.
She gave a mew of satisfaction that coiled through his vitals. He realised he’d bent her back over his arm, kissing her the way he’d like to take her body, with a single-minded carnality that already had him fully erect.
Jake tried to gather the ragged remains of his self-control. This was the second time she’d kissed him, each time trying to play him for a sucker.
Yet even that knowledge couldn’t quell his need. It was bone-deep, undeniable and, it seemed, unquenchable.
The only way out was to make her pull back.
He covered her breast, warm and thrusting towards him. His grasp tightened and he heard again that encouraging purr in the back of her throat.
Jake told himself he was spurred by the need to make Caro retreat. He hooked his fingers into the top of the strapless dress and yanked. Impossibly soft flesh pillowed the backs of his fingers. He yanked again and the purple dress came down just enough to reveal a creamy, raspberry-tipped breast, not large but an exact fit for his hand.
Jake’s erection throbbed as he covered her with his hand. Instantly an electric current zapped up his arm, lifting the hairs on his nape before shooting down, straight to his groin.
Caro watched him beneath drowsy eyelids. But there was nothing passive about that purple-blue stare. Jake felt the air freeze in his lungs as their gazes meshed.
Deliberately, driven by a compulsion he couldn’t resist, he bent, kissing her nipple then drawing it into his mouth.
The assault on his senses was instantaneous. The delicious taste of her. The flood of rich, feminine scent, delicate yet sensuous in his nostrils. The incredible surge of arousal.
Far from repudiating him, Caro arched higher, lifting her pelvis to bring her lower body flush against him, cushioning his erection against soft flesh.
Fumbling, Jake hauled down more material, exposing her other breast. He worked it with his hand, the other with his mouth, and the sound of Caro’s faltering cry of pleasure drove him to more lavish caresses.
His groin was iron hard, forged and furnace hot.
For an instant, no more, he retained enough sense to hesitate, then caution shattered and he gave up the fight.
He wanted Caro so desperately his hands shook. The taste of her drove him wild. The sound of her panting, the hitch of her breath when he suckled harder, were pure encouragement.
So aroused it hurt to move, he straightened, pulling her upright and ignoring her pout of disappointment. With kiss-swollen lips and bare breasts pushed up towards him by the dislodged bodice, she looked like some raunchy male fantasy come to life. The contrast of all that exquisite bare flesh with the prim tiara still nestled in her bright hair made him feel as if he were debauching Cinderella.
Except those eyes, that mouth, held erotic awareness.
For this moment it didn’t matter what she’d done or planned to do.
Who knew that fury and physical desire could be such potent bedfellows? That hate sex could be so powerful?
‘Sorry?’ He’d seen her lips move but his tumultuous pulse drowned the words.
‘I said, don’t you dare stop.’
Satisfaction crested like a curling wave thundering down onto a beach. Finally he had the real Caro. Stripped of lies and subterfuge. As vulnerable as he to the stark force of mutual attraction.
Ridiculously Jake’s heart lifted. They both wanted this, both needed it. And when it was done the niggling ache he’d felt ever since Caro Rivage stepped into his world would be gone.
He couldn’t wait.
Sliding his hands down warm silk to that slender waist, he lifted her off the ground, intending to find the bedroom. But the movement brought her exquisite, jiggling breasts high. His mouth dried, his ability to plan more than a few steps ahead disintegrated and instead he deposited her on a nearby piece of furniture. He didn’t know what it was, only that its height meant she now sat almost level with his groin.
Without hesitation he stepped closer, hands in her voluminous skirts. Caro didn’t try to stop him. Her knees fell open, inviting him closer, and her own hands were busy tugging his bow tie undone, ripping at his shirt.
Finally his questing hands met sheer nylon. He closed his eyes in frustration. He should have guessed a princess would wear pantyhose for a ball. He’d have to—
His fingers touched bare flesh. Stockings, not pantyhose. Elation rose. He touched lace between her legs, then, sliding his fingers beneath it, damp curls.
A shudder of lust racked Jake. He set his jaw, searching for the willpower to exhibit some control.
Soft hands palmed his chest, nudging his shirt and jacket wide. They slid down from chest to navel, to the top of his trousers. A second later nimble fingers undid his trousers.
His eyes snapped open as his clothes fell away and her hands curled around his length.
Arousal quaked through him.
His skin pulled taut as heat shot hard and heavy to his groin.
Jake pulled her against him, his lips on hers, driving into her welcoming mouth.
There was no thought involved as he bent his knees to bring his erection to that sweet spot between her thighs. Or tugged her lacy underwear aside. Only the same instinct that made him plant one hand on her hip, tilting her towards him.
Something stirred in his brain. Some thought he couldn’t catch. Something...
She shifted and suddenly he was there, the head of his shaft testing slick velvety heat. Her tongue swirled against his, her hand tightened on his length and the fragment of thought disintegrated.
Pulling her hand away, he planted it on his backside before drawing her legs over his hips and plunging into her beckoning depths.
Someone groaned. Was it him?
Caro’s fingers wrapped possessively around his neck while she laid waste to his senses with that eager mouth. Her other hand clawed at his glute as if to hold him exactly where he was.
But Jake couldn’t stay still. With a deliberate slowness that took him right to the edge of sensory overload, he withdrew then thrust again, deep and sure. Instantly she quivered. Tiny ripples of movement that coalesced into a powerful, clenching shudder that drew tight around him and hurled him over the edge with her. It was too soon, far too soon, but he was powerless to resist the force of this rocketing climax.
He was no stranger to sexual gratification but this pleasure was so sharp, so intense he lost himself utterly.
Instead of darkness there was light and colour. The deep blue-purple of the sky at twilight surrounded him, drugged him, lulled him through the force of that potent climax until, a lifetime later, it resolved into Caro’s wide eyes, holding his in dazed wonder.
Jake shivered as aftershocks powered through him and he spilled again and again in hot, urgent pulses.
Even when it was over he couldn’t process anything like a clear thought. Only the need to stay where he was, lodged within her, eaten up by those big violet eyes, with her long legs wrapped tight around his hips and his soul in paradise.
