Taken by the Prince

  What would she do if Raul was killed? Mourn every day of her life for what she had not dared to take?

  Yes. That was exactly what she would do. Because she was every kind of a fool.

  But she was his fool.

  Throwing the covers aside, she stood.

  She knew he was awake. She could feel him watching her as she put one foot in front of the other through the faint moonlight, across the threadbare carpet to the bed.

  Yet he didn’t say a word, didn’t encourage or reject her.

  He simply waited— and it occurred to her he was very good at waiting. He had been waiting for his throne his whole life. He had been waiting for her to come to this decision since the moment he’d seen her at the hotel.

  Maybe before … Maybe he had been waiting for her since the kisses on Grimsborough’s balcony.

  Maybe this was inevitable.

  Three pillows propped him up. His hands were clasped behind his head. His powerful arms, trained to swing a sword, bulged with muscle. His chest was bare, the covers resting on his waist.

  She put one knee on the feather mattress, then the other. She knelt beside him.

  His patience was frightening— and at an end.

  “Take down your nightgown.” His low voice was rough, abrasive with demand. “I want to feel your nipples against me when you kiss me.”

  She froze.

  Yes. She had been right. He was insisting on a full surrender. She would give everything, and never would she be able to claim she had not known what she was doing.

  He’d left the very top buttons of her nightgown undone. Now, hesitantly, she opened the buttons over her breasts and down to her belly. With excruciating care, she slipped first one shoulder, then the other out of the gown.

  She shouldn’t have cared what he viewed. After all, less than an hour ago, he had seen her, touched her, washed her, all of her. But this was her showing herself to him, voluntarily, and that took so much more confidence. Confidence in the way she looked, but more than that, confidence in what she was doing.

  If only he would help her …

  She clutched the light cotton tightly over her chest, waiting breathlessly, but he said nothing. Did nothing. Except for the glint of his eyes, she might not have known he was alive.

  But he was alive, radiating heat, need, seduction. With every breath, she took him into herself, making him a part of her. If she wanted him truly inside her, she would have to take him.

  Hesitantly, she slid her arms out of the sleeves and lowered the nightgown to her waist.

  He reached for her, grasped her shoulders, and pulled her across him.

  Victoria had never imagined that she would melt from heat and desire. Her hands rested against his shoulders; that felt like opportunity. She stroked him curiously, amazed at the strength inherent in his muscles and bones. His arms were steel and velvet, and beneath her his chest rose and fell, pausing between as if each breath were agony.

  His mouth was so close. She had only to stretch a little and she could taste him once more. And tasting him was like savoring the finest wine: heady, intoxicating, the prelude to other pleasures. So she stretched until their lips were close, so close, and she thought, When I do this, there’s no turning back.

  So she kissed him.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Kissing Raul was like kissing a dragon, the warm brush of flame in Victoria’s mouth, in her veins, in her womb.

  The nightgown clung to the swell of her hips, and he rested his hands under the cloth. His fingers gripped her as if he needed her close, and she wished he would caress her.

  But he didn’t move, wouldn’t move unless she asked.

  Reluctantly, she drew her lips away from his. Rising onto her knees, she pushed the nightgown completely off and onto the floor.

  In the rosy light of the fire and the candle, his eyes smoldered as he gazed at her nude body. She sank back on her heels, and his gaze followed her with mouthwatering intensity. He reached above him toward the shelf on the headboard, and as he did, his arms, chest, and belly tensed.

  She stared, so fixated by the play of muscles beneath the skin she didn’t notice what he fetched until the renewed scent of lavender captured her attention.

  He held a small bottle in one hand and poured golden liquid into his cupped palm. “Lavender oil,” he said. “Lavender is said to be relaxing.”

  She laughed, a little hysterical at the idea that she could relax here, now, poised on the brink of passion.

  He smiled back at her, reading her mind as he was wont to do. He nudged the bottle into her fingers, and when they had closed around it, he rose on one elbow and brought his hand over her thighs. Turning his fist, he dribbled the oil onto her legs, then flattened his hand on her belly and smoothed his palm across her skin. Swiftly, he caught trickles of oil before they slid off her thighs onto the sheet, and using both his hands, he massaged her thighs with a deepening pressure that oddly made her relax and tense at the same time.

  So, while he kneaded her legs and hips and belly, she pressed her knees together, trying foolishly to safeguard her most private and feminine of places.

  Yes, he had already touched her there, kissed her there, but to open herself freely, to know he could look on her, caress her …

  But she wanted him to touch her.

  That was the conundrum.

  She wanted his hands on her, his fingers in her, his mouth on her. From all the nights she had been in his castle, he had trained her in pleasure. Now she sought it like an addict.

  He could have easily used his strength to separate her legs, but he didn’t. Wouldn’t. Instead, with his gaze on her face, he rubbed her, waiting, still waiting for her to regain the courage that had brought her to his bed.

  In the end, it wasn’t courage that made her open her knees, but the desire he so easily commanded.

  She eased her legs apart, a slow yielding, and as she did, his calloused palms, slick with oil, found their way to her inner thighs and slid up and down, so sensitive to her responses that every time he touched her, she wanted more. He was a magical creature, so similar to the dragon that symbolized his royal blood. He knew her and what she craved before she knew it herself, and he created a simmering frustration that made her clutch the smooth sides of the glass bottle in utter frustration.

  At last she whispered, “Please.”

  He lifted his eyebrows inquiringly, as if he didn’t know exactly what she wanted.

  “Please,” she whispered again. “Touch me … there.”

  “Where?”

  “There. Down there. Please …”

  “Show me.”

  She didn’t want to. He should know where. He did know where. But his insistence was part and parcel of his determination that she submit.

  She pointed her finger down to show him. “There.”

  His hands skated up her legs.

  For one ecstatic moment she believed he was going to vanquish frustration.

  But his hands came to rest at the tops of her thighs.

  His thumbs slid up and down along the crease where her thighs met her body. “Here?”

  “No. I mean, yes.” Her legs flexed as chills ran up her spine. “But closer to the middle … and in front.”

  “Show me,” he said again.

  She bit her lip, then lightly touched herself.

  “There?”

  “Yes.” She trembled, waiting.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “If you could just … stroke me?”

  “Like this?” His thumbs moved in tiny circles, closer and closer, until they met and gently lifted the sensitive bit of flesh. They slipped up and down, up and down.

  She forgot to be shy. “Yes.”

  “You like this?” He used more pressure, more speed.

  “Yes. Please. Raul. You make me … want to …” Unbidden, a moan broke from her. She undulated her hips, using every womanly instinct to offer him an invitation.

  He
didn’t take that summons. Instead he used his skillful hands to smooth oil everywhere, in each secret place front and back. At last he swirled his finger around the entrance to her body. Swirled, and waited, and swirled, building heat and need with each circle.

  “Please,” she said again.

  “You know the rules.”

  He would not enter her. Not without an invitation.

  She panted, trembled, knew what she had to do.

  Grasping his hand, she pressed it against herself.

  That was all he needed. His finger slipped inside, easing his way with oil and a man’s sure knowledge of her body. As a second finger joined the first, he used more care, opening her tight passage and gently bullying his way through her discomfort. As he did his knuckles brushed her already sensitive clit.

  Sobbing with need, she climaxed hard, so hard he wrapped his free arm around her back to hold her in place, and all the while, he used his fingers to enter her, over and over. And when the climax began to ease, he put his mouth to her breast.

  Dragon fire licked through her and started the whole process again.

  At last, she was too exhausted to come anymore. Or perhaps he simply allowed her to rest, knowing what the future held.

  He eased her onto her back and reclined beside her.

  Her heartbeat slowed. Her breathing calmed.

  He had, once again, brought her to glory.

  But she wasn’t yet his. He had so much control— too much control— and he managed to keep to his plan to make her give herself to him.

  She sat straight up.

  Or … he didn’t really want her and this was all a cruel hoax.

  A quick glance at the covers over him reassured her.

  He did want her. She simply had to discover the means to make their union possible. She crossed her arms over her chest, knowing she looked pouty and not caring a bit. “I don’t know what to do next.”

  Her snappishness didn’t seem to affect him at all.

  His answer was smooth and deliberate. “Whatever …

  you … want.” Using his foot, he eased the covers off his bare body. “Use your imagination.”

  She turned her head to look, looked again.

  The vista made time slow.

  He shouldn’t have seemed threatening, not stretched out on his back, but he was tall and broad, big and bold, a man so virile the memories of other men, civilized men in suits and gloves, men she had admired … vanished from her mind. Raul was here. He was now. He was naked. And yes, he all too obviously wanted her.

  She looked down at her hand. Somehow, through all that had happened, she still retained the bottle of oil clasped so tightly in her palm her fingers ached from the pressure.

  Inspiration struck.

  Uncorking the bottle, she dribbled a light stream of oil from his breastbone to his lower belly.

  But she didn’t know how to handle what she’d started.

  With the cork in one hand and the bottle in the other, she didn’t have a hand free. Should she cork the bottle?

  Then do what with it? And while she fretted, the oil was gliding in tiny streams down his sides toward the sheet and the mattress.

  Propelled by an absolute unwillingness to let Amya see the proof of their decadence, Victoria’s brain sputtered up a single idea. Spreading her arms, she leaned down and slid her body along Raul’s, south to north, smearing them both with oil.

  “Damn it!” He caught her shoulders and held her still. “Where did you learn that?”

  Appalled by her own depravity and pleased at his response, she said,“You said I should use my imagination.”

  “Someday I’ll be grateful for that imagination. Right now, you’ve pushed me to the edge.” He plucked the bottle and cork out of her hands, put them together, and tossed the bottle on the floor.

  Dismay made her protest, “You’ll break it!”

  “If I don’t break it pretty soon, the anticipation is going to kill me. And no, I’m not talking about the blasted bottle.” His voice scraped along her sensitive nerves like a rasp in the hands of a master.

  She wasn’t the only one suffering. Thank God. She wanted this to be just as difficult for him as it was for her. More difficult. She wanted him to suffer.

  Lifting her arms, she took the pins out of her hair, dropping them one by one off the edge of the bed. She heard a ping; one of them must have hit the glass bottle. When the last pin was out, her hair fell around her shoulders. She shook it out; some of the strands fell in front, most of them fell behind, and one of them found its way into his hand, where he buffed it like a miser polished a piece of gold.

  This time when she rubbed herself on him, she moved like a snake, back and forth, up and down, unhurriedly spreading oil over his skin while learning how he felt beneath her, and completely, totally aware of the hard thrust of his male member against her belly and chest.

  It was the most purely sensuous experience of her life.

  When he groaned in tortured agony, she at last smiled. Sitting up, breasts proudly thrust forward, she put her hands on him. She let her fingertips ride up and down the ripple of his ribs. She found his male nipples and circled them, rubbing them until they hardened.

  When he tried to reach for her, she batted his hands away. “No. You said it was up to me. So … let me do it.”

  Completely brave now, she straddled his thighs and used the palms of her hands to stroke oil down the sides of his belly.

  He writhed as if in agony.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “No.” He shook his head emphatically.

  “I didn’t think so.” For his behavior reminded her of her own only a few minutes ago— he wanted her to touch him. To touch him where he was most sensitive, to stroke his male member with her hands and in her body until he climaxed with all the violence that he had visited on her.

  Before she was finished with him, she would use every lesson he’d taught her to frustrate him … and satisfy him.

  She stroked his thighs, opened them, and stroked again, slid her hands up to cup the base of his male member and discovered his balls. The way they moved in her hands, the way Raul strained beneath her, everything about his anatomy fascinated her. She had never imagined that making love could create such sweet madness in him … and in her. For even as she explored him, her own passions rose, trying to break free.

  Tonight she had left the governess Victoria Cardiff far behind.

  Lubricating her hands in the oil on his belly, she stroked them along his member and marveled at the silky texture of his skin, the swollen rivers of his veins, the ridged cap, and the single, pale drop of fluid that seeped from the hole at the end. He was too big, the concept of this inside her was overwhelming, and yet she had the oddest sensation that right now, she was in control.

  “Do you know what to do with that?” He sounded both strained and amused.

  Still stroking him— her fascination with the texture and the strength that flowed through his manhood did not cease— she said, “Of course. I’m a virgin, but not unworldly.”

  He laughed. “You’re one of the most unworldly women I’ve ever met.”

  “I am not!” She couldn’t believe he could insult her so thoroughly. “In the last three years, I’ve visited eleven countries!”

  “And never been tempted. Not even once?” He used his forefinger to lift her chin.

  She jerked her head back. “There’s more to civilization than the relations between a man and a woman.”

  “No. In the end, what happens between a man and a woman is all that matters.” He looked as if he believed it, this man who fought to regain his realm, who sought to deal with presidents and parliaments, with dictators and kings.

  He spoke, he believed, and something inside her changed, never to be the same. She was more valuable.

  More vital. An essential part of the unbroken chain of life and love that stretched back into the mists of time and forward into the unseen future.

/>   She took deep breaths, trying to apply intelligence and logic to this feeling, to subdue her sense of triumph.

  But intelligence and logic apparently didn’t work when she was naked.

  She didn’t understand it, but all she wanted was to make him happy. “Have I not proved how tempted I am with you?” Putting her face down, she rubbed her cheek against the head of his organ.

  He flinched. His hands rose as if he wanted to grab her and take her. In a voice strained with need, he said,

  “It’s time.”

  It wasn’t a command or a suggestion, merely a fact.

  It was time.

  He reached up to the top of the headboard again and brought something down, something that looked small and crinkly and like skin.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “I’ll wear it and you won’t get with child.”

  “Oh.” She watched as he smoothed it over his upstanding body part. “Is it comfortable?”

  “Whatever I do with you is wonderful,” he said fervently; then with his hands on her hips, he helped her move up into position.

  It seemed so awkward: hovering over the top of him, trying to make their bodies match up. They were both covered with oil and damp with desire, and if she’d thought about it, she would have said this would be easy.

  But although she was half-mad with confidence and beyond thought with tenderness and craving, the act of impaling herself caused a stab of pain that caught her unawares.

  He was ready for her instinctive retreat. He caught her when she tried to move off, held her in place.

  The pain eased, and she remembered— “I knew this would happen. You’re too big.”

  He understood how to distract her with his voice and his touch. He respected the late hour, speaking quietly.

  “No. Trust me. This will work.” His fingers smoothed the hollow of her throat, a touch so light it brought every nerve to life. “Slowly. Slowly. We have all the time in the world.”

  She hadn’t thought that when he was inside her, it would be so alien, so intimate in a way she had never imagined. She put her hands against his chest to brace herself, but his skin was slick with oil … and that was a remembrance of pleasure. She caressed him as she had before, and all the while he rocked against her, pushing more and more deeply.