The idea appealed, and in a rush of daring—her hands were already on his chest, after all—she stroked her fingers upward through the mat on his chest.
His muscles clenched, his breath whispered along her face. He grasped her arms and for a brief moment, she thought her simple motion had pushed him from restraint to impetuosity.
She froze, waited. If he grabbed her, forced himself on her in a haste of desire, it would be painful and upsetting, yes. But if he did, she wouldn’t have to make this decision, to follow the adventure through, to face the consequences of giving herself.
She was a true coward.
And this prince was a true lover. His grip on her arms loosened. “Touch me,” he said, and lifted himself to allow her full access.
She should have known she couldn’t take the easy way out. Her questing fingers continued to move, enjoying the texture, the curl, the slight rough sensation as her palm followed the growth of hair toward his shoulder. There she discovered a series of pits, deep marks in his skin, and her fingers lingered. “What’s this?”
“When I was little, I fell off my pony into the gravel.”
Had he ever been little? But if she asked, he would say she should remember. So she said only, “Ouch.”
The patch of skin against his collarbone was too smooth, devoid of hair and slightly rippled. “And this?”
“Boiling tar. We were besieging the French, and they—”
She imagined the agony and flinched.
He, perhaps, remembered her squeamishness and interrupted himself. “It was a long time ago.”
A ridge ran along his left ribs, and she explored it gently. “What’s this?”
“A bayonet at close quarters.” Then, defensively, “But I was only sixteen and unprepared.”
Only sixteen. “Napoleon hadn’t even crossed the Pyrenees when you were sixteen.”
He caught her hand. “It was an assassination attempt. I let a friend get too close.”
Horrified, she stammered, “Do you . . . trust anyone?”
“You.”
If anything, she was more horrified, but before she could speak he kissed her parted lips, then pressed his tongue into her mouth. It was a slow, deliberate invasion, a preparation, an incitement. She had wanted to dispel his illusions, but tonight she would be his greatest illusion.
So she gave him what he wanted and kissed him back. Each sensitive nerve responded to the rasp and slide, and their heads turned and strained as they explored intimacy. He showed her what he wanted, she showed him what she knew, and their two bodies moved in a dance choreographed by nature. His palm rasped across her shoulder and down to her breast, cupping it and pressing it just as he had her lips—firmly, deliberately. He was teaching her, allowing no withdrawal, no second thoughts.
But she had them. With a gasp she pulled back, from the kiss. He followed, and his teeth nipped at her earlobe, then his tongue stroked the outer shell.
He was damp and warm and breathy, and she shivered, overwhelmed with sensation and a sense of inevitability. This was the reason she’d run from him when she saw him across that dining chamber. To have her in his arms had been his goal, and all her objections and all the obstacles were nothing but chaff. For Danior, an objection was fated to be overruled, an obstacle meant to be overcome. In his mind, she was his, and through the peril and the struggle he had convinced her of that truth. And one other.
She loved him. Imbecile that she was, Miss Evangeline Scoffield of East Little Teignmouth, a girl from nowhere, an orphan, loved the crown prince of Baminia.
Danior’s lips slid to her shoulder, over the rise of her breast to her nipple, catching it in his mouth. She gasped and clutched at him as if he could keep her from this sweet insanity. Keep her from it, when he was the cause. He suckled her, and each nerve stretched and hummed. She writhed, moving against him like a woman with no thought of decorum.
She had no thought of decorum. Her knees, so carefully locked together, had somehow separated. He rested between her legs, so close against her his every motion brought her pleasure—and a twinge of fear. So close. He was so close.
When he lifted his head, the dampness his mouth left behind brought her nipple to a tight point, creating a gratification sharper than any she’d ever experienced. A gratification that was almost pain.
Love. Pain. What difference?
Love. Madness. She suffered from a madness carried on the mists and breeze, a madness that swept her to a more primitive time when this man existed alone on earth, and she had been created for him.
She had to have this. She had to have him. Like the trip down the rope, she would start with a single, daring breath and trust in luck and God and her own insight to get her through to the end.
“Danior.” She slid her hands up over his shoulders, exploring each bulge and ripple. Exalting in each bulge and ripple, as if his strength gave her, the female of his choice, prestige. If Danior were hers, she could smugly prance among the other woman-creatures, secure in the knowledge her man was the best. “You are so beautiful:”
“Men aren’t beautiful.” He sounded distracted, and he arched like a cat being stroked. “I’m not even handsome.”
“Who told you that?”
With only the faintest of sarcasm, he replied, “I believe it was a young woman named Evangeline.”
Cupping his head, she tugged his mouth to hers. “She was a fool.” A million kinds of a fool.
This time, she kissed him, touching their lips, then using her tongue as he had, to tease and tempt and imitate. As he arched over her, she felt his control slip.
He caught himself, lurching as if he’d fallen, then held himself still. Whispering, “Evangeline,” he made the kiss his.
That kiss became one, then another, each a work of wonder. He embraced her, opening her to him. He stroked her sides, following each contour repeatedly. He touched her breasts lightly, then as she responded, he stroked more firmly. Soon, with every motion, she lifted herself, mindlessly seeking his caress.
She existed in the world he had made for her, nestled in the hollow of the earth, with trails of mist from the pool and the darkness left behind by a setting moon. She caught glimpses of the stars, light torn from shreds of the sky. She breathed in spicy cold air and grappled beneath the rough wool blanket, seeking comfort and desire and satisfaction all from this one man.
At the convent he had said he fought to have her depend on him for everything.
He had won.
His hand stroked over her belly, spanned the width of her hips, then slid lower. The world slowed and stilled as he imitated her earlier quest; he explored the slight triangle of hair that sheltered her femininity, seeming to find delight in each perception. Then he moved lower, and she closed her eyes and tensed. He could bruise her if he touched her roughly. He could excite her if he touched her well. Either way she would reveal her vulnerability. She loved him with a newfound, fragile love; but did she trust him with this?
Feather-light, he smoothed his lips across her forehead, then across her closed eyes. With equal delicacy, he opened her and touched. Softly; oh, he was so gentle, taking care not to give pain and easing her toward . . . ah, that felt good. Heat formed inside her and flowed like the thermal springs. She didn’t want him to know, but she couldn’t shut him out. Strong as the pines around them, he kept her open with his body. She clutched at his arms, her head moved restlessly, and one of her legs coiled around his leg and one of her feet slid along his thigh.
He kept his hand on her, measured and firm, and when the dampness touched him, he seemed . . . encouraged. Pleased. That questing finger moved lightly, moved closer . . . moved in.
Her fingers dug into his skin, her eyes flew open, and her meandering foot landed on the cloak.
She hadn’t said anything, but he shushed her anyway. “I’m not hurting you.”
He was telling rather than asking, but as always, he didn’t lie. He wasn’t hurting, only . . . this was so alien. Odd. E
xotic.
Unknown.
He probed deeper, then with that finger inside, he pressed his palm against her. She found herself tightening her thighs around his hips, contracting her muscles inside, trying to force him out, yet . . . she heard him audibly swallow.
“You were built for me,” he whispered. “You were meant to give me pleasure.”
Love made her daft, for she could scarcely speak from excitement. “And you? Were you meant to give me pleasure?”
“I am giving you pleasure.”
She had thought he was, but response taunted her like a sixth sense, fey and otherworldly, a sensuality too new to be defined. She wanted to explore it, yet caution restrained her. In her fever, what would she say? What would she do?
As if he heard her doubts, he murmured, “I want you so much I can scarcely hold myself back. I want you tossing beneath me, moaning in my ear, scratching at me like a lioness in heat. But I swear to you, no matter how much I enjoy you, I won’t forget myself. You’re small and delicate and I’m big and stolid, but I have never lost my head with a woman, and I won’t now. Not when it’s so important you . . . find fulfillment with me.”
“So you won’t laugh?” Dear heavens, from what pit of insecurity had that question come?
“Not ever. Not even if you laugh at me.”
“I can’t laugh at you.” Laugh at the prince, who claimed a kingdom and a people and ultimately her heart? Never. And with the faintest tinge of envy, she said, “You have everything.”
“Not yet, but I will. I swear I will.” Slowly, he removed his finger.
Her vague feeling of disappointment at his withdrawal changed when she realized he no longer held himself apart. His hips nudged her, he prodded the dampness between her legs, but his hands now rested beside her head.
He slid his arm under her head and around her shoulders, embracing her, cocooning them together so they alone existed for the other. With the other hand, he grasped one of her thighs and brought it around his hip. Inevitably, he moved closer. Pressure increased. This wasn’t his finger, and he was right about one thing—he was big. As he entered her, she grabbed at him with her hands, her breath coming harshly. This hurt.
And he knew. “Hold on,” he said. “Just hold on to me. Even if the world ends, I’m not stopping, but I swear I’ll make you happy.”
He didn’t wait for her assent, he just kept moving inexorably into her. She wanted to fight, but he hugged her too tightly. She tried to warn him. “We don’t fit. We can’t do this.”
He didn’t pause. He didn’t even give her the courtesy of an answer.
Irate, she dug her nails into the muscles of his back. He grunted, halted, withdrew . . . a little. And came back. He didn’t shove. He didn’t hurry. He commanded her and the whole situation, and he proceeded accordingly. He met the barrier in her body, he forged forward when she thought there could be no more forward.
The man didn’t know when to stop. He wasn’t suffering, she was, and fiercely she cursed him for it. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she swore at him in Serephinian and German, Chinese and English, with a vocabulary learned in books and lived at the orphanage. He wiped the tears away with his palm, and continued moving. Thrusting now. He’d reached her deepest depths, but he didn’t stop this action. This torture. She didn’t know what he was looking for, but she wanted him to stop, because it hurt. It hurt . . . but not so much now.
Contrarily, that made her madder. After all this suffering, now he was going to make her happy? No. Absolutely not.
She erupted in a flurry of movement, shoving at him, pounding him with her fists, trying to buck him off. If he thought she was going to passively accept ecstasy, he was in for a surprise.
Unfortunately, her efforts didn’t perceptibly influence him. Holding her as he was, he arched over her. She could gain no momentum, while he seemed to gather strength. His impetus grew as she lifted her hips, trying to push him away . . . gathering him to her.
The binding of pain and pleasure confused and infuriated her. She didn’t understand her own reactions, didn’t understand how he could force this change of her body. And more than that, of her mind.
Had she gone crazy? She joined him in the motion, opening herself to him, seeking something he offered, wanting to fling it back at him.
And he groaned, the sound torn from him and she, tender idiot that she was, asked, “Did I hurt you?”
“You’re magnificent,” he muttered with patent sincerity.
Like a bolt from the blue, she realized he liked it when she moved. She had the power to make him groan, and that precarious emotion she called love expanded to fill another empty space in her soul.
She propelled herself against him again.
“That’s it. I knew . . .” His motion never ceased, his concentration never wavered, yet he slipped his hand down her thigh and lifted both her legs, he wrapped them around him so he and he alone controlled the speed, the pressure, and the depth. Now each motion brought him in direct contact with newborn nerves.
In the masculine body wrapped around her, she sensed a change, a coiling of intent. It matched the change in her own body. She moved because she had to move, because she couldn’t stay still, because she desired something and he, damn him, had better find a way to give it to her.
It overtook her, sent her hurtling in a plunge of heat and scent and sound. Intemperate in her satisfaction, she struggled while he held her hips and made her take him as he chose, and worked the final miracle. She clutched him with her legs, her hands slippery with sweat, her skin burning in a burst of pure, igniting pleasure. Her breath rasped in her throat, her lungs burst with the effort, and low in her belly the undulations took her and carried her—right into his royal possession.
The last words she heard before she passed into sleep were, “I love you, Evangeline. I love you.”
Twenty-one
“Wake up, dearling. We have to go now.” Danior laid his hand on the shoulder under the blanket and shook it gently.
Evangeline mumbled something in English. Something that sounded like, “Go away.”
He answered in Serephinian. “No, dear, I’m sorry, but you have to rise. We need to move on.”
This time she blinked and yawned, her lips tucked in like a child waking too soon, and his heart ached at having to rouse her.
Last night when he’d carried her here, she had been exhausted, without sleep for too long, and weary with tension. She’d come awake to bathe and to accept his ministrations—the medicine for her foot and the loving for her body. And he didn’t lie to himself about the reason she had come so sweetly into his arms.
Pain, drink, and exhaustion most of all had weakened her resistance. He had taken advantage of her.
Now the morning was far progressed, and he needed her to wake. With his mouth close to her ear, he recited, “The sun can’t shine. The birds can’t chirp. The whole world is waiting for you.” He should have felt stupid, imitating his old nanny, but this unwonted tenderness he felt for Evangeline freed him from his princely dignity.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t impressed. She rolled away from him. The blanket slid down. The slender length of her spine was revealed to her waist.
When he had first seen her, all he had thought was how men would envy him with her on his arm, that his marital duty would be easily performed with such an attractive woman. Now he knew she was strongly built, a woman he knew he could romp with, laugh with, live with. She was capable of dealing with the travails of the trip, and therefore capable of dealing with the challenges they would face as new monarchs.
He had had to claim her, and there seemed to be only one thing to do, a surefire way to put down her rebellion.
Make her fall in love with him.
Women loved with their hearts, not their heads. His father had told him that more times than he cared to remember.
“Pick a fresh flower and hand it to her. Smile boyishly into her eyes. Touch her hand, her waist, her back. Tell
her you love her. When a woman leans into you, that means she’s ready and you’ve got her.” The old man had leaned forward, a sly gleam in his eye. “You toss up her skirt and give her a romp, and she’ll think she’s in love, and you can use her until you’re bored.”
Danior had never heeded a single word his father uttered, but he’d never been this desperate before.
“I washed out your clothes last night. They’re clean and dry.” His hand traced the line of Evangeline’s spine, down toward the rounding of her bottom. He had held that bottom in his hands last night, lifting her to his thrusts, and he longed to see it now.
But when he would have pushed the blanket all the way down, she flopped back on her back and pulled the blanket around her shoulders.
Of course. She didn’t want him to see the mark that proved she was his princess.
Yes, he’d taken advantage of her, and told her the sweet lie he thought she wanted to hear, but he told himself it was for a perfectly good cause. Revealing was now only three days away, and she could not refuse to play her part. She had to consent to not only being the princess but also to being his wife, or all was lost.
As they traveled together, he had thought she would resign herself to her fate. Instead, she grew more insistent she was not the princess, and she concocted ever wilder tales about her background. One or both of his bodyguards listened, eager to betray them, and if that false brother spread doubt about Evangeline’s identity, it would be the one crisis Danior could not overcome by sheer will and preparation.
He glanced at the frugal fire he had built close to the pond. The thin swirl of smoke mingled with the steam that rose into the still chilly air, and he feared someone might smell the odor of burning pine boughs.
She had to rise. They had to be on their way.
“Evangeline,” he said. “I trapped a rabbit. It’s roasting. Can you smell it?”
She didn’t move, but her stomach growled.
Ah. Perhaps she wasn’t fully awake, but she had heard him. “I picked blueberries.” He drew out the word, savoring its flavor. “Wouldn’t you like some blueberries?”