Some Enchanted Evening (26 page)

He didn't know. No one knew
her
, knew the events that had formed her. He said he believed she was a princess, and this man, tough and cynical, wouldn't bother to lie. But perhaps he thought her royal blood made her soft and weak, when in fact the opposite was true. Perhaps he thought she would lose her nerve, let him take the lead, or even try to back out completely.

But no. She was bold and strong, and she acted on her valor. Firmly, gently, she rubbed her palms in small circles down his hips. She allowed her gaze to slither down his body, a smile on her own lips. Taking a sustaining breath, she clasped him in her hands and stroked his length . . . and he groaned deep in his chest. He reached his arms wide and clutched the sheets, and in a burst of exuberance she realized she held him helpless.

Sliding her leg over his hips, she sat atop him as if he were her throne. She marveled at his shape: the broad shoulders, tapering to a narrow waist, and the thrust of his hipbones against his skin. She trailed her finger down the hair on his breastbone, down through where it narrowed on his belly, and into the nest of curly thatch on his groin.

He watched her with narrowed eyes as his hips rolled beneath her. "Ah, princess, from here I can see eternity."

"And I feel . . ." She wanted to say something equally eloquent, something romantic, but truth to tell, what she felt was his shaft, long and hot, stretched between her legs. Her weight rested on it, and she sensed its caged power. For now it was quiescent, but she didn't imagine it would be content to remain so. Soon it — and Robert — would make demands, and her task was to take charge and lead it where and when she wished. Her task was like taming the tiger — it surely could be done, but she would always know the tiger was unpredictable and wild. Yet for the short time they would be together, she would hold the whip hand. That was, after all, why she believed she could survive this encounter without harm.

She moved on him, testing her own endurance, her own resolve.

His eyes were half closed as he watched her. "I want you as I've never wanted anything before."

She pressed her palms against his stomach for balance. She liked this: sitting atop him, the sheets crumpled beneath, her knees, moonlight and the freshening breeze streaming through the open windows. The encounter gave her a sense of freedom she'd never experienced. This night would have no repercussions. This night was a time set apart from reality, and she refused to consider how it would affect the fate of her dynastic marriage or whether it would alter the stream of history. In fact, she refused to wonder what her grandmother would say.

Yet obedience to duty was a hard habit to break, and for one moment, she hesitated.

Then he smoothed his hands down her sides, over her hips and down her thighs, and she forgot duty. He rubbed her with the flat of his palms as if the mere touch of her skin gave
him
pleasure — and heaven knew it gave
her
pleasure. She stretched like a cat and moaned as the gentle sensation gave way to a deeper feeling, one of need and heat and drive.

His hands roamed down her belly into the inner sanctuary of her femininity. She caught her breath as his two fingers gathered her nether lips and squeezed them gently. Her eyes fluttered shut; all thought of duty fled her mind and pleasure flooded in to replace it. One of his fingers roamed more intimately, opening her to his touch, and she gave a hum of delight.

"You like that." His husky voice sounded deep and sure.

"Oh, yes. Oh, yes." That finger found her nub and rubbed in a circle around it. Around and around until she wanted to shriek for him to touch her. She felt swollen with need, and her hips moved without volition now, giving the ultimatums her female body demanded.

And he obeyed. His finger pressed and rubbed directly on her, and she . . . she arched above him as the shock tore through her body. She no longer knew where she was, who she was; she was nothing more than a being composed of joy and desire.

As her climax faded, her determination strengthened. She was a princess. She was on top.
She was in charge
.

Shoving Robert's hands aside, she took his shaft in her fingers and ran her fingers over the head, slick with a single pale drop of semen and the evidence of her own satisfaction. Lifting herself, she carefully placed him at the entrance to her body and, sitting up straight, she eased herself down. His thickness opened her wider than before; her tissues stretched to accommodate him, and she groaned as the fullness seemed more than she could stand.

Then he groaned too, and she grew strong on a sense of triumph. And desire was always there, urging her to take more chances. This was what she had come for. To fulfill the promise of bliss once more.

He held her hips, guiding her slowly downward.

Rebelling against his direction she took charge of the rhythm, forcing Robert to go along with her. She reveled in the power of having a dynamic man between her legs, in riding him through the long hours of darkness until the sweat glistened on his brow and he writhed beneath her in a desperate submission. She wanted to stretch out the sensations, and she did, swirling her hips as she rose and fell, moving quickly, then slowly, teasing him with the feather of her fingers down his breastbone. She loved the look of him as he let her take him. The moonlight striped his skin, caressing him as she did. His eyes glinted, and his mouth curved in a half-smile as he watched her. He seemed to know without words that she wished to dominate him. Would dominate him.

In the places where they touched, their skin burned. Sitting above him, she watched him through half-closed eyes, a small sliver of her mind taking pleasure in the comeliness of his countenance, the strength of his body. The other part of her brain was consumed with sensation. Her knees pushed against the mattress, lifting her over him again and again. Inside her, his penis filled her in grand surges. He touched the deepest part of her, setting sparks like fireworks through her womb, through her soul, into her heart.

Now something greater than them both took over and commanded that she move more quickly, demand pleasure more rudely, gasp and moan in the grip of a need so reckless, it clouded her mind and drove her to desperation. Beneath her, Robert's hips rose and fell. He groaned in the agony of need she brought forth from him. This was what she wanted. This was what she loved. This knowing that
she
had taken
him
. She pressed her hands against Robert's belly, sitting up straight, moving on him and knowing that soon, climax would take her. The other climaxes would be forgotten in the heat of this one, this special one that she had brought forth with her strength and her control.

She whimpered as deep within her the spasms started. She moved with an eager violence, demanding satisfaction, and more satisfaction. Below her, his groans escalated as he drove hard, his penis hot within her. He held her thighs in his palms, lifting her, shoving her, filling her. Their movements grew more frantic, yet he thrust and she took at the same rate, with the same need. Her heart thundered in her chest. Her breath rasped in her throat. She leaned over him, her hands on the mattress beside his head, wanting to be close to his warmth, to hear his gasps and be one with his orgasm. In the moonlight his features were outlines of ecstasy, while within her his shaft jerked, giving proof of his compulsion. Triumphant, she rode him all the way through his satisfaction until he collapsed beneath her.

Then she crumpled too, her head resting on his chest, hearing the subsiding thunder of his heart.

The connection between them seemed almost mystical: his body, jutting, intruding, taking; her body, soft, yielding, accepting. Together they formed one being.

He didn't dominate her with his sexuality. She wasn't in thrall to the enticement of his body. It was a mutual enjoyment they brought each other, and she commanded as much authority as he did.

She fell asleep on that comforting thought.

Chapter Twenty-two

A princess never betrays her true emotions, or lowers herself to familiarity with those of lesser rank.

— The Dowager Queen of Beaumontagne

She woke to find Robert over the top of her. His shoulders blocked the slanted moonlight. Clarice could see nothing of his expression. She only knew that he weighed heavily on her, that she was stretched beneath him like a virgin sacrifice on an altar. That his mouth was on her nipple, sucking so strongly that she dug her heels into the mattress to keep from writhing in absolute, abject submission. Her body ached with need, as if he had been touching her, tasting her as she slept.

That frightened her, to think he had been there in her dreams.

Breathlessly she asked, "What are you doing?" And when he didn't answer, she tried to bring her arms down from over her head — to find them anchored there, held by his hands on her wrists.

"Robert. Let me go." She tried to struggle.

And he laughed. Laughed against her breast. Then he nipped it, the scrape of his teeth almost painful against the swollen tissue.

Between her legs she throbbed with need.

With need
? How was that possible? The sun promised to light the sky soon; she'd been asleep only a few hours, and she'd fallen asleep satiated. Now she wanted again. Wanted him between her legs, thrusting, feeding this hunger that left her hollow and empty.

This was mad. She was mad.

More insistently she tried to struggle, but her fight was greater than his. She was fighting the darkness and her sleepiness and her own desire, which thrummed in her ears and made her lids heavy.

What had happened? When had the balance of power changed? Or had it always been this way? Had he been in charge? Had he been indulging her?

He kissed her face, pressing his lips over her eyelids, her cheeks, her mouth. He lingered nowhere, and lost in delight, her head followed him, wanting more of his touch. His damp tongue probed the depths of her ear, the dampness and the rush of his breath sending a thrill down her spine.

Muttering now, she asked again, "What are you doing?"

In a voice as deep and rough as night itself, he said, "I'm going to show you pleasure such as you've never experienced. I'm going to be under your skin and in your mind." He shoved the covers aside, baring her skin to the cool early morning air. Sitting on top of her, he leaned close to her, pressed his hard, hot erection into her belly, and whispered, "Tomorrow night and every night, you're going to come back to me, not because you want to, but because you have to."

She flinched as if he had hit her. She twisted beneath him. "Tomorrow night. I'll come back tomorrow night if I want to. But every night? I can't stay here. I can't be here. You can't make me."

On a harsh chuckle he kissed her. He kissed her without his usual finesse, with the rough lustiness of a warrior set free from the captivity of civilization. His tongue invaded her mouth, moving in and out without subtlety, dominating her. And when she had yielded, struggling no longer, straining to match her body to his, he lifted his head and whispered, "Oh, my darling. You don't know what I can do."

He scared her with his wild talk and his ferocious kisses, and she whimpered like a child. He pushed her toward some revelation she didn't want, some need she couldn't bear, and when he was done, she didn't know who she would be.

He didn't give her time to think. His mouth came down to her breasts, licking the tender skin on the underside, sucking lightly on each nipple. His breath cooled the warm moisture he left behind, his mouth tasting her with a thoroughness that stole her breath away. Her nipples beaded harder than ever before. It was almost painful, definitely impetuous — and desperate. She wanted her hands free, not to fight him, but to claw at him, to demand more.

Yet he didn't care about her demands. He was doing as he wished, and he wished to kiss down her breastbone to her belly-button, to probe the depths with his tongue in a slow, masterful imitation of intercourse. She found herself moaning in the delight of what he was doing, and loaning in anticipation of what was to come. Her legs shifted on the sheets, restless and seeking. She ran the arch of her foot over his back, urging him closer when she should have been kicking him away.

Dawn was lightening the sky now, and she closed her eyes. Somehow, that made this more of a dream, less of a reality, and that was good. That meant that someday, when she lived in her cold marble palace, she could pretend this had never happened. That there had never been a time when she had been nothing but a fragile feminine shell of desire. That there had never been a man who forced her toward unwilling climax and everlasting passion.

Everlasting
. Oh, God, what an awful word. She would forget . . . wouldn't she? This wouldn't haunt her forever . . . would it?

Robert freed her hands.

She didn't even notice, for he caressed her sides, taking joy in the curves beneath her arms, of her waist, of her hips. His hands slid between her legs, opening them wide, and his palms stroked the insides of her thighs almost to the thatch of hair. She held her breath, waiting for his touch.

But nothing happened. Nothing. And he commanded, "Look at me."

Reluctantly she opened her eyes and saw at once he had known what she was doing, pretending like a child who couldn't face the truth.