The Runaway Princess (17 page)

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. Exotic.

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.”

“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
?”

She whimpered slightly, and her stomach growled again. She was still sleepy, but the hunger was winning.

Briskly, he added, “Not that I couldn't eat them all myself.”

Her slanted eyes snapped open, mahogany brown and sparkling with irritation. “All
right
. I'll get
up
.”

Her stomach growled again, and he grinned. She didn't grin back. For all her royal qualities, his dear wife bore hunger poorly.

Her gaze swept him with regal disdain, and his grin faded. How dare she deny her bloodlines? She might not bear a resemblance to the child he remembered, but he'd seen that mien on a dozen portraits in the Palace of the Two Kingdoms, where they would wed.

“If you would turn your back, I would rise,” she said haughtily.

He discovered in himself a heretofore undetected desire to tease, to refuse and watch her struggle to maintain her dignity under his vigilant eyes. But uneasiness prickled between his shoulder blades and warned him it was time to move. He needed to get Evangeline to Plaisance, where she would be safe, not loll around like some Oriental pasha indulging in a frolic.

Last night he had laid his claim, and he'd always been a most restrained lover. So such playfulness had no place. Standing, he bowed. “As you command, Your Highness.”

He moved to the fire and knelt beside it to turn the spit. The rabbit sizzled as it browned, fat dripping into the flames. All Evangeline had to do was put on that poor, bedraggled gown. Then he would feed her, and they'd be on their way.

Perhaps he should show her the bush where her clothing had dried.

But when he glanced around, he found the clothes were gone. Irresistibly, his gaze slid toward her figure as she picked her way down to the pool. She'd wrapped herself in the rug and held her clothing close to her chest.

She wasn't naked as he imagined, a seductive Aphrodite clad only in golden light. An ugly brown blanket swathed her—and she was just as seductive.

He jerked his gaze back to the crisp, sizzling meat of the rabbit. But he heard her splashing, and glanced again.

Clearly she didn't trust him; she'd hung the blanket on the trees between them.

Damn it. The obvious mistrust the curtain represented infuriated him. Never mind that it was justified; she was his woman, and except for a few formalities, his wife. He'd told her he loved her. He'd guided her into the rites of pleasure. She should trust him implicitly now. So why didn't she?

For that matter, why was he still so . . . so . . . dissatisfied?

He shifted on his haunches. All his life he'd been a man deliberately restrained in his desires. There had never been a woman who could make him forget himself in ecstasy. Such excess was his father's style, and he had taken care not to emulate his father. Even in the most intimate embrace, he held himself back. He gave the lady fulfillment and himself a climax, but he never shared himself. A man who expected too much was greedy, and such greed boded ill.

Yet last night he had almost let go.

He couldn't. He didn't. It was Evangeline's first time, and only an animal would have used her with vigor and unfettered excitement.

But he'd wanted to. Moderation had been almost beyond his control, and even now in the light of day he wanted . . . something more.

At Château Fortuné, she had been disconcerted by the mere act of kissing. Even now he couldn't subdue the smile that kicked up the corner of his mouth. She'd accused him of licking her. If she only knew where he longed to lick, she would have been more than disconcerted—she would have been appalled.

But she had learned rapidly, and last night those first, struggling scraps of desire she'd displayed had blossomed into a splendid passion.

So they would blossom again.

He pulled his knife from the holster in his boot and laid it across the flat rock that would serve as a platter. And listened to her splash as she performed her ablutions in the pool. He imagined going to her, taking her hand, leading her back to the bed and showing her his real self.

Closing his eyes, he fought the urge. It would be so easy. Only a thin blanket served as a barrier . . . a blanket, and years of knowing that if he ever unchained the beast within himself, he would ravenously seek his mate and take her until they both expired in the conflagration.

And Evangeline was his mate.

“Are you ready?”

He opened his eyes and stared at the woman standing across the fire from him. She shivered slightly beneath the blanket she held over her shoulders, but under that she had donned every bit of her clothing—clothing that had disintegrated even more than he had realized. The hem of her gown was shredded. Triangular tears showed the passage of each thorn and branch. A long rip split the front, and her knee poked out, covered only by a sheer petticoat almost as ragged as the skirt. A faint dew covered her skin from her bath, and the gown clung to her legs and her bosom.

For a man poised on the edge of control, she presented an almost overpowering temptation.

And she didn't even realize it, for she had eyes only for the rabbit.

“What?” he said.

“Are you ready?” She squatted opposite him. “Can we eat?”

Silent, shaken by the images his mind conjured, he stared at her open-kneed stance and wondered if she had somehow divined his suffering and tormented him on purpose.

“I've never been this hungry. I think it must be the altitude or the fresh air or the—fresh air.”
Moving back from the fire, she sat on a log and arranged her skirt so it covered her legs. With a glance at him, she brought the edges of the blanket up, too. “Did you catch the rabbit yourself? I know how to snare a rabbit. I read about it once. You've been up a long time, then. Thank you for letting me sleep, I was exhausted, but I'm feeling much better now. My foot has miraculously closed. Those herbs are very effective.”

She wore her old shoes, and through the split in the sole he could see that she'd rebandaged her wound after her bath. He needed to examine it, but . . . he couldn't touch her. Not yet.

“On the other hand, it's not the herbs, is it? I remember what Rafaello said about the royal touch, and I've done enough research to know about the old superstition. A king's touch heals, correct?”

Dragging his gaze away from that one triangle of exposed skin on her bosom, he grunted and opened the bag. Groping among the contents, he brought forth the pieces of hardtack, and laid them on the heated rocks around the fire. Removing the skewered rabbit from the makeshift rotisserie, he laid it on the flat stone, too.

“You're very modest,” she said. “Most men would leap to claim such a talent, and certainly this laceration is much improved. It's healed enough that I can walk down the mountain by myself.”

He noted she rocked slightly, her hands clasped over her knees, and he realized that the normally reserved lady was babbling. She couldn't look him in the eye, and silence made her uncomfortable. Of course; she was nervous, not knowing the etiquette
of a man and a woman who had experienced the greatest intimacy of all.

Maybe she was afraid he would jump her again.

Maybe she was reading his mind.

Resolutely, he pulled himself back from the brink of licentiousness and said, “It's an old wives' tale.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed, a doe on the verge of flight.

“The royal touch. It's an old wives' tale.” On a plank of bark, he laid out chunks of tender rabbit and a handful of blueberries, concentrating on the task with all his will. “Most of the stories surrounding our monarchy are, of course, but they give us tradition and pageantry, and those are the ties that bind us to our people and our people to us.” The urgent need to mate, he noted, diminished as he spoke. Expressing his opinions to the one woman who could truly comprehend them gave him a sense of gratification and, more important, a measure of command.

“You think your sovereignty is maintained by myth?” she asked, sounding incredulous.

Careful not to touch her fingers—restraint could only stretch so far—he handed her the makeshift plate. “
Our
sovereignty, and if I didn't, I would have to believe in magic. Which of course, I do not.”