Honeymoon With a Prince (Royal Scandals) (10 page)

“You saying you trained him to find me?”

“No one can train a dog that well.”

As if on cue, or perhaps because he heard his name, a low canine grumble rose from the other side of the kitchen counter.

“Shhhh,” he ground out.
 
“There’s a beautiful female flirting with me.”

Kelly’s head lifted, then her lips brushed the outermost corner of his mouth.
 
He fought to keep his breathing even as she rewarded his patience with the softest of kisses.
 
And then he was lost.
 
Unable to remain still any longer, he wrapped his hands around her narrow waist, pulling her to him, lifting her slightly so he could gain better access to her glorious mouth.

Oh, but he’d missed being with a woman.
 
And this woman held more allure than any he could recall meeting.
 
A wave of overwhelming need gripped him, driving him to deepen the kiss.
 
The fingers of her right hand sought the nape of his neck while her left arm snaked around his back, pulling him closer.
 
She moaned into his mouth, as if she experienced the same deep, unrequited primal craving he did and had finally allowed herself to indulge.
 

He ravished her mouth with his, taking his pleasure as if he might never kiss a woman again.
 
At the same time, he found himself wondering what drove her.
 
He knew why
he
needed this.
 
Why did she?
 
Her passionate response to his kiss wasn’t one of mere lust.
 
This was a bone-deep craving borne of loss or of pain or of having gone without.
 
Five years ago, even a year ago, he wouldn’t have recognized it.
 
Now he recognized it because he’d experienced it.
 

Then she surprised him by smiling against his mouth.

“This is no longer safe,” she murmured.
 

“No, it’s not.”
 
Not at all.
 
Not for either of them.
 
He kept her body pressed to his but eased his face back from hers just enough to take in her glazed expression.
 

Her gaze narrowed as she whispered, “Good.”

Chapter Six

Flirtation turned carnal in an instant as she kissed him once more, fitting the soft curves of her breasts against the harder planes of his chest, allowing him to imagine how it would feel if there were no clothing separating them, if they were skin on skin.
 
He stroked her spine, moving upward until his hands reached the soft, bare flesh of her back where it was exposed above her blue sundress.
 
She smelled of the beach, of Giulia’s, and of lemon shampoo.
 
Of perfect femininity and beauty.
 
Yet the musk of desire clung to her skin, too, making her irrevocably
human
.
 
Making him want her all the more.

He rasped a command to Gaspare, sending the dog to a corner to sleep as if they were at home.
 
He didn’t check to see if the dog obeyed.
 
The padding of paws behind him was enough assurance.

He yanked the knot at the back of Kelly’s neck harder than necessary, loosening the ties that held the blue cotton fabric of her sundress between them, then located the elastic that held her hair in its elaborate twist and pulled it free.
 
He buried both his hands in her waves, savoring the rich texture as he continued to plunder her mouth.
 
Tasting, exploring, meeting every touch and caress of her tongue with his own.
 
Nipping at her lower lip, sliding down to sample the divine column of her throat, then moving back again.
 
Wanting to taste her everywhere at once.

Gradually, he became aware of her hands on his chest and pulled back.
 
The wetness of their kiss left a sheen on her bottom lip, but she didn’t wipe it away.
 
Instead, she took a step backward, the movement causing the front of her dress to sag.
 
She didn’t fix it.
 
Instead, she kept her eyes locked with his.
 
Slowly, deliberately, he slid his hand inside the fabric, lowering it to her waist so he could see her.
 
She wore nothing underneath, rewarding him with the amazing sight of her full breasts.
 
He bent to take one taut nipple into his mouth, but she stopped him with a gentle hand.
 
“No.
 
I want to feel you against me,” she murmured, her eyes fixed on the front of his shirt.
 

Deftly, her fingers worked the buttons free.
 
For a moment, he simply watched in wonder, but as she released the final button and pushed the white fabric from his shoulders, he wrapped his hands around her narrow waist and pulled her to him, letting her feel all she wanted as he kissed her once more.
 
Taking a step backward, he felt one of the kitchen barstools against the back of his thighs and sat, pulling her flowing skirt high before lifting her into his lap to straddle him.
 
His cock was at full attention now, straining against his slacks and against her.
 
He wanted her to feel him, to know what her hands, her mouth, and her body did to his.
 
The warmth of her panties against his lower body assured him she was every bit as wet and hot with need as he was hard with it.

He circled one beautiful nipple with his fingertips, then dragged his gaze from her breasts to her face.
 
She’d been watching him.
 
The unconcealed desire and shock in her dark eyes mirrored the chaotic thoughts filling his own mind.
 
She cradled his face in her hands, then dipped her head to kiss him.
 
As she slid her hands to his shoulders, then wrapped them around him, the full weight of her breasts settled against his chest once more.
 
He groaned into her mouth.
 

There was no doubt from her kiss what she wanted from him.
 

“I don’t sleep with men on the first date.
 
Ever.”
 
The words were said even as the soft, wet sound of their kisses filled his senses.
 

“I have no plans to sleep,” he replied.
 
Sliding his hands down to palm her ass, he shifted his lower body even more firmly against her crotch to show her just how awake he was.

“Still…I needed to make the point.”
 
He felt her lips curve into a smile against his.
 
“But I suppose if we’re not sleeping, we don’t have a problem.”

Holding her fast, he stood.
 
She started to slide her legs to the ground, but he managed a, “no, don’t,” and moved his grip to her thighs, encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist.
 

He met her gaze, making his intent clear and ensuring she shared the need that thrummed through his veins.
 
Her breathing came in the same staccato rasps as his as she tilted her head to indicate the door behind her.

“Bedroom’s that way.”

“How very
polite
of you.”

“Bedroom too
ordinary
?”

“Tell me later if you think it’s ordinary.”
 
He strode across the living room and kicked through the partially open door to enter the bedroom.
 
It, too, had windows overlooking the beach, though the thin white curtains were fortuitously drawn, allowing in the light bleeding over from neighboring villas and from the low-slung moon without sacrificing privacy.

As he neared the side of the bed, he allowed her to slide her legs down his until her toes touched the floor.
 
Without words, she moved her hands to the front of his waistband to unbutton his slacks while she kicked out of her sandals and sent them skidding across the room.
 
He followed her example, shedding his shoes while he watched her fingers work the front of his pants open.
 
Patience finally got the better of him and he moved to help her.
 
In seconds, she caressed her way down his thighs to pool his pants and briefs at his feet.
 
As she stood, she ran her palms from the outside of his legs to the length of his shaft.
 
An involuntary shiver ripped through his body as her fingers skidded over the head, then moved back down, deliberately coaxing him toward ecstasy.
 

No, they were not safe at all.
 
He more than she.

With a kick, he sent his slacks sliding across the floor, grabbed her hands and tumbled her backward into the bed, then covered her body with his own.
 
Her dress remained bunched around her waist, but a quick flick of his wrist divested her of her panties.

In the dim light, he caught a glimpse of plain, white cotton before he flung them over her head to the floor on the opposite side of the bed.
 
In the recesses of his mind, it occurred to him it wasn’t what a woman wore when she expected to bring a man home with her, and she’d changed into the sundress knowing they were heading out to dinner.
 
She’d meant it when she said she didn’t sleep with men on the first date.
 
But if she noticed him noticing her utilitarian undergarments, there was no embarrassment.
 
Instead, she sighed and arched back against the fluffy pillows as he bent to take one nipple in his mouth and caressed the other with his the pad of his thumb.

She wrapped one lean leg around him, then her hands came to his rear, trapping him.
 
As he shifted his attention to her other breast, her hands came up, exploring the bare skin of his back.
 
Realization hit him at the same moment her fingertips encountered the rough, scarred skin on his left side.
 
He’d been so caught up in the moment—the
woman—
he’d forgotten what she’d discover on his naked body.
   

“Does this hurt?”
 
Her voice came to him in the dark, using the same words the field medic had as he’d explored the deep wounds and charred skin only a few months ago, but with a completely different emotion packed into them.

“No.”

He’d unintentionally bitten out the word.
 
No one besides the medic and the French army doctors and nurses who’d treated him had seen the full extent of the damage since the day he’d sustained the injury.
 
It was his to bear.
 
He didn’t want it—or the circumstances that lead to the slashed, burned flesh—to become the subject of public scrutiny.
 

Rather than take offense, Kelly seemed to take his gruff response as an indication he wanted to focus on the task at hand.
 
She continued to explore his back, his arms, his shoulders, until she reached his nape.
 
Gentle pressure at the back of his neck signaled him to shift higher to kiss her once more.
 
She moved as if to roll over and pin him beneath her, but he stopped her with a hand to her thigh.
   

“No.”
 
This time the word was said gently.
 
“I have a better idea.”

It no longer mattered how deeply he craved the release that came with a night of wild, unbridled sex.
 
It didn’t matter that this was nothing more than a one-night stand, a memory he’d tuck away in a corner of his mind to remember with fondness later.
 
More than anything, he wanted to satisfy
her
.
 
To see the look on her face as she came undone, to know that he’d been the cause.

Still cradling her thigh with in one hand, he found her warm, wet folds with the other.
 
For a moment he merely cupped her, savoring the heat, then slowly he parted her and eased his fingers inside, then up, finding her most sensitive spots, drawing a muffled moan from her as she turned her face toward the bedcovers and lifted her body to meet his hand.

The sight of her building toward a climax drove him harder, first with his fingers, then his tongue.
 
Sucking, licking, spinning both of them out of control.
 
He felt her peak, coil, then let go in a shuddering, all encompassing release that sent her fists into the bedding as shockwaves ripped through her.

Unwilling to wait for her to catch her breath, he repositioned himself, felt the warm entrance to her body with the very tip of his cock, then plunged into her with an unabashed groan of sheer pleasure.
 
Her hands went to his back, his shoulders, his hair—she seemed to want to hold him everywhere at once—as she rocked into his thrusts and cried out his name.

For the first time in weeks, possibly months, he felt alive.
 
His skin burned to her touch, his blood pumped through his veins as if on fire, and an overwhelming sense of awe and elation filled him as he drove into her, again and again and again, reveling in the tight heat of her body.
 
The light streamed through the sheer white curtains to strike her hair as it splayed across the white bedding, making her look ethereal even as they made love with a passion that bordered on violence.