The Disgraced Princess (5 page)

‘To the great relief of everyone who followed him onto the throne, I'm sure,' she returned cheerfully. ‘I love castles—they're grim and powerful and evocative of history and passion and treachery and chivalry, but I'll bet the reason they're mostly in ruins now is because they were so uncomfortable.'

The car drew up inside the palace courtyard. ‘Comfort over romance, Rosemary?'

Uneasily aware of his brief smile as he spoke, she said, ‘Absolutely.' And it wasn't entirely a lie.

As they walked towards the door Gerd said, ‘A nightcap?'

C
OMMON
sense told Rosie to make her excuses and her escape as quickly as she could with dignity.

But if she'd listened to common sense when Gerd asked her to dinner she'd have missed out on the bitter-sweetness of the evening. From now on she'd only see Gerd in photographs. The knowledge ached through her, summoning a kind of desperation, a need to hug each precious moment to her breast.

Think of it as a final goodbye, she told herself with bleak realism. Without a tremor she said, ‘Thank you, I'd enjoy that.'

In his private sitting room he poured drinks while she examined the room. This was not the bigger one where he'd entertained the family, but a smaller, more intimate affair, furnished quite casually. Her gaze ranged from the huge sofas that befitted a man of his height to some exquisite glassware in a cabinet, and she made a soft sound of pleasure.

‘From Venice,' he said, following the direction of her gaze as he handed her the drink. ‘The Venetians ruled most of this coast at one time.'

‘Did they conquer Carathia?'

‘No, but they demanded a yearly tribute—wine and silver from the mines.'

‘The glass is beautiful, such glorious colours. I didn't know there were silver mines here.'

‘They've been worked out for a couple of centuries, but they were what made Carathia prosperous in the Middle Ages.'

Rosie sipped the white wine he'd given her. A silky, subtly sweet liquor, it breathed the scent of flowers. ‘This smells like spring. And tastes like it too. Is it from here?'

‘Yes.' Grim-faced, he looked down at her, and in a voice she'd never heard before said, ‘I chose it because you always remind me of spring.'

Rosie froze, silenced by a fierce rush of adrenalin. She looked up into glittering golden eyes as a heady recklessness clamoured through her, a torrent both languorous and without mercy, sweet as honey and dangerous. Through the drumbeat of her pulse she tightened her shaking fingers around the glass. The voluptuous appetite Gerd roused with his kisses all those years ago blazed into open need.

She began to tremble.

Narrowed eyes gleaming, he took the almost untouched wine from her and set the glass on a table. Rosie's heart gave a great leap and the breath stopped in her throat. Heat pounded through her, softening her bones, banishing any coherent thoughts in a widening surge of hunger.

Yet as Gerd lifted her hands to his lips, she managed to croak, ‘This is not a good idea, Gerd.'

‘Have you a better one?' he asked deeply.

Shivers chased them selves over her skin, through every wakening cell in her body. ‘I don't know—I just don't really think…' she said in confusion, the words slurring when he kissed the jumping pulse in one wrist.

His mouth was hot and demanding, lingering over the fine skin. Rosie swallowed to ease her dry throat. There was something she had to say, but she couldn't remember what.

Still holding her gaze, he held her hands to his chest so that the open palms rested above his heart. Its rapid beat echoed her own turbulent pulse, thundering a primitive call.

Rosie closed her eyes, but that made things worse; without sight every other sense was sharpened. She could hear his breath, hard and fast as though he'd been running, and his faint, masculine scent teased her nostrils—evocative, compelling.

Desperate, she forced up her lashes and held his gaze, wincing at the arrogant jut of his jaw and the golden glints in his eyes, the eyes of a predator.

She should be terrified.

She wasn't.

But something had to be said.

‘Princess Serina?' she muttered almost pleadingly.

He told her harshly, ‘I've made no commitment to her or to any other woman. She is not expecting a proposal from me.'

Rosie struggled to articulate a further question, but he kissed the unformed words from her lips, and she surrendered to desire so intense her knees buckled. Gerd's arms tightened around her. She gasped when he picked
her up and carried her, mouth on mouth, across the room, sinking onto one of the big sofas without releasing her.

The kisses turned shockingly erotic when he bent her head back across his shoulder and explored her sweet depths with a torrid passion. Dimly, vaguely, Rosie wondered if she should have run while she had the chance.

Too late now. His slow, drugging kisses summoned a wildly incandescent response from every cell in her body and she had never felt so safe.

Yet never been in such danger…

Gerd lifted his head and scrutinised her face, penetrating eyes gleaming between dark lashes, the angular framework of his handsome face suddenly far more prominent. ‘If you don't want this tell me right now, before it's too late.'

Rosie dragged breath into her famished lungs. Disconnected thoughts tumbled in freefall around her brain, fleeting scraps so coloured by emotion she couldn't assemble them into any coherent order.

Finally she managed, ‘Why?'

Closing his eyes, he said in a rough voice, ‘Rosemary, I've wanted you since I first kissed you, but you were far too young.' Catching her unawares, he opened his eyes again, fixing her with a fierce, unguarded gaze that set more nerves jangling. ‘And now you're grown-up, but it has to be what you want too.'

His words jerked Rosie upwards. Mouth tight, eyes blazing, she surveyed his ruthless face.

It was too cruel of him to kiss her like that, as though she was the most important thing in his life, as though he'd longed for her just as fiercely as she'd craved him, and then let his damned principles get in the way.

Furious, she exploded, ‘Of
course
I want you—I've wanted you since I understood what wanting is.'

He said harshly, ‘You deserve more than a one-night stand.'

For some strange reason his words strengthened her resolution. She met his gaze with boldness. ‘So do you.'

His chest lifted and she saw wry laughter gleam in the golden eyes.

And something else, she realised, her heart picking up speed once more. Determination, as though he'd come to some turning point and now saw the way ahead.

‘So perhaps we will forget about it being just one night,' he said. In a voice without any inflection he asked, ‘What is your decision?'

‘Why do
I
have to decide?' she demanded.

He gave her a taut, narrow smile. ‘You know why.' He held out his hand. Slowly she put her hand into his keeping. Against the tanned strength of his, hers looked fragile, almost lost.

He wrapped his fingers around hers and said, ‘Pull.'

‘I don't have to.' Her stupid hand was shaking, and she fought back an unregenerate sizzle of excitement. ‘I know you're stronger than I am.'

‘That's why
you
decide,' he told her in flexibly.

Clearly, he wasn't going to change his mind. Without thinking she hauled back. Instantly his fingers closed around hers, holding them in a firm grip that didn't hurt.

And then he let her go. In a voice as uncompromising as that grip had been, he said, ‘Make up your mind, Rosemary.'

Awash with a hunger that screamed for satisfaction, Rosie forced herself to think. Part of the hold he had on her had to be simple frustration because she'd never made love. In her dreams it was wonderful, transcendental, but she'd listened to enough friends to understand it needn't necessarily be like that.

So if she experienced sex with Gerd chances were she could rid herself of this fruitless desire.

Or it might make things worse—give life to a craving she couldn't control.

But that had already happened. Hell, because of this man she was still a virgin!

Be logical, she told herself almost beseechingly. A long-distance friend ship was difficult enough to sustain; a long-distance love affair—one based only on sex—would be even more difficult.

Eventually it must burn out, and when it did she'd be free of the lingering hangover of her adolescent passion for him.

She said, ‘I—all right, now that we know that this…this
need
is mutual, why not just follow it and see what happens?'

His mouth tightened. ‘Be sophisticated and adult about it?'

‘Is there anything wrong with that?' she demanded, challenging him directly. ‘It's better than being foolish and juvenile, surely? We're both adults. We both know this can't go anywhere, so why not take what we can from it and enjoy it and when it dies remember it without regret?'

Gerd smiled, but his eyes were coolly watchful, and
she had no idea what he felt when he said, ‘If that's what you want, then that is the way it will happen.'

But he made no movement to kiss her again, and an icy chill of panic gripped her. Had she repelled him, even disgusted him?

And then he smiled and said softly, ‘I suspect you're every man's dream mistress, Rosemary—no strings, no commitment, no future planned. Just the promise of sex whenever we want it, wherever we want it.' His voice deepened. ‘However we want it.'

‘Oh, there's going to be some sort of commitment,' she told him, hoping she sounded as confident as her words. But she needed to get something straight, although her heart constricted when she said, ‘Until we call a halt I'll be faithful to you, and I'll expect the same from you.'

The dark head bent in an autocratic nod. ‘Very well, then, it's a deal.'

The words were blunt, as blunt as hers had been, she reminded herself.

‘It's a deal,' she whispered, and held out her hand.

His mouth was a thin line, strangely ruthless, as they shook hands. But it gentled when he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingertips.

The sensuous caress sent more wanton excitement tingling through Rosie. And then he bent his head and kissed her again, and his mouth took her into that realm where thought and logic no longer mattered, where the only reality was Gerd's passion and her abandoned response.

But even as she yielded she wondered how he might react if he realised she'd never done this before.

It didn't matter. His kisses stoked the fires that had
been smouldering so long; for the second time in her life real desire slammed through her, a relentless, consuming source of pleasure and anticipation that banished any apprehension.

When Gerd found the hollow at the base of her throat and kissed the feverish pulse there, she stiffened and gave a soft, in voluntary groan.

‘You even smell of spring,' he said, his voice low and impeded. ‘All flowers and sweetness and energy…'

Rosie pushed his shirt back and kissed his shoulder, her mouth open and seeking. He tasted like every dream she'd ever had—a sexy mix of challenge and charisma and power, an earthy flavour that was Gerd alone, made from his body, the true essence of the man.

To her astonished delight, she felt him tense, and then his mouth moved to the curve of her breast.

Breath locking in her throat, she waited for the revulsion she usually felt, the sense of being invaded that always before had had her calling an abrupt halt.

It didn't come. When he kissed her she understood the true meaning of longing; tautly expectant, her breasts ached with voluptuous hunger that only he could ease.

But he lifted his head. She had only a moment to endure the cold chill of rejection before he began to push aside the ties that held up her dress.

‘Am I likely to wreck this pretty thing by doing this?'

Gerd's raw voice only added to the reckless clamour in her blood. ‘No.'

She wondered at her voice, husky and slow, so that the syllable flowed into the silence in the room like liquid honey.

‘Hold up your arms.'

Silently, eyes enormous and smoky in her face, she obeyed, and he eased the material over her head, dropping it over the arm of the sofa.

The dress had a built-in bra and slip, so beneath it she wore nothing but narrow briefs. To her horror Rosie realised she was blushing, the colour burning up from her bared breasts.

Too shy to look at him, she averted her face, freezing when he curved his hand around her jaw. Her lashes drooped; fascinated, shocked, she hardly breathed while he surveyed what he'd uncovered. His expression didn't change, but she felt a subtle alteration in him, a kind of charged awareness that ratcheted up her tension so that hunger exploded like a pain inside her, demanding and elemental, a force that consumed her entirely.

‘Your skin is like silk,' he said.

The words sounded rough, yet she didn't make the mistake of thinking he was angry. She'd never imagined that Gerd could look at her with such…such intensity, as though she was something in finitely rare and precious, something he didn't dare touch.

A reckless shiver shook her. And she'd never felt so exposed, lying almost naked across his lap while he was still fully clothed.

Now what? For a horrified moment she thought she'd actually said the words.

‘I have to get undressed too.' He spoke with harsh precision, as though he'd had to concentrate on what he was saying, and began to undo his shirt.

Rosie stayed still, her eyes on the dark, long fingers against the white material. She forced herself to take a
breath, listening as it came through her lips, hearing the beating of her heart heavy and fast in her ears, the taste of Gerd in her mouth.

Should she tell him this was all new to her?

No.

It didn't mean anything, or perhaps it meant too much. She didn't want to load him with the burden of her virginity. Blurting it out would somehow make the fact that she was untouched more important than this languid, golden tide of passion, so intense it closed her throat.

Mutely, her heart hammering in her breast, she watched as Gerd shrugged free of the shirt and tossed it over her dress.

Rosie hesitated, but desire persuaded her to stretch out a tentative hand and trace with splayed fingers the path of the scroll of hair across his powerful chest. Startled, she registered the tension of muscles beneath that lightest of exploratory touches, and for the first time a tinge of apprehension shadowed her headstrong physical longing.