The Prince's Captive Virgin

“Do I frighten you?” he asked.

“Isn’t that your intention?”

“Not specifically.”

He didn’t elaborate, though. Didn’t give her any idea of what he might be doing specifically. “So, do I go before a judge and jury? Or are you basically it?”

“This is my land. And I am the law of it.”

“In other words, you can do whatever you want.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. In other words.”

She drew herself up to her full height, ignoring the shiver that wound through her. “What exactly do you intend to do with me?” It took a lot of courage to ask that question, especially considering she didn’t know if she wanted the answer.

“I intend to make you pay,” he said, the promise on those dark words licking down her spine. “But first, I should like you to join me for dinner.”

“No,” she said, the denial moving quickly from her lips, before she had a chance to think better of it. “I don’t want to have dinner with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re my jailer. Because I find you uncivilized.”

“And hideous,” he said, flashing her a slight smile, a brief glimpse of straight, white teeth, “I imagine.”

There was no good way to answer that. He was...hideous wasn’t the right word. Damaged. Terrifying. Compelling. But certainly not hideous.

“Show me anybody who wants to have dinner with the person keeping them captive,” she said, rather than responding to his previous statement.

“That’s the thing about being a captive,” he said, his tone dry. “Choice is typically quite limited.”

“What are you going to do if I refuse to go with you?” She planted her hands on her hips and took a step forward. She had to do this. She had to test him. Maybe he was a madman. Maybe he was going to go full Henry VIII on her. Off with her head, and all of that. Maybe he would do something even worse. But, until she tested the boundary, she wouldn’t know what manner of man she was dealing with.

“I will pick you up, put you over my shoulder and carry you down to dinner whether you want to go or not.”

“I don’t want to.”

Without missing a beat, he closed the distance between them, curved his arms around her waist and pulled her up off the ground, laying her over his shoulder. She was stunned. By his strength. By the ease at which he held her. By the heat of his body.

He was just...so very hot. And it burned her all over, even in places where they didn’t touch. He moved, and she wobbled, grabbing hold of his shoulder to keep from falling. Then he turned and carried her from the room.

CHAPTER THREE (#uf55788d6-4e82-53b2-85cf-6824c0dab08b)

SHE WAS LIKE fire in his arms. That was all he could think as he strode out of her chamber, her lithe body wiggling over his shoulder as he carried her down the hall.

He braced one hand on her lower back, gripping her calf with the other. It had been three years since he’d had his hands on a woman. And suddenly, he was conscious of every one of those years. He had been far too lost in the bleakness of it all to think of it in those terms until this moment.

He had not thought of being with a woman. Hadn’t thought of touching one. He had only been conscious of his bed being empty as far as it being empty of his wife. Not being empty in a way that meant it might need to be filled by someone else.

But now she was hot beneath his fingertips, smooth, and very much alive. So different from the last time he had touched a woman and found her cold, icy and lifeless.

He gritted his teeth, clipping his jaw down tight as he continued to cart his protesting captive down the stairs and toward the dining room.

“How dare you?” she shrieked, pounding one fist against his back.

“How dare I feed you?” He laughed. “I truly am a monster.”

“You could have sent me a crust of bread up to my room,” she continued to protest.

“Yes, but alternatively you can sit and eat with me, and you can have lamb.”

“Maybe I don’t want to eat a baby animal!”

“Are you a vegetarian?”

“No,” she said, sounding small, and slightly defeated in her response. “But still.”

“If you have serious issues eating small, fuzzy things, you can always indulge in the vegetables and the couscous. Plus, there will be cake.”

“I could have eaten that in my room,” she said, wiggling, that movement of her body against his sending a jolt of sensation through him. He ignored it.

“No, agape, you could not have, because it is not on offer.”

He stepped into the dining room, and set her down neatly in the chair next to his own. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. She truly was beautiful. Her dark hair was captured in a low ponytail, her blue eyes glittering in the dim light, distrustful, but nonetheless lovely. She had full lips, the kind he could vaguely remember enjoying back in the days when he had indulged in such pleasures.

Then, there was her body, which was pleasingly round in all the right places, as he had observed while carrying her from her room.

“What do you want from me?”

“I would like for you to eat. With the dramatics kept to a minimum.”

She frowned, her expression stormy. “You did not allow me to trade places with my father so that you could feed me.”

“No,” he said, “perhaps not. I allowed you to trade with your father because you asked me to allow it. And as I mentioned before, I thought, that just maybe you might be of more use to me than a dying man.”

She recoiled. So completely that it was nearly comical. “What sort of use?”

There was a time when a woman would have leaned in at such a suggestion, touched his hand, touched his arm, perhaps made things even more intimate by placing her hand on his thigh. But, those days had long since passed.

He let his eyes wander back to those beautiful rosy lips. And just for a moment, he imagined crushing his ruined mouth right up against them. Yes, she would most certainly take offense at that.

“Oh, anything I can think of. Propping up a wobbly desk, perhaps?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Be serious for a moment.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m always serious.” At least, he had been for the past few years. Until these past few moments.

But, other than his friends, who he communicated with primarily over the phone, he only ever talked to his stripped-down staff. To Fos, the man who had been his father’s right hand for as long as Adam could remember. And to Athena, his cook. Otherwise, the staff tended to rotate, and they kept out of his way.