Royal and Ruthless: Innocent Mistress, Royal Wife / Prince of Scandal / Weight of the Crown

‘Say it,’ he said in a harsh voice. ‘Tell me you don’t want me as much as I want you.’

Lexie’s breath stopped in her throat. Her muscles locked as she met his gleaming gaze with a challenge she couldn’t hide.

‘Say no—or take the consequences.’ This time he spoke more gently.

Wordlessly she lifted a hand to his cheek.

Half smiling, he teased her with kisses on the corners of her willing mouth. An inarticulate little sound from her made him smile, but in answer to her wordless plea he deepened the kiss, and his arms clamped her against the lean strength of his body.

The tension between them was now revealed for what it was—a fierce sexual charge that hungered for this, for more…

Rafiq lifted his head to tilt hers back, so that he could kiss the length of her throat, stopping only a fraction above the neckline of the prim silk shirt she’d bought half a world away in Illyria.

Lexie’s heart literally jumped; she was sure she felt it move in her breast, then settle back into place before he said against her skin, ‘You have the mouth of a siren.’

His faint accent intensified so that he sounded exotic—almost barbaric. ‘And you kiss like one. Where did you learn that?’

‘I don’t—I don’t think you learn to kiss,’ she parried breathlessly, aware only that she couldn’t let him see how much that final caress had shattered her once-safe world.

One black brow arched. ‘Perhaps not,’ he drawled.

And he kissed her again, mercilessly stoking the craving that ate into her, a wild, primal longing for union, a desire that burned hotter and even hotter until she was aching, her body poised and eager, her mind clouded as though with drugs.

Alarm bells rang. When he lifted his head and let his gaze slide downwards, she realised that her inner turbulence was physically revealed; her breasts had peaked, demanding a satisfaction only Rafiq could give her.

Shocked, she pulled back. For a second she thought he was going to keep her in his arms by force, but then he gave a twisted, rather sardonic smile and let her go.

‘No,’ he stated rather than asked.

‘Dinner must be ready.’ Although her voice was hoarse and uneven, she met his gaze steadily, without flinching.

His laughter held no amusement. ‘Indeed, and one should never keep the servants waiting. This way.’

He extended his arm. After a moment’s hesitation Lexie laid her fingertips on it, feeling the slow flex of his muscle beneath them with a voluptuous thrill—half forbidden desire, half fear.

This was dangerous, she warned herself silently as they walked across the great hall.

‘You are afraid of me?’ His tone was aloof, at odds with the penetrating look he sent her.

‘No,’ she said rapidly. ‘Of course not.’

The person she was terrified of was herself. She appeared to have no resistance to Rafiq’s particular brand of potent masculinity, and her abandon startled and dismayed her.

Stiffly, her voice as brittle as her tight-strung body, she said, ‘I don’t normally make a habit of kissing near strangers like—like that.’ The last few words rushed out. Aware that she’d probably revealed more than she wanted him to know, she straightened her shoulders and stared straight ahead.

‘I guessed as much.’

His worldliness shattered what remained of her composure. Was he insinuating that she was transparently inexperienced?

Well, she was, she thought stoutly, and what did it matter whether her untutored response to his kisses had told him so?

He finished with forbidding emphasis, ‘And you need not worry—I do not force women.’

‘I… Well, I’m sure you don’t,’ she said warily, then stopped when she saw where he was leading her. ‘Oh—oh! Oh, how lovely.’

They’d gone up one floor and through a small salon that opened out into air lit by lamps, their warm glow illuminating a wide, stone terrace, and a row of arches on the seaward side that were latticed with stone delicately carved into flowers and leaves. Shrubs and trees cooled the terrace and shielded it from prying eyes. At one end a lily-starred pool surrounded a roofed pavilion, connected to the terrace by a stone bridge. Behind floating, gauzy drapes, Lexie discerned the outlines of furniture.

‘Another whim of yet another besotted ancestor,’ Rafiq explained with a touch of irony. ‘He rescued his wife from a corsair ship; she loved to swim, and he loved to join her, so he built this pool and made sure it couldn’t be overlooked.’

The kisses they’d exchanged suddenly loomed very large in Lexie’s mind. Was he indicating…?

A sideways glance at his face banished that vagrant thought. He wasn’t even looking at her, and it was impossible to read anything from his expression.

Rafiq looked down and caught her watching him. His lashes drooped, and she asked too hastily, ‘Why was she on a corsair ship? Was she a pirate too?’

He stopped by the bridge. ‘She was the daughter of the British governor of a West Indian island, snatched for ransom, but the captain found her appealing enough to keep her. When the Caribbean got too hot for him, he fled to the Indian Ocean. She waited until they approached Moraze, intent as they were on plunder, then managed to wound her abductor severely enough to escape and swim ashore.’

Startled, Lexie looked up from her contemplation of the water lilies. They weren’t growing in the pool, as she’d first thought, but had been cut and floated on the water, a medley of white and palest yellow. Their scent teased her nostrils. ‘She must have been a very resourceful woman.’

Her companion showed his teeth in a smile that held more than a hint of ruthlessness. ‘I come from a long line of people who did what they had to do to survive,’ he said evenly. ‘Some weren’t particularly scrupulous, or even likeable; some embraced revenge without compunction if it served their plans. She hated her captor.’

A little shiver snaked down Lexie’s backbone, and memories of her father’s actions clouded her eyes. ‘Very few people can claim to have only saints in their lineage.’

He smiled cynically. ‘Agreed.’

‘So what happened to the governor’s daughter after she swam to Moraze?’

‘My ancestor found her hiding on shore. She told him of the corsair’s plans, and with his men he captured the ship, killing the man who’d abducted her. Apparently she and my ancestor quarrelled furiously for several months, then astonished everyone by marrying.’ This time Rafiq’s smile showed real amusement. ‘They had a long and happy life together, but they were not a peaceful couple.’

‘I’m glad she found happiness after such an ordeal,’ Lexie said. ‘As for peace, well, some people find peace boring.’

‘Are you one of them?’ he asked, indicating that they should cross the bridge.

Lexie frowned. It sounded like a throwaway question, yet somehow she sensed a thread of intention, of significance, in his words that made her feel uneasy and dangerously vulnerable. Was he exploring her personality, or just keeping the conversation alive?

Almost certainly the latter, common sense told her, and yet…

Because the silence threatened to last too long, she set out briskly across the bridge. ‘As a vet I don’t like too much excitement—it tends to involve going out in the middle of the night in filthy weather to deal with sick, very expensive animals and their frantic owners! But I certainly enjoy variety.’

There, that was innocuous enough, surely? She didn’t want to get into anything heavy here. Although they’d kissed—and he’d seemed to enjoy those kisses—she wasn’t going to let herself fall into the trap of believing they’d meant anything more to him than the superficial response of a virile man to a woman of the right age to mate.

A woman whose instant arousal, she thought with a burning shame, must make it obvious she found him irresistible.

But then, he’d be used to that response—it probably happened in every female who set eyes on him.

And to quench the flickering embers of desire she’d better stop this train of thought right now. So she asked, ‘What about you?’

‘I enjoy moments of peace,’ Rafiq said, his tone giving nothing away. ‘But I think a life of unalloyed tranquillity and harmony could become tedious after a while. I relish a challenge.’