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

‘Is it important?’ she parried, wishing her voice wasn’t so thin.

No muscle moved in his face, but her heart quailed. However, his tone was grave when he replied, ‘I think it is, if it was the first time for you. I could have been gentler—?’

‘I didn’t want gentle,’ she flashed, determined to put an end to this hugely embarrassing conversation. Weren’t men supposed to roll over and go to sleep after sex?

But then, Rafiq de Courteveille wasn’t like other men. In that moment she realised that she was in even greater danger than she’d imagined.

The danger of falling in love, if she hadn’t already done so.

In words brittle with desperation, she said, ‘I’m sorry if it wasn’t—’

‘Hush.’ He stopped the tumbling words with his mouth, in a kiss that brought every emotion and thought to a crashing halt, vanquished by the turbulence of sensation and remembered rapture.

Rafiq lifted his dark head so that his words were spoken against her lips in the lightest of kisses. ‘It was—’ He paused, as though choosing what to say next, then went on, ‘Much more than I expected. I hope that for you it was good too.’

CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_819e5757-6cde-5722-8b1f-ad23347d7aa2)

LEXIE breathed, ‘It was wonderful. Couldn’t you tell?’

Rafiq’s smile was wry. ‘Some women fake orgasms very well, but yes, I could tell. I’m glad.’

And without saying anything more he got up and stooped for his clothes, giving her a last view of his powerful back and leg muscles shifting in smooth harmony, the light of the lamps casting golden highlights and coppery shadows over his lean, magnificent body.

He looked both alien and heartbreakingly familiar, a man of sophistication backed by raw power, his combination of bloodlines and cultures so different that the only thing they had in common was this passionate desire.

Lexie’s heart clamped into a hard knot in her chest. What now?

Without hurrying, he got into his trousers and slung the shirt over one broad shoulder. She couldn’t read his expression; he’d retreated behind the bronze mask of his face to a place where he seemed entirely unaware of her.

Chilled, she sat up and reached for her dress. Perhaps the movement broke his introspection; he came across and picked it up from the floor to put it beside her.

‘Not a good way to treat such a pretty thing,’ he said conversationally, his eyes hooded and enigmatic, and walked away to the table where the champagne flutes gleamed in the lamplight.

Hastily scrambling into her clothes, Lexie wondered dismally what on earth she was supposed to do now.

What followed was a tense ten minutes spent in sophisticated conversation with Rafiq—conversation Lexie could match only with taut, disconnected answers.

So she felt relief and disappointment in equal measure when he walked her back to the door of her bedroom.

There he paused, and said with a humourless twist of his lips, ‘This is not how I envisaged the end of the evening, but I think we both need a night of sleep before we talk.’

Eyes raking her face, he finished, ‘Before that, I should repeat that I enjoyed very much our evening together—all of it. I hope you did too.’

She flushed, wanting only to be taken in his arms again, to be reassured in the most basic of ways that he was telling her the truth.

But that wasn’t going to happen. ‘I’ve already told you I did,’ she said, her tone aloof and edged with more than a hint of defiance.

He laughed softly, and for a transparent second she thought he was going to put paid to the tumbling whirlwind of her thoughts and emotions with another sensuous kiss and the addictive security of his arms.

Then his face closed against her, and he stepped backwards with an inclination of his head. ‘Goodnight. Sleep well,’ he said formally.

‘Goodnight.’ She closed the door on him before the hot tears could reach her eyes.

As always he’d been considerate, but even though he’d liked making love to her he might still be regretting that it had happened. After all, there was a huge difference between an experienced woman of the world, who knew how to conduct an affair with style and grace, and a virgin with no skills or experience when it came to matters of sex.

He might even now be trying to find a way to tell her that it was over—a kind, considerate way, of course—she thought on a spurt of fresh anguish.

She woke the next morning with one decision fixed in her mind: she’d go back to the hotel.

‘No,’ Rafiq said unemotionally when she told him at breakfast on the terrace that overlooked the lowlands.

Lexie’s brows shot up. Pleased with the cool crispness of her tone, she stated, ‘I’m not asking your permission. I’m perfectly well, so the hotel no longer has any reason to object.’

He leaned back. A stray ray of sun struck across his face, and she glimpsed a corsair, dark and dangerous—a leader of men even more desperate then he was.

‘It is not possible,’ he said evenly. ‘Your accommodation has been given to another guest.’

Stunned, she closed her mouth with a snap. ‘Who made that decision?’

‘I told them to,’ he said with a controlled assurance that grated across her nerves. ‘The hotel opening was a huge success—bookings have come in from all over the world. It would have been foolish not to take advantage of that. Why do you want to leave the castle?’

‘Because there’s no longer a reason for me to be here.’ She stared at him, her eyes sending a challenge she didn’t care to voice. ‘My stay was only ever temporary. I’m fine, my ribs are fine—’ Colour burned her skin but she ploughed on, ‘As you know.’

When Rafiq got to his feet in one swift movement, she had to stop herself from flinching. He loomed, and although Lexie knew she had nothing to fear from him she had to resist her immediate impulse to leap up so that she faced him on slightly more equal terms.

He was deliberately being intimidating, she realised, her hand closing around the handle of a knife. Why?

Calmly, yet with an edge of authority to his voice as though reasoning with a rebellious teenager, he said, ‘There is no need for you to go. I understand your feelings, and I agree—this has happened so fast that we don’t know each other very well. But fleeing is not the way to deal with it.’ His eyes dropped to her death grip on the handle of the butter knife. ‘I refuse to believe that you are afraid of me.’

‘I’m not!’ She dropped the knife back onto her plate. The sharp little chink broke into the soft air like a small explosion.

No, she wasn’t afraid of him; she just wanted him so much that her last shreds of prudence dictated flight, before she made a total fool of herself by falling madly and hopelessly in love with him.

‘Perhaps you should be,’ he said, and the silence between them became suddenly charged with a menace that sent shock waves through her.

Disbelievingly, she stared at him as he leaned down and caught her wrist, urging her upwards. His mouth came down on hers; she resisted for a second, then sank into his warmth and strength, even as part of her mind fought this insidious entrapment.

The sensations—potent, arousing—were the same, yet she knew something was different. Behind his passion she sensed an icily restrained anger and a determination that made her extremely wary.

When he released her she commanded furiously, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’

He examined her with hooded eyes, flinty and cold. As she watched the anger faded, and he said something in a raw, harsh voice in the local language.

Lexie didn’t have to understand it to know that he was swearing.

Between his teeth he said in English, ‘I will not touch you again until you ask me to.’

‘I— All right,’ she snapped, hoping her uncertainty wasn’t humiliatingly obvious.