Penelope and Prince Charming (Nvengaria #1)(9)

“My brains are addled,” she said softly.

“Will you do this for me, Penelope?”

Damien’s voice was compelling, his body hard against hers. This man was nothing like Magnus. Damien was clean and strong, desiring her, not simply wanting to paw her in a dark corner.

Penelope swallowed. “What do you wish me to do?”

“Let me see you. Let me have that one little thing. Please.”

Damien’s smiles had deserted him. His face was drawn, as though he were in pain. He asked this of Penelope because he needed to. She wasn’t certain how she knew that, but she saw it with newfound clarity.

Damien slid his palm over Penelope’s breast, driving more heat through her. “Please.”

Tears stung Penelope’s eyes, desire warring with everything she’d been brought up to believe correct and proper. A lady did not let a gentleman touch her, kiss her, look upon her unclothed, not until they were married, and then she was no longer allowed to deny him. She’d thought she would never want what wasn’t proper, and confusion roiled through her mind.

Damien brushed the moisture from her eyelashes with his gloved finger, the leather cool and smooth. “Do not cry, love.”

Penelope’s decision should be easy. She should either be frightened of Damien or she should shove him away, declare him not a gentleman, and stride back to the road in a huff. But it felt right to stand against him, to let him softly touch her face.

Penelope daringly reached up and rested her fingers on his cheek. Damien turned his head and pressed a kiss into her palm.

The world had stopped. It had frozen into this moment when Penelope looked at Damien and thought that maybe, just maybe, fairy tales were real.

“Why did I meet you today?” he asked. “If I had waited a little longer in the tavern, we would not have passed. This is …” Damien stroked his thumb over her temple, his brows lowering. “Madness,” he finished.

Madness, yes. It had to be. Penelope was mad, as was Damien. Maybe the horse, who’d moved away to crop grass, was mad too.

“Have you stopped time?” she asked him.

A smile tugged the corners of Damien’s mouth. “Do you wish me to?”

Penelope slid her hands to his shoulders. His body hummed with strength. “I do,” she whispered.

“I will for you, if you want.”

Damien kissed her lips again, then her throat, then bent farther and tugged open the top hook of her bodice with his teeth.

Penelope tried to protest, to say his name, but nothing came from her mouth. Her throat was parched and she could not draw a breath. White fire filled the depths of her, and she had to hang on to Damien to stay upright.

She fought the urge to pull open her bodice as he asked her to, wanting to sink to the ground with him while he covered her breast with his mouth. He’d suckle her, and she’d rise to his touch.

She’d never, ever had such wicked thoughts in her life.

She’d never known what fun they could be. Penelope smiled, and Damien caught the smile on his lips.

Let this moment go on forever, Penelope thought. No regrets, no remorse. Just this feeling of hot happiness in the middle of Holden’s Meadow, in the arms of a man called Damien.

She belonged in his arms. Had always and would always. “I believe I like madness,” she said.

“Good.” Damien pulled her close to kiss her again.

And then Penelope was falling with him, down, down into the grass, where her vision would come true. He’d open her gown and let his kisses fall on her bare flesh. She would not mind, no, not a bit. She’d thread her fingers under Damien’s dark hair, and let him have anything he wanted …

“Your Highness!” The cry echoed from one end of the meadow to the other.

Damien froze, the moment shattering like spun sugar breaking on the kitchen’s flagstone floor. “Damn,” he said without moving. “Damn it all.”

Time started again. The horse lifted his head, turning curiously toward a small dark-haired man who loped toward them from the trees.

Damien lifted Penelope to her feet and abruptly released her. Penelope drew a long breath, her lungs burning, as though she’d not had air in several minutes.

“Um,” she ventured. “Did he just say Your Highness?”



* * *



Damien took a step away from Penelope, one of the hardest steps he’d ever taken in his life. The real world came hurtling at him in the form of Sasha, who sprinted toward them, holding his sash of the prince’s advisor out of the tall grass.

Damien’s mission, the prophecy, Grand Duke Alexander’s determination to take over Nvengaria—everything he’d wanted to forget for a moment in this young woman’s arms, slammed into him with staggering force.

Let her go, his common sense told him. She is only one woman.

Damien’s heart told him differently. Penelope was delectable and sweet, and he’d never tasted anything like her. Her hair was like summer wheat, strands of brown and gold rippling around one another. Her eyes were jade, light and translucent, with flecks of gold swimming in them. The top hook of her bodice was undone, showing an enticing curve of bosom, drawing his gaze and making him want to touch that smooth, beautiful skin.

But he could not have her, and Damien knew it. A dalliance, perhaps, but no more. He’d come here to find a woman called Lady Trask, to explain that she’d have to leave England and travel with him to Nvengaria to save his kingdom.