A Royal Wedding(60)

When had that happened? When had his opinion of her become more important to her than her own?

And why didn’t that realization horrify her as she knew it ought to do?

“You look as if you have seen a ghost,” Adel said softly, his lips so close to her ear that she shivered, feeling that low murmur in every part of her.

“Sometimes you make me feel as if I am one,” she said, before she knew she meant to speak.

His head reared back slightly, and his eyes narrowed, but the song ended—and their ever-present aides interrupted them, prepared to usher the King to one table and the Queen to another.

“Duty calls,” he murmured, holding on to her hand for a beat, then another, after the music had ended. Calling attention to the fact he had not let her go. “But we will return to this topic, Princess.”

She had no doubt that they would.

And what did it say about her that anticipation was like honey in her veins, warming her, sweetening her, turning her into fire and need?

He stepped into her dressing room, and startled her as she reached to take down her hair, letting the heavy curls fall from the elaborate twist at the back of her head. She froze, meeting his gray gaze in the great mirror she stood before, its heavy gold and jeweled accents seeming to fade next to the raw power of the man who filled the doorway behind her.

Her heart began to speed up in her chest. Adel did not speak. He only held her gaze with his as he moved toward her, prowling across the thick carpet, all of that restrained power and force seeming to hum from his very skin. She did not look away, even when he came to a stop behind her, and traced a pattern along the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck. She did not look away when he bent his head and used his mouth instead of his hand, kissing and tasting a molten path from the tender place below her ear to the bared skin of her shoulder.

“You do not taste like a ghost,” he said, a raw sort of urgency in his voice. She did not understand the darkness in his eyes then, but her body responded to it, as it always did.

“Neither do you,” she said, turning her head and pressing her lips to his hard jaw.

“You do not feel like a ghost,” he continued. She turned in his arms and pressed her breasts against his chest, then tested the shape of his arms beneath her hands.

His mouth claimed hers, insistent and demanding, and she gave herself over to this wicked sorcery, this dark delight, that only he could call forth in her. She slid the suit jacket from his wide shoulders, then busied herself with the buttons of his stiff dress shirt.

He growled with impatience, and shifted forward, lifting her up by her bottom and settling her back against the small table behind her—paying no heed to the small bottles and tubes he knocked out of his way. He reached down and pulled up the hem of her long gown, baring her to his sight. He let out something that sounded like a cross between a sigh and a groan, and then he reached down to hold her softness in his hand, feeling her molten heat, making her moan and move against him.

He made short work of the scrap of lace that concealed her femininity, and then, with a few quick jerks at the fly of his own trousers, he was thrusting into her. Lara shuddered as he entered her, shattering around him, and coming back to find him watching her, those gray eyes intense. As if he could see deep into her, as if he knew the things she was afraid to face herself.

“Please.” she murmured, not knowing what she asked for, but he began to move.

He pulled her legs up, hooking them over his hips, as he thrust inside of her again and again. She felt the fire catch and then burn anew, bright and hot. He leaned down and took her mouth, possessing her, claiming her, making her nothing more than these sensations, these feelings. She burned for him, and he knew it, and she could not even bring herself to mind.

She could only fall apart once more, and hear his hoarse cry as he followed right behind her.

When she woke in the morning, wrapped around him in the great bed, she felt the seduction of this impossible fairy-tale pull at her yet again. She need only let go, and how hard could that be, she asked herself? Why did she fight it?

The slight chill in the morning air, blowing in through the open windows, reminded her that it was coming up hard on September already. She still felt as if it was June—or ought to be. She let her eyes drift closed again, inhaling Adel’s intoxicating male scent, feeling his strength and heat beneath her. Where did the time go?

A thought occurred to her then, washing over her like a cold sweat. Her eyes snapped open. She counted back— tried to remember. But no, it was true. She had not had her monthly courses since she’d been in Denver. And she had not even thought about it.