Sev ruffled the lad’s hair. “Off with you.”
Still astonished over all that had just transpired, Grier watched in bemusement as the boy scampered away on his twig-thin legs.
“Come.” Sev grasped her elbow, his touch light but nonetheless searing. She felt the imprint of each finger through the fabric of her gown.
She spared a glance over her shoulder for the earl as Sev led her away. He still lay sprawled on the ground, a hand pressed to his bleeding nose, staring after them in total bewilderment.
“Why’d you do that?” she whispered as they strode from the stables.
“No one should treat another person like that. I don’t care who they are, servant or king. No one is so privileged they can simply beat another person when the whim seizes them.”
She slid her gaze up at him, studying his fixed, resolute expression. Something loosened inside her chest and a very real panic stole over her as she realized he was nothing she had thought him to be. She liked him in that moment. Even admired him.
Once inside the house, she pulled her arm free of him, the desperate need to escape him stronger than ever as a sudden terrible realization seized her.
Her face flashed hot and cold.
She just might be drawn to the prince for more than his delicious good looks and mesmerizing voice. She might in fact be—
The pulse at her neck hammered. “I-I have to go. My sister . . . is waiting.”
He released her and crossed his arms over his broad chest, watching her in that probing, intent way of his.
She backed away, wringing her hands anxiously as her slippered feet slid over the slick marbled foyer.
“We made . . . plans,” she continued lamely.
Still, he said nothing, simply continued to stare at her with his gold, devouring eyes—seeming to see right through her, past her fabrication to the truth.
With a muttered parting, she lifted her skirts and whirled around. Her slippers pounded up the steps, but she refused to look back at him again.
Chapter Seventeen
Sev watched Grier hurry up the stairs in a flurry of skirts and knew she was fleeing him. His brow furrowed as he watched her depart.
Something had changed.
She had stared at him with almost fear in her eyes. Before there had always been mockery, even scorn when she gazed at him. At least when he wasn’t kissing her and her eyes weren’t clouded with desire.
But he’d seen none of those things just now.
He’d read only finely-honed panic in the liquid dark of her eyes—as if she had just come face-to-face with a deadly predator that might unleash itself on her any moment. She studied him as though he was that something dangerous to her.
And perhaps he was.
He knew only one thing for certain: he would not be leaving England until they settled this thing between them. Until he had Grier Hadley in his bed.
Only then, he rationalized, would he be able to exorcise her from where she had taken up residence inside him—in his very blood. Only then could he follow through and do what he came here to do.
“Ah, cousin. There you are! Been looking all over for you!”
Sev faced Malcolm, pasting a mild smile on his face that reflected none of his inner turmoil. “Have you?”
“Seems the party is coming to an end. The duchess is eager to get back to Town and start spreading the word of Lady Libbie’s sudden departure.”
Sev rolled his eyes. “Of course. That would be of the most import.”
Malcolm chuckled at his sarcasm, then sobered with the sudden realization that Sev had just lost his primary target for a bride. “Oh dear. This does put us back to the beginning of our bride hunt, does it not?”
Sev had realized this instantly, from the moment the earl questioned him early this morning. For some reason the realization did not trouble him. Not as it should have.
He’d wasted a week pursuing the earl’s daughter. Another reason he needed to satisfy this itch with Miss Hadley. Maybe then he could move on—forget Grier and remember what it was he came to England to do.
“Appears everyone is departing tomorrow.”
His cousin’s words sent a bolt of panic through him. “That soon?” he asked, his voice sharper than he intended.
Tomorrow they would all depart.
Tomorrow he would not have Grier beneath his roof and in such ready access anymore.
“Sev?” Malcolm’s reddish eyebrows furrowed. “Something amiss?”
“No.” He shook his head. “ ’Tis our last night in this fine country air. I shall miss it when we return to Town,” he lied.
He slapped the smaller man on the back as resolve swelled through him. “Let’s make our last evening count.”
Every moment of it.
Grier dragged the brush through her hair until her scalp stung from each crackling pull. Most of the dowager’s houseguests had retired early, just after dinner. With a long day of travel ahead of them—several long days, to be precise—they all needed their rest.
Sliding beneath the counterpane, she pulled the heavy covers up to her chin, settling herself deep in the center of the four-poster bed. With a sigh, she turned and punched the pillow beneath her head. She didn’t want to leave the dowager’s estate, and she knew it had nothing to do with her aversion to Town life.
It had everything to do with him.
Her stomach knotted with the realization that she would never be in such close proximity with the prince again. No more sparring words. No more heated glances.
No more stolen kisses.
She sucked in a breath and told herself this was a good thing. Especially considering the relatively new realization that she liked him. Indeed, she was still grappling with that fact. He was more than a handsome face. His aloof veneer was just that. A shield, and behind it breathed a just and magnanimous man with a wicked sense of humor and even more wicked kisses.
Grier stared blindly into the dark, straight and rigid as a slat of wood, her fingers laced tightly over her stomach as her mind mulled through all this.
She hadn’t seen him all day. He’d been absent during dinner, a fact that both relieved and disappointed her.
Lowering her hand, she brushed the swell of her stomach. The linen of her nightgown felt soft against her palm. She thought of them together in his bedchamber, in the stables . . . the sinful way their mouths had devoured each other. What would it be like to succumb? To lie with him?
Misery filled her to consider she would never see him again after tomorrow. She would go about hunting for a husband and he would go about searching for his bride. An ache of longing filled her chest that she could not suppress—could not deny.
I’ll miss him.
The thought entered her head before she could block it out, and then a question swiftly followed that was equally inappropriate.
Why could he not choose to marry me?
A warmth suffused her at the very idea, at the nights they would have, the leisure they could take to devote to each other. Frowning, she quickly tried to suppress the warmth with a cold dose of reality. He was a prince. Nothing would change that. Typically she was no one who should even cross paths with him. She would not permit herself to fall in love with him. She would not lose such power over herself.
The curtains shifted at her balcony, fluttering with a whisper in the wind. The barest creak sounded as the door swung inward.
She bolted straight up in bed with a gasp, her eyes searching the gloom, widening as a large shape materialized. Her heart hammered wildly. She knew instantly.
He had come.
That he had been so bold as to vault the several balconies to reach her room made her almost giddy.
“Sev?” Her voice fell in a whispery hush on the air as her eyes strained for a better glimpse of his face.
Silence. She shoved back the covers and swung her feet over the side of the bed. Her bare feet dropped down silently. She moved toward the robe she’d draped over her footboard, her gaze straining through the gloom, searching for his shape.
A hard hand shot out and gripped her wrist. “Leave it off. One less item we’ll have to remove.”
A secret thrill shivered over her skin at his decadent words. There was no mistaking his meaning or what he’d come here to do.
Grier opened her mouth to deliver a ringing set-down, to say what she should say, but the words never made it past her lips. His mouth crushed hers and her protest died in her throat.
And really, she was done running. She tangled her hands in his hair, pulling his head closer, deepening their kiss and parrying her tongue with his. He backed her up until she collided with the bed.
He broke the kiss. Her chest rose and fell with each savage breath that shuddered free of her lungs. His eyes glittered at her in the dark, twin spots of gleaming light.
“What are you doing here?” A senseless question, she knew as he gathered her nightgown against her hips.
“I think it’s clear what I’m doing.” In a single, swift move, he pulled the nightgown over her head. Night air rushed over her and she shivered. “Finishing what we’ve begun,” he breathed against her temple, stirring the fine hairs there. Her heart leapt in her too-tight chest.
She managed a strangled sound, a gurgled affirmation. With every fiber of her being she wanted this. Needed this. It would be all she had of him, of passion.
She would seize it and not regret a moment.
His large hand cupped her bottom and lifted her high against him, snuggling her against his prodding erection. That hand rounded the curve of her bottom, sliding lower, fingers teasing, probing her entrance and ripping a gasp from her throat at the intimate touch.
Then she was falling. His body came down over hers, surrounding her, pinning her to the bed. Instinctively her legs parted wide, allowing him to settle deeper against her. There was no fear. Only desire. Their mouths fused together, a hot, wet melding of lips and tongues, of nips and long, deep drinks from their mouths.
The dam broke at last and she let herself go, reveled in his mouth, his tasting tongue, his hands on her body. Even without marriage, without his love, she could have him, have this.
An incredible sense of freedom, of power, seized her, and her hands flew to his trousers. Following her instincts and the deep pull of desire in her pounding blood, she closed her hand around his hard length.
His groan emboldened her. She sighed at the silken feel of him. A shudder ran through him and vibrated within her as she stroked him—slowly, hesitantly at first, then in long, firm strokes that made him breathe harder. Her own breathing increased, grew into ragged pants.
She rubbed her thumb over the tip of him, delighted at his low groan, at the bead of moisture that rose up to kiss her thumb and coat the head of him.
“What are you doing to me?” He tangled a hand in her hair and dragged her mouth to his for a searing kiss. Meanwhile her hand worked over him, feeling, fondling, caressing, and exploring that part of him which fascinated her and fed her hunger.
Releasing him, she shoved his chest with the flat of her palms. He fell back on the bed. She hovered over him for a moment, wishing she could see the magnificence of his body in the dark chamber. Memory would have to serve.
Hands fumbling in her excitement, she removed his shirt, glad he’d already discarded the rest of his garments.
She traced the ridges of muscles along his stomach, the outline of each rib. Dipping her head, she tasted him, licking her way down his hard chest and tracing the thin line of hair along his navel.
She stopped, perched uncertainly over him.
The rasp of his breath filled the air, encouraging her. “Take me in your mouth.”
Clasping him in one hand, she placed a kiss at the tip of him.
“Grier,” he croaked in a voice she had never thought to hear from him. Vulnerable. Lost. Totally at her mercy. It thrilled her. Aroused and prompted her as nothing else ever could. Slowly, as if he were the most delectable piece of fruit she had ever sampled, she licked him fully.
His body jerked almost as if in pain.
She released him and turned her face toward him. He sat perched on his elbows, his face tilted toward her in the gloom. “Did I hurt you?”
In response, he clamped down on her arms with his warm hands. Before she could draw a breath she was on her back and he was over her.
The sensation of their naked bodies, all smooth, bare skin sliding sinuously together, left her breathless. Air choked within her throat at the slide of his chest against her breasts. His dark head dipped, his mouth a hot drag down her arching neck.
As his large hand surrounded her breast, her head flew off the pillow, a gurgled cry exploding from her lips. She was undone, utterly ruined for him. As she writhed and panted beneath him, her body afire, her hands clutched the slick flesh of his straining biceps.
Soft pleas spilled from her mouth. For him to make it end . . . to never stop.
At the first touch of his mouth to her breast, she bucked beneath him, overcome. She went utterly still, shocked at the sensations rippling through her as he took her nipple deep into his mouth.
Hunger pulled deep in her belly. She threaded her fingers in his hair, squirming beneath him with building frustration, needing, wanting, craving, desperate for something more.
His warm hand trailed between them, delving between her legs, sliding expertly between her quivering thighs.
“I’ve dreamed of this, Grier. Dreamed of you,” he murmured against her breast, his thumb stroking and pressing at a secret hidden spot she never knew existed before. She lurched against him, shuddering in his arms.
He moved his face up to hers. “I can wait no more.”
She nodded, speechless, too overcome as spasms racked her body.
And then he was driving into her, so deep, so fully.
She gasped at the intense pressure. It should have hurt; it probably did. He was large and pulsing inside her, but he filled that gnawing, clenching ache in such a way that she didn’t care. She felt whole, complete at last.
His mouth slammed over hers as he plunged in and out of her body, mating with her body so fiercely, so thoroughly, she doubted she would ever be the same again.
He took what he needed, pounding into her ruthlessly and she didn’t care because she wanted it, too. Needed it.
Needed him.
Her hips rose to meet him and she cried out as he drove harder into her, gripping her hips with digging fingers as if she were a lifeline, the only thing that kept him grounded to earth.
Her heart swelled even as she reminded herself that this wasn’t love. Only lust.
Her body splintered from the inside out. He swallowed her ecstatic cry as he drove deep inside her a final time and stilled. She dug her nails deep into his smooth shoulders. His arms quivered, braced on either side of her.
A sad smile curved her mouth. She would always have this.
Long after they each wed someone else. Long after he sailed for home. This memory, this night, would hold her through the years.
It would be enough. She would make it so.
This was more than lust.
Sev knew it the instant he felt her shudder beneath him, felt her tremble and arch sinuously under him in the throes of her climax.
His own climax followed fast and fierce. He reveled in the sensation of his seed spilling inside her. Even as he knew it was insanity, that he should pull free from her body and spill himself upon the linens. Nothing could tear him from her delectable body, risk or no risk.
Just as he realized this, he accepted the fact that she was not something he could have just once.
For the first time in ye
ars, he wanted something for himself. He wanted Grier.
Chapter Eighteen
“What’s it like? Maldania?” Grier asked much later. Sated as a cat on a sunny day, she curled up on Sev’s warm body. Her fingers stroked softly against the smooth expanse of his chest. “Do you miss it?”
“Yes.”
She smiled, enjoyed the way his voice rumbled up through his chest and vibrated against her cheek where it rested. “I miss Wales,” she announced, her voice whisper-soft. “It’s so green there it almost hurts your eyes. And the wind is different. The air smells fresh and new.” She released a breathy laugh. “If that makes any sense.”
“It does. Maldania is like that. Green hills and mountains. Forests so deep you can walk through them and believe you’re the last person on earth.”
“I know that feeling.”
His hand brushed through her hair, pulling back when catching in the snarls, and then starting again.
“My brother taught me to fish and hunt in those forests.”
“Tell me about your brother.”
His chest lifted on an inhalation beneath her. “He was to be king. Not me. I was simply the spare. I should have been the one killed. No one would have missed me.”
Her heart clenched at his words. She would have missed him. And the notion terrified her. She could have gone through life never knowing Sev. Never knowing this. Never having him. It was torment to consider. “I don’t believe that. It’s not true. You would have been missed—”
“You’re sweet.” He kissed her forehead. “But my brother was essential. I was not. He was born to the position, brought up always knowing who and what he was. I only became necessary after his death.”
“He was killed during the war?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure everyone is just happy and relieved that they have you.”
“Oh yes.” His chest tightened beneath her cheek. “To be sure. That’s what they tell me—every chance they get.”
“They?”
“My grandfather, the consul, people I come across in the streets. They’re all so relieved. So very relieved that they have their crown prince.”