you got a bed somewhere, Anny Chamion?” he murmured against her lips.
She smiled as her tongue lingered against his lips for a second longer before she took his hand in hers. “Right this way.”
In all her years as a princess Anny had never identified with Cinderella.
That made sense, of course, because Cindy hadn’t been a princess in the beginning. She’d become one by taking a risk—daring to do what she wasn’t supposed to do—not for a happy ending, but for the joy of one single beautiful night.
And that Anny could identify with completely.
She, too, wanted a single beautiful night. A night that she could remember forever—a night that would get her through, not the endless drudgery of Cinderella’s pre-prince future or even the endless succession of royal duties and obligations that were hers, but a passionless, loveless marriage.
Oh, she supposed there was a tiny chance that Gerard might come to love her the way he had loved Ofelia. But the instant Anny allowed its theoretical possibility, she knew that in truth it was never going to happen.
If Gerard had been going to fall in love with her, he would have done so before now. He’d had years, literally, to do it. As had she. It wasn’t going to happen.
But Gerard had at least known love. Anny hadn’t.
And she wanted to. Once. Just once. She wasn’t asking for forever. Only for tonight—with Demetrios Savas.
Making love with him wouldn’t be the deep abiding love that Gerard had shared with Ofelia. Anny knew that. Besides good conversation and dinner, she and Demetrios had shared nothing at all.
But she had memories of him that their meeting today brought back to life. Ever since he’d swept her out of the hotel this afternoon, she’d felt the same sort of heady enchantment she had known from the years when everything had seemed possible.
When he’d asked what on earth she was thinking, she had told him the truth. She wanted to recapture the young woman she’d been—just for this night—and give her a taste of the joy she’d longed for. And the young Demetrios she hadn’t really known, but had only dreamed of, had been part of that young woman’s life.
All she could think was that today, when he’d walked into the Ritz, kissed her and swept her out again, it was as if God or serendipity or fate or—who knew what?—had dropped him into her life for a reason.
This reason, she thought as she lay back on her bed and took hold of his hands and drew him down beside her.
That Anny wasn’t a practiced lover was pretty much the understatement of the year. Her spine usually stiffened whenever Gerard slipped an arm around her or pressed a kiss to her cheek or lips. But now, when Demetrios kissed her, she felt as if she had no bones at all.
His lips were warm and firm and eager. And so were hers.
His had followed his fingers, kissing her shoulders, as he’d peeled off her jacket on the way to the bedroom. Now those same fingers slid beneath her silk top and his lips followed again, right up to the edge of her lacy bra.
He drew her top up and over her head with the skill of a man who knew exactly how to undress a woman. And for a brief moment Anny thought about all the beautiful women he must have known intimately—women far more practiced and appealing than she was.
And yet he didn’t seem distracted by those memories. He was focused only on her. He made Anny feel as if she were the only woman in the world.
Demetrios’s eyes, so green in the light, were dark now in the shadows. The skin seemed taut across his cheekbones. And Anny thought she felt a faint tremor in his fingers as they skimmed across her ribs, then pulled her up against him while he deftly unfastened her bra and drew it off.
He knelt on the bed beside her and pressed kisses along the line of her bare shoulders, then moved lower to her breasts, cupping them in his hands, and kissing them. The feel of his mouth on her heated flesh was more erotic than anything Anny had ever experienced. She clutched at his arms, hung on.
His hair tickled her nose as he nuzzled her. It smelled of the sea and of pine, and Anny drew a deep breath, as if she could capture the scent and save it forever. The memory would be more tangible that way.
And then he was kissing his way down the valley between her breasts all the way to her waistband. Only when his fingers sought the fastening, she caught her breath, then shook her head.
He pulled back, his brow furrowed, his hair tousled. “No?”
Anny wanted to smooth his brow. “Yes,” she assured him. “But…I don’t want to be the only one undressed.” She gave him a hopeful look, at the same time wondering if she was stepping out of bounds. She knew all the royal protocol in the world, and not a bit about whether she should be asking to take an active role in undressing the man she was in bed with. Maybe she should have been busy with his buttons already.
Demetrios’s mouth quirked briefly and she wondered if he would tell her so, but he didn’t. He just smiled and settled back on his heels, then dropped his hands to rest on his thighs. “Be my guest.”
Anny swallowed. Then she levered herself up to sit against the headboard of the bed. She felt awkward as she reached out to touch him, but her hands didn’t. They knew precisely what to do, taking hold of the buttons of his shirt, undoing them one by one, exposing his bare chest to her gaze.
And as she parted his shirt, the tips of her fingers brushed against the wiry curling hair that arrowed down from his chest to the waistband of his jeans.
Demetrios’s jaw tightened as he watched her every move, breathing shallowly, his eyes hooded, his body totally still, as if he were steeling himself to endure some sort of pain.
“Are you all right?” she asked him worriedly.
He gave a hoarse laugh. “Oh, yeah. More than all right.” Then abruptly he shrugged his shirt off, tossed it aside, took her hands and pressed them against his chest.
His skin was hot and damp and she could feel his heart thundering beneath her palm. Instinctively Anny leaned forward and touched her lips to his chest. Kissed him there, loved the feel of his heated flesh beneath her lips. She moved higher, kissed his collarbone, then his shoulders. She kissed his neck, nuzzled against his stubbled jawline, nibbled his ear, then traced it with her tongue and felt him shudder.
His response made her smile with a heady sense of power and excitement as she understood that he wanted her every bit as much as she wanted him.
And then he was bearing her back on the bed, where he made quick work of the zip on her linen trousers, hooked his thumbs in the waistband, skimmed them down her legs and dropped them onto the floor.
She should have felt self-conscious when he settled back to let his eyes roam over her. But all she felt was desire. And need.
Anny reached for his belt eagerly, but her hands weren’t expert now and she fumbled with it.
Demetrios stilled her fingers. “Let me.” He had it undone and was skinning out of his jeans in a matter of seconds. And then he was settling between her knees, running his hands up her thighs. Anny stroked his, too.
Demetrios
