both knew how she reacted to his kiss.
They might have made love in the elevator if his guard hadn’t been with them, standing discreetly at the front of the car with his back to them so Henri could steal a first kiss, then a second, longer, more passionate one.
Inside the suite, they’d barely made it to the bed.
How had she been so aroused? Until that moment, he’d barely touched her.
But even as she lay here next to him, thinking about the way he’d hurriedly skimmed away her knickers and covered himself with a shaking hand, she was growing wet and achy. She had been pure butter beneath him, locking her legs around his waist and lifting into his heavy thrusts.
She should go home. She didn’t want to do the walk of shame in the morning, not when she already knew the paparazzi were on to them.
But she found herself slithering closer, sliding her legs against his and giving in to the temptation to taste his skin. He smelled sharp and masculine against his neck. His stubble abraded her nose and lips, but in a sexy way that turned her on because it accented how different they were. Female and male, meant to come together like pieces of a puzzle.
“Encore?” he murmured, moving against her, hardening at her first touch.
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Not a damned thing, chérie. Ah, this,” he growled with satisfaction as he trailed his hand between her legs and found her juicy and plump. “I’m addicted. I have to taste you again.” He slid down, pressing her legs open.
She moaned at the sheer indulgence of being pleasured by him like this. He made her feel like she was giving him something when she allowed this, which maybe she was because he pretty much took ownership of her. This act lowered her defenses completely so she was without inhibition, ready to beg when he drew back before she’d climaxed.
“I need to be inside you, chérie. I can’t wait.” He rolled her over and brought her onto her hands and knees.
He covered her like a male animal dominating his mate, filling her with a possessive thrust, so deliciously hard where she was soft and needy. One wide hand slid over her breasts, teased her nipples, rubbed her stomach, then fondled where they were joined as he moved in lusty thrusts.
She received him with cries of encouragement and abandon, so caught up in the raw excitement of it, she didn’t care who might hear or what he thought of her behavior. When she climaxed, the paroxysm locked a scream in her throat while he shuddered over and around her, his noises guttural and final. She was his. Neither of them could deny it.
That was in the dark.
When she woke in the light of day, and recalled all they’d done, she wanted to die.
Why, oh, why couldn’t she resist him?
Henri had been tempted to join Cinnia in the shower when he woke and heard her starting the water, but he forced himself to put a small distance between them while he contemplated a decision that had been rooting a little deeper into his mind with each hour of lovemaking that had ticked by.
He had never had a mistress, had never wanted anything long-term at all. Not since…
The wrenching memory struck like a kick in the stomach, ambushing him as that dark day sometimes did.
Do you love me?
She had been a pretty thing with caramel eyes and a mouth he’d been trying to kiss for weeks. They were cornered in a stairwell and he was flushed with more attraction than he’d ever felt. Suddenly there was Trella, telling him it was time to go.
Go, then, he told her. Little sisters are such a pain, he had told the object of his affection, as Trella ran off to be stolen by Gili’s—their affectionate name for Angelique—math tutor. I do, he had assured the caramel eyes as they were given privacy again. At least, he supposed it was love. He grew excited seeing this girl in the distance. He wanted to hold her hand, touch her all the time. He could hardly take his eyes off her when she was anywhere near him.
And then their friend Sadiq had shouted his name, telling him, “Trella’s been taken.”
He had seen that girl again, after Trella was home and he and Ramon returned to school. She’d tried to talk to him, but he’d avoided her.
After that, if girls and women came on to him, if they wanted to give up their bodies for mutual physical pleasure, fine. But he was never going to make the mistake of letting a female mean something to him. It put him off his game, exposed a flank.
It could cost the life of someone near and dear.
Romantic love, he had determined, was a weakness he couldn’t afford.
Taking a mistress, however, was a slightly less dangerous risk.
He presumed, wondering if he was rationalizing.
Dressing in his pants and shrugging on his open shirt, he moved into the lounge, where he called in an order for breakfast, put in a request for the boutiques to send a selection for them and picked up the paper left outside his door.
“Bon matin,” he said to Pierre, who had relieved Guy overnight. “Anything I should know about?”
“All the coverage seems run-of-the-mill, but fresh posts are still coming out. We’re keeping an eye out.”
Henri nodded, thoughtful, as he closed the door.
He’d never taken a mistress for the same reason he refused to marry and have children: the threat of kidnapping. Women who were only briefly linked to his name were not likely to be targeted or used against him. Precautions would have to be extended to Cinnia if he went through with this.
He scanned the headlines, then picked up his phone to see a text from Ramon. A question mark. Obviously he’d seen the headlines and wondered why Henri was seeing that woman from the nightclub again.
Henri ignored it and returned a text from Angelique with a video call.
“Problème?” he asked, continuing in French. “That was a cryptic message. Why are you worried about something you said to Trella about Sadiq? Are they having a romance I don’t know about?”
“What? No! Of course not. No, I think he’s falling for someone back in Zhamair. Do you know if that’s true?”
“He didn’t say anything when I spoke to him last.” Sadiq might be the best friend he and his brother had, but they did not discuss their love lives. They talked about important things like stock prices and politics.
“Why does that affect Trella?” he prompted.
“I don’t know.” She frowned in her introspective way and he knew to give her a moment to gather her thoughts. Angelique was a quieter personality, more like him, preferring solitude, while Trella and Ramon were the extroverts. Everything Trella did was full bore, including a nervous breakdown. She had been making him mad with worry since her birth, when she had turned blue in his arms the first time he held her.
