experience was not vast. Unlike Prince Reginald, he didn’t bed every woman with a pleasing face who crossed his path. He most valued not just skill, but intelligence, something to stir him beyond the physical. Amelia stirred him that way. She made love to his mind as well as his body. He ceased to be the teacher very quickly, and found himself awed and delighted to be on equal footing with her.
He discovered that Her Royal Highness, Princess Amelia, could easily make him absolutely insane. All it took was a look in her eyes, a smile on her lips, a touch of her hand along his skin.
They made love several times. More times than he had believed he was capable of. Until now.
Until her.
Russell had no idea how much time had passed. An hour, two. A week. Lost in thoughts and feelings, he had no way of reckoning. He only knew that he had never, ever felt so summarily drained and contented at the same time.
Amelia was lying beside him, curled up in the hollow of his arm, and he could not remember ever feeling as happy as he did at this moment. His heart swelled as he looked at her. Russell laughed softly to himself, his breath ruffling her hair. “I think I might never walk again.”
Half asleep, she was amusing herself by playing with the hair on his arm, lightly stroking it and pretending with all her might that tomorrow did not have to come. That she never had to leave this bed, never had to know another man intimately. Only him.
“Is that a good thing?” she murmured.
“That all depends.”
She half turned her face up to his, curious. “On what?”
“On whether or not the bed is on fire.” He wanted to go on holding her like this, wanted somehow to make her his forever. But that was even more impossible than his sprouting wings would be.
He felt her smile against his arm as it widened. Amelia—how could he think of her as the princess after what they had just shared?—raised her head again, her eyes dancing as she looked at him. “And is it?”
“It was.” He pulled her to him, settled her against his chest and felt her heart beat against his. As if they were meant to be one. If only …
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Princess, but you are a natural.”
She moved until she was resting her hands on his chest. Laying her head on top of them, she cocked it slightly as she studied his face. He felt the tickle of her hair as it draped along his naked skin.
“Do you think that you could find it in your heart, for the space of what is left of this night and in light of the fact that you have seen me as naked as the moment I was born, to call me just Amelia?”
He loved her. The thought came to him, riding on a thunderbolt. He loved her. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
But right now, he could play along and pretend that they were just two people who’d found each other. “I could, ‘just Amelia.’”
She sighed, her eyes closing again. “Good.”
Raising his head, he pressed a kiss against her forehead.
It made her feel warm and wanting all over again, even though Amelia doubted she could move. Like him, she was utterly and entirely spent—and thrilled. If there was guilt because she was promised to another, because she had wantonly thrown herself at Russell, it made no appearance tonight. Because tonight didn’t belong to her realm, and certainly not to the man she’d been pledged to from the moment she’d drawn her first breath.
Tonight was hers.
And Russell’s.
“I wish …” Her wistful voice trailed off.
Russell looked at her, curious. “You wish what?”
She opened her eyes again for a moment. The smile that found her mouth was soft, gentle, sad. “Just ‘I wish,’” she murmured.
“Yes, me, too,” Russell whispered softly, understanding what couldn’t be spoken out loud, what couldn’t be. She wished that she were someone else and that they didn’t both have duties standing in the way.
He raised himself on his elbow. “I’d better go,” he began.
But she tightened her arms around him. “Not yet,” she whispered. “Hold me. Just for a little while longer. Just hold me.”
It wasn’t in his heart to say no to her. Besides, it was unheard of for a duke to refuse a princess. Especially when he didn’t want to.
So he remained where he was, holding her in his arms, saying nothing, thinking everything, until the first flicker of dawn creased the darkened sky and she fell asleep.
Then, very carefully, Russell slipped his arm from beneath her head. He held his breath as he slowly left her bed, one tiny inch at a time so as not to wake her. He watched her face the entire time for a sign that he had roused her.
Watched it, too, because he knew he would never be able to see it this way again, relaxed in soft repose, the scent of their lovemaking still on her skin as well as on his.
Russell felt a pang of longing and sorrow in his heart. Damn Reginald, anyway. Why couldn’t the fool have come to get her himself? This would have never happened if Reginald hadn’t allowed his appetites to dictate his behavior.
The pot calling the kettle black? a voice inside Russell’s head mocked.
He was clearly no saint, but there was a difference between him and Reginald, he silently insisted. He sincerely doubted that the prince loved any of the women he bedded. Given a test, the Playboy Prince would probably be unable to recall the names of more than half of them. Lust was his god.
But lust hadn’t been what had led Russell to give in to Amelia when she’d pressed her body so invitingly against his, he thought. He had never been one to be led around by his appetites, even as a teenager with hormones the size of boulders. Longing was what had prompted him to do what he had. To give in. Because from the first moment he’d arrived to escort her back to Silvershire, there had been something, a pull, an electrical charge, something that had seduced him, had whispered her name in his head and made him want her.
If they had both been free to do so, if obligations didn’t bind them, Russell knew he would have proposed to her last night. Because when he had made love with Amelia, every fiber in his being had cried that it was right.
Even if it was so wrong.
Once out of her bed, Russell hastily threw on his clothing and then tiptoed to the door. He eased it open like someone waiting for a telltale squeak to give him away. None came. But he wasn’t home free yet.
He needed to make his retreat without encountering anyone in the hallways until he was well clear of the princess’s suite.
Russell looked furtively first in one direction, then another, before satisfying himself that no one was there to witness first-hand his leaving the princess’s rooms.
Because the palace had had a modern overhaul only two years ago, there were surveillance cameras in almost every corner
