a prince of the realm and me wondering what else is in the princess manual fine print that I’m really not ready for.’
‘The security bothers you?’ he asked quietly.
‘A little. It points to a potential lack of privacy that could bother me a lot.’
‘I’ll do everything I can to ensure that the privacy versus protection balance works for you.’
‘For us,’ she corrected gently. ‘And thank you. I do however realise that it’s part of the royal family package and might not be something either of us have a lot of control over. But that’s really not the point I was trying to make.’
‘It’s not?’
‘No. I just got sidetracked by that one for a moment. I’m pretty sure I was trying to make a different point altogether. It was about our expectations of one another here in this bedroom.’
Clarity was a must.
Confidence was vital.
There could be no weakness in her approach to sharing Rafael’s bed. She wanted to. Very much. But he had to want it too. ‘I want to make love with you again, Rafael. I would like it to be an ongoing arrangement. The thing is, my feelings aren’t the only feelings that need to be considered. Yours do too so I’m asking you plainly.’ The last hairpin came out. She placed them on the dresser and shook out her hair. ‘What would you have from me here in this bedroom?’
‘What would you give?’ he asked huskily.
She gave his question the thought it deserved. ‘Anything.’
‘Anything?’ He made the word a caress, full of dark needs and wicked promise.
‘Anything you asked for.’ She knew this man. She knew his soul. Fierce but not cruel. Wild but not destructive. Intensely protective of those few things that he loved beyond measure. She wasn’t one of them, she knew that. But she did not doubt that whatever he demanded of her, he would keep her safe. ‘So ask.’
His eyes grew dark. She was trying to make this simple for him. Whatever he wanted, be it separate sides of the bed or an arrangement with a little more fire to it, all he had to do was ask. She didn’t think asking a man to state what he wanted was too torturous a question.
Then again, this was Rafael.
‘Come here,’ he murmured.
She went to him. Stood in front of him, not touching him, not yet. ‘What else would you have?’
His smile came slow and sure. He liked this game. Damned if he didn’t. ‘Put your hands on me,’ he said next.
‘Where?’
‘Anywhere.’
‘I want them on skin,’ she murmured.
He shed his shirt and stared at her in silent challenge, all washboard hard and hungry male as the balance of power shifted and shifted again.
Choices, choices.
She placed her hand on the plane of his stomach. He shuddered beneath her touch and his eyes grew heavy-lidded.
‘More,’ he murmured.
She put her other hand on his arm, just above his elbow, and slid it up to his shoulder. Plenty of hills and valleys worthy of exploration there. ‘What else would you have?’ she murmured.
‘More.’
‘Could you be a little more specific?’ She raked her nails lightly down his chest. Rafe’s breath left his body with a hiss.
‘Lose the clothes, Simone, forget the game, and stand naked before me.’
He asked a lot, this man, but she did it because he needed her to and because she would demand no less from him before this night was through. ‘What now?’ She shivered, just a little, in the cool night air. Her nipples tightened and she lifted her chin to show that she was not afraid, no matter what he asked of her.
He smiled at that, slow and wicked. ‘Cold?’
Not any more.
‘Come closer.’ Another order and one she obeyed. She was rewarded with a kiss, deep and drugging. ‘Tell me when to stop,’ he muttered. ‘The baby…’
‘The baby is fine,’ she whispered, and arched into his hands as he grazed the curve of her neck with his teeth. ‘And hell will freeze over before I ever tell you to stop.’
He needed this, thought Rafael. The protection Simone afforded him so effortlessly. The passion she offered so willingly. And the trust she placed in him. ‘It’s not a fair bargain,’ he murmured and he nipped at her shoulder blade and trailed his fingers down her spine. ‘This proposal of yours, I see nothing in it for you.’
‘That’s because you’re not looking through my eyes,’ she murmured, and slanted him a glance as she undid his belt and the button on his trousers. ‘I see plenty in this for me. Just…’ Simone found him and caressed him, a slow slide of her palm against straining hardness and heated skin. His heartbeat tripled. ‘Plenty.’
Rafael took her mouth again, an erotic tangle of lips and of tongues. The bed was here somewhere, he needed a bed, needed to be careful of this woman with his child in her womb. The need to protect warred with his need to possess. He could not predict which need would triumph.
He picked her up and carried her to the bed, laying her on her back before sinking down beside her. He ran his hand down her body, from shoulder to stomach and back to a tightly budded breast. Rafe bent his head and suckled hard. Simone gasped and bucked beneath his ministrations.
‘Sensitive?’ he whispered as her fingers came up to cradle his head.
‘You have no idea.’
‘More?’
‘Yes,’ she muttered and cried out her pleasure when he took to her other breast with a gentle scrape of teeth and tongue. Her hands were not gentle in his hair as she writhed beneath him. ‘God, yes.’
To protect or to possess? Which would it be? Simone parted her legs willingly, wantonly, as he trailed kisses down her ribcage and over her gently rounded stomach.
‘Would you like me to say your name?’ she offered raggedly.
Possession won.
ONE week slipped by and then another as Simone settled into the rhythms of Maracey, its politics and its people. During the day Rafael belonged to Maracey and to Etienne, or that was the way it seemed. He did what Etienne asked of him and attended all manner of meetings, emerging from them preoccupied and remote, with his defences so solidly in place there was no getting round them. Only at night when reckless, insatiable passion ruled them both did Rafael become truly hers, taking everything she offered, and giving everything a woman
