on the soft duvet, and peeled her shirt over her head, revealing snow-white breasts barely covered by a thin web of a lace that was trying to pass for a bra.
His hand shook as he traced the line of the bra with his fingertip. Had a woman ever made him shake before? He did not think so.
For a moment, he feared it would it be over too quickly. A fear he had never experienced in his life. But three years without sex was a long time. And now that he was breaking his fast, it was with the object of his fantasies.
She worked at removing his clothes, while she divested him of his. When his skin finally met hers, he exhaled a breath. One he thought he might have been holding since she walked out of his life.
It was like everything fit. Finally.
He lavished attention on her strawberry tipped breasts, her sighs of pleasure and the feel of her arching against him almost more than he could handle. He gritted his teeth and tried to call on all of his focus. Focus, single-mindedness, he was renowned for those things. Trained up to be a leader, a man with the power to rule a nation.
And yet, with her, he found he did not have the control of a king. He barely had the control of a teenage boy faced with a naked woman for the first time.
She parted her thighs and he settled between them. He paused for a moment and looked down at her face. Her eyes were on him, open, as he had commanded. She put her hands on his face and stroked him lightly. A shudder moved through him, and he realized that he was not the one in control.
Not in the least.
“Please,” she whispered against his lips.
He pressed against the entrance of her body, easing in slowly. Her face tensed, a small sound of pain, deep in her throat, stopping him short.
She shook her head. “It’s okay.” She slid her hands down to his buttocks and urged him on.
Being inside her, fully inside her, was more than he had fantasized about. It went beyond any experience, real or imagined.
She moved against him, meeting his thrusts, pressing kisses to his neck, pushing him higher, faster. But he needed to ensure that she found her pleasure. He had to. Somehow that directive pierced through the fog of his arousal.
He wrapped his fingers around her thigh and draped his over hers, opening her to him. Then he placed his other hand at her breast, teasing her nipple, drawing it tighter. A short sound of pleasure escaped her lips and he continued on, teasing her, tormenting her. Teasing and tormenting himself.
Then she froze beneath him, arching into him, her internal muscles tightening around him as she embraced her orgasm.
He released his control, his blood roaring in his ears as he ran toward the wave that had been ebbing toward him from the moment he set eyes on Angelina in the ballroom. It overwhelmed him, swallowing him, his mind blank as he emptied himself into her body, his limbs shaking, his heart raging.
Afterward he lay with her. Replete. More so than he had ever been in his life.
And then he did something he had never done with a lover. He pulled her into his arms and fell asleep.
When he woke up, it was light outside. And the bed was cold. He rolled over and put his hand where Angelina should have been. Empty.
He sat up and looked around the room. His clothes were on the floor. Folded. And Angelina’s clothes were gone. Everything of hers was gone.
He pulled his pants on quickly and buckled his belt, shrugging his shirt on, buttoning it as he walked down the corridors of the palace.
Some people might have felt embarrassed doing the walk of shame through a palace. But he didn’t do embarrassment. He didn’t do uncertainty, either.
And last night had left him very certain of the fact that Angelina belonged with him.
He stopped a member of the household staff who was walking quickly through the corridor. “Do you know where Angelina Carpenter is?”
The woman gave him a hard look. “Princess Carlotta’s nanny?”
He supposed he deserved the look. As he was across the palace from where he was meant to be staying, half dressed, his hair likely standing on end. The sheikh looking for the nanny.
He did not care. “Yes.”
“I believe she left this morning. Princess Carlotta wanted her son to go back to Italy as soon as possible and Angelina naturally accompanied him.”
“Grazi,” he said through his teeth.
The woman nodded and turned away. Taj’s stomach tightened. Angelina had left. She had left him. She was gone. Again.
He knew where to find her now, of course. He could go after her. He wanted to.
Taj tightened his hand into a fist, gritting his teeth, ignoring the stabbing pain in his chest. He would not be made a fool of. Not again.
He’d had her. He’d had her virginity. And now he would go on. He would not go after her.
He ignored the sour feeling in his stomach and walked down the corridor, making his way out of the grand palace without pausing to greet anyone.
He vowed he would not think of her. Not again. Too much of his life had been wasted on Angelina Carpenter.
No more.
She felt awful. More awful than usual. And she’d pretty much felt awful for the past two months, since she’d left Taj lying in her bed and packed her bags as quietly as possible. So feeling worse really was something.
At least she knew why now. Those two pink lines didn’t lie.
Misery washed through her. She’d made a mistake. A big one. And now there was nothing left to do but try to call Taj and tell him. It was her responsibility. Did sheikhs have listed phone numbers? She wasn’t certain.
She put her head in her hands for a moment, then straightened from her near-fetal position on the bed and took her phone from her nightstand. Dissolving into a puddle wasn’t happening.
The past two months hadn’t been great. She’d missed Taj. Missed him desperately. But the facts hadn’t changed. He didn’t love her. And she was perilously close to loving him again.
She’d tried to throw herself into taking care of Luca. Getting him adjusted to his new life in Santa Christobel with Carlotta and her fiancé, Rodriguez. That had helped. When they’d arrived, she’d been called on a lot while the new royal couple had been learning to deal with one another.
And Rodriguez had been scared to death of Luca at first.
But things were changing now. They needed her less and less.
And now she’d found out that she had a child who needed her even more than her little charge. Her own child. And Taj needed to
