But he was too protected. And this was nothing new for him. He was a self-confessed playboy who practiced no decency or restraint; he had told her himself. He was shielded by that. By his experience. By his perfectly tailored suit that kept him separate from her.
Without thinking, she reached out, tearing at his tie, loosening the knot. His mouth was still fused to hers, his tongue sliding in deep, tasting her, tormenting her. She couldn’t separate out her feelings anymore. Couldn’t work out what was arousal, what was rage. It had all grown into a ball of intensity in her chest that was threatening to burst from her if she didn’t do something. If she didn’t find a release for it.
She was being driven by something else entirely now. There were no thoughts. There was no strategy. She gripped the sides of his shirt, tugging it open, buttons popping off and scattering onto the floor. She put her hand on his chest, gratified when he pulled away, air hissing through his teeth. Yes, she was getting to him. She had affected him. She had broken through the wall. They were in a fight. A fight for control. And beneath that, a fight for something else entirely.
Rough hair covered hot skin, the sensation beneath her fingertips foreign, enticing. Beneath that, he was hard. She looked down, admiring the definition of his muscles. He was a man. So very different from her. She had spent a great deal of her life around men, but she had never experienced a man on this level. Had never truly appreciated what it meant that men were different from women. She appreciated it now.
He released his hold on her, cupping her chin, holding her face steady, keeping his eyes on hers as he reached between them, his hand on his belt buckle. He started to work the fine leather through the silver clasp, before undoing the button on his pants. All the while watching her face. She knew he was checking to see if she was frightened. To see if she wanted him to stop. She didn’t know if she did. She had a vague idea of what they were headed toward. Of what was coming next. Nothing about it frightened her. Nothing about it made her want to say no.
He let go of her chin, putting both hands on her hips, slowly gathering her skirt, drawing it upward, exposing her legs. He moved one hand between her thighs, his touch a sharp, unexpected shock. His fingertips slipped slowly beneath the edge of her underwear, a feeling of white-hot pleasure streaking through her as he rubbed the bundle of nerves there. She was slick, and he used it to great effect, creating a ripple of pleasure that threatened to overtake her.
This wasn’t a struggle anymore. This was a surrender.
She couldn’t even regret that. Couldn’t even spare a moment to be angry.
He kept his eyes on hers as he touched her, as he stole her breath and pushed her closer toward heights she hadn’t known existed. He was touching her. He saw her. In that moment, they weren’t warring. They were connected.
She didn’t feel afraid that she was so close to another person. That she felt as if she needed him. As if he mattered.
He tugged her panties to the side, pressing his pelvis against hers, the heat of his bare arousal shocking, exhilarating.
He flexed his hips, the blunt head of him pushing up against the slick entrance to her body. She wondered, just for a moment if she should fear this. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She wanted him closer. Wanted to capture this one moment of fighting on the same side as him. Of pursuing the same goal. Of being connected to another person in a way she had never been.
This moment of not being alone.
He thrust upward, a sharp, shocking pain lancing her as he did. A shocked cry escaped her lips, swallowed up by his harsh groan. He buried his face in her neck, withdrew slightly from her body before pushing in deep again. She gasped, biting her lower lip, squeezing her eyes shut tight, trying to keep tears from falling as the tearing sensation receded.
He wrapped one arm around her waist, holding her steady as he began to move inside her. The pain faded into the background, replaced by a strange feeling of being claimed, invaded. Filled. But with that was a sense of security, of being a part of another person in the way she never had been before.
He filled her, and as he did, he filled that void in her chest that had been there since she was a girl, taken from the only home she’d ever known. Alone in the world.
She wasn’t alone now.
He found his rhythm, and as he did, she found hers. Not fighting against him, but moving with him. Not the same as he did, but to complement. Their differences fit here. Her softness working with his hardness. Her body yielding as his advanced. And she learned quickly that surrendering here gave her power that she’d never imagined she possessed.
He kissed her, rocking hard against her body. She barely had time to grab hold of his shoulders before she was sent straight over the edge into oblivion. Left spent, shaking and dependent on him to keep her from sliding onto the floor.
Wave after wave of sensation she was unprepared for. She had no defenses against it, because she’d never seen it coming.
She’d had no idea it would be like this. None at all.
As he growled out his own release, his body pinning hers harder to the wall, she wrapped her arm around his head, holding him steady, her fingers laced through his hair. He stayed there for a moment, breathing hard before wrenching himself away from her. Leaving her cold, empty.
And no less connected to him.
That should have eased, shouldn’t it? Now that he wasn’t inside her, shouldn’t she feel the change?
She looked up into his eyes, dark, blank. And she knew that for him it was over. She knew that no part of her lingered inside him, as he did her.
And then, as if to prove her suspicion, he turned on his heel and walked away, leaving her standing there against the wall shivering and changed.
ANDRES CALLED HIMSELF ten kinds of fool on his way back to his chamber. He couldn’t go back into the luncheon, not after that. Anyway, Zara had destroyed his shirt.
He had left her there, similarly destroyed. Altered.
But he didn’t fix things, he only broke them further, so there had been no point in him staying. He hadn’t been able to.
He hated isolation. Hated it. But it was the only way he could regain control after something like that. A fact driven into him from childhood.
It was why his mother had always locked him in his room after an outburst. Why he was condemned to staying in the palace when the royal family went out.
Now he was doing the same to himself. Because he had to do something, anything, to calm the raging monster inside him that had claimed control of his actions.
An image flashed through his mind, her hands wrapped around the fabric, tugging hard, sending the buttons onto the marble floor. The look in her eyes, dark, determined. As with all things she had been uncivilized, untutored, and wholly authentic. For a man who had no idea what his own personal authenticity might look like, it was alarming.
But that wasn’t what disturbed him now. Wasn’t what caused rage to roar through his veins like a ravening beast.
He had lost control.
Civilizing
