away. “So you say.”
“I’m no good to any woman,” he insisted. “Least of all a woman like you. Rose…” Reaching out, he took her hands in his larger ones. “You deserve the fairy tale. And we both know I am no white knight.”
She pulled her hands away.
“Honestly, you don’t need to explain.” Her voice cracked. “I’m fine. In a few days, you can trade me and I’ll go back home to California and find a man I can truly love. Someone who’s honorable, kind and strong. A man I can love for the rest of my life.”
Silence fell.
“And if he never comes?” Xerxes said quietly.
The thought caused pain in her throat. “Then I’ll be alone,” she whispered. “Until the day that I die.”
“That won’t happen.” He pulled her back into his arms. She tried to resist, but he was inexorable. He held her against his naked chest for long moments, as they watched the sky outside grow bluer and brighter. “You will have a happy life. You’ll see. You will. You must.”
Still cradled against his chest, she looked back at him. Their eyes locked as, with agonizing slowness, he lowered his mouth to hers.
“You deserve everything good in this world,” he whispered against her skin. She felt his hands stroking her, felt his fingers twisting in her tangled hair before he kissed her. After the intense passion of the previous night, he was gentle now, tender against her bruised lips. His kiss was so poignant and sweet that tears burned her eyes. She felt choked with emotion.
Why did her heart ache like this? Was it just the overflow of too much passion, too much joy in his arms? Or was it the pain of knowing it would not last?
His kiss deepened. Rolling back on the mattress, he lifted her over him, stroking her naked back, making her shiver in the cool dawn. Looking down at him beneath her on the bed, Rose thought she’d never seen a man at once so beautiful and brutal. His jaw was rough and unshaven, his short black hair mussed from all their hours of lovemaking. His body was tanned and muscular, from his broad shoulders to his taut belly to his thighs thick as tree trunks.
Xerxes was like no man she’d ever met. If he wasn’t a white knight, then he was the dark prince of midnight dreams.
He left her breathless. His strength. His power. Most of all, the dark heat in his eyes as he looked up at her.
His hands lifted up her hips. As if she weighed nothing at all, he lowered her with exquisite slowness, impaling her, causing them both to gasp as he filled her inch by inch. Rose tossed back her head, exposing her neck as her eyes rolled back with the pleasure. He guided her, allowing her to establish her own rhythm, teaching her to ride him. Tension coiled inside her deep and fast, and when she finally exploded, she screamed. He plunged inside her with a final deep thrust, shouting her name with a bestial growl that somehow sounded like a prayer. When she collapsed over his body, utterly spent, it took ten minutes before she stopped shaking.
Afterward, as they slept in each other’s arms, Rose opened her eyes to stare blankly at the brilliant sunlight on the ocean.
She could no longer deny her feelings.
Xerxes had seen her at her worst. And he’d accepted her, just as she was. Perhaps because he accepted himself. He knew he wasn’t perfect, so she didn’t need to be, either. They could both have faults, but still be…friends.
Friends?
Friendship did not describe the longing of her heart.
But what she felt could only bring pain. Even if Xerxes cared about her, he would still trade her for Laetitia. In a heartbeat.
“My feelings for Laetitia are more familial in nature,” he’d said. Could she be his cousin? His niece? The daughter of an old friend? Who? Rose wished she knew.
But one thing she did know for sure: Xerxes Novros always kept his promises. And in spite of his best warnings, when she’d given him her body, she’d also given him her heart.
Outside, the sunshine was brilliant and bright, and the morning birds sang sweetly in the blue sky. And Rose silently wept in his arms as he slept.
She was in love with Xerxes. And she knew there was only one way it could end. With her own broken heart.
Xerxes was awakened from a very pleasant dream by a persistent buzzing and rattling sound against the hard tile floor. Blearily, he opened his eyes and saw his cell phone vibrating in his shorts pocket next to the bed. He glanced at Rose, hoping it hadn’t woken her. It hadn’t. A smile traced his lips at how peacefully she slept, his kittenish beauty.
Careful not to jostle her—they’d gotten so little sleep, it would be cruel to wake her for anything but sex—he climbed out of bed and carried the phone outside the bedroom, closing the door softly behind him. “Novros.”
“This time we’ve found her, boss,” his chief bodyguard said tersely. “Montez is sure.”
Ten minutes later, Xerxes was shaved, showered and dressed. He returned to the bedroom filled with nervous energy. His hand reached out to shake Rose’s shoulder and awaken her, then he paused, looking down at her.
He could still hardly believe she’d been a virgin before yesterday. And that she’d deliberately chosen him, of all men on earth, to be her first lover. He shivered, remembering all the times they’d made love in the last twenty-four hours. He should have been satiated, but looking at her now, he very nearly forgot his mission and climbed back into bed.
Then he stopped himself. No. He had a lead on Laetitia and couldn’t blow it. He had to focus. If he could find Laetitia, he could save her.
And then he could keep Rose for himself.
If he could really be that selfish to keep her, knowing she would be better off with a better man, instead of with a ruthless, heartless bastard like him.
Xerxes looked down at her, and his whole body hardened. Yes, he thought grimly. He could be that selfish. At this moment, he would kill any man who tried to take her away from him.
Reaching out, he lightly shook Rose’s shoulder. “Wake up,” he said in a low voice. “We need to go.”
“Go?” She yawned, stretching her body across the bed, from her hands to her toes. “Go where?”
The sheet had fallen from her body, leaving her upper body bare. His back broke out in a hot sweat at the sight of those lusciously full breasts, the pink tips that he’d suckled just hours before, cupping them in his hands as he…Xerxes shuddered.
Forcefully, he made himself look away from her, before he forgot such minor details like promises and honor and jumped into bed with her for another twenty-four hours. Clenching his hands into fists, he forced himself not to touch her, to have some self-control. “Mexico.”
“Mexico?” She sounded bewildered. “Why? Do you have business there?”
He cleared his throat, unwilling to explain. “In a manner of speaking. Get dressed. My assistant is already packing your bikinis. And the rest of your wardrobe.”
“What wardrobe?”
