shrugged off the accident it had not even crossed his mind to consider that it might not be so easy for Sabrina.
Her dark eyes widened. ‘You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.’
He shrugged, an ironic half-smile quivering the corners of his mouth. ‘Only myself maybe. You must be aware that people are waiting for me to fail?’
She shifted uneasily, feeling an unexpected stab of sympathy for Sebastian as she remembered the comments earlier that day of his father’s aide.
Her fingers playing with the thin spaghetti strap of her silk slip drew his eyes to the smooth curve of her shoulder.
‘Well, you have worked pretty hard at establishing yourself as the Playboy Prince, haven’t you?’
He gave a hard grin, the gleam in his blue eyes and the flash of white teeth making her stomach flip. ‘That was not all hard work—some of it came naturally. Look, I am not going to pretend I am something I am not. I am not a romantic...which, considering our circumstances, might not in itself be a drawback. I was never looking for a soulmate—’
‘Or a wife.’
He blinked; she could see that her comment had caught him unawares. ‘True, but marriage is a contract and I understand contracts.’
But not love.
Sebastian didn’t believe in love and maybe that made it easier than believing in it as she did, and knowing that it was something she could never have.
Don’t think about the things you can’t have, Brina, she told herself. Focus on the things you can have, the things you can achieve...you can have children... Something she had always considered one of the greatest gifts a woman could be blessed with. Beyond that she had allowed herself to believe that she might be in a position one day to have influence on things she cared about: health care, women’s education... She might be able to leave a legacy even if she could not have love.
‘People aren’t always looking. Luis wasn’t looking and he found his soulmate.’
‘I am not Luis, Sabrina.’
‘No, you didn’t run, but you wanted to!’ she countered, knowing the accusation was unfair but unable to repress the great sense of frustration she felt.
‘I am not a romantic. I do not believe that I will be walking down a street and be struck by the emotional version of a lightning bolt when I find my soulmate. You regret that you have not had your time out there kissing frogs and waiting for one to turn into a prince. The fact is, the only Prince you will have is me...but I promise you, cara,’ he continued, his voice softening to a low, throaty, toe-curling purr as he took another step towards her, ‘those butterflies you spoke of do not require a soulmate. You can feel them. You will feel them.’
Heart racing, her blood pounding, she quivered but didn’t evade his hand as his fingers trailed down her cheek, the light touch sparking nerve endings to life before his hand fell away.
‘You sound very confident.’
‘There has been an attraction between us from the first moment we met. I really don’t want our married life to start with closed doors. How about we push those doors open?’
Their eyes locked, neither spoke; the touch of his hand on the bare skin of her shoulder made her jump. She moved to pull the strap of her slip up but his free hand caught her wrist.
Her heart was thudding a wild drumbeat in her chest as her glance moved from the fingers circling her wrist to his big hand, brown against her skin. She swallowed and looked back up into the burning blue of his eyes and she felt her resistance slipping away like sand through her fingers.
She managed a sensible smile, hard when he was close, so impossibly male. ‘Sebastian, this is not a good—’
His grin sizzled away her sensible thoughts.
‘To hell with good!’ he growled throatily, then, still holding her gaze, he let go of her hand and took hold of the hem of her slip, which he pulled over her head in one slick motion.
She didn’t move.
The sexual tension had reached screaming point in one slam of a heartbeat.
His hands followed the path of his eyes as they slid down her neck, over her shoulders then down to her quivering breasts. His fingers splaying to cup them, as his thumbs teased the hot, aching peaks.
Her eyes squeezed tight shut as she stood, head back, hands clenched into white-knuckled fists as she focused on the incredible sensations coursing through her body, opening only when he spread his hands under her ribcage around her waist.
He bent his head and covered her mouth, the kiss slow and sensual. She could see the sensuous glitter in his eyes through the screen of his long lashes. When he pulled back, desire, hot and fierce, roared inside her.
He rubbed his nose up against hers, blowing wisps of hair from her eyes before he moved in again. This time the kisses were not slow, they were hard and hungry.
Still kissing her on her lips, her neck, her eyes...everywhere, he picked her up and carried her over to the bed. Lying there, she watched as he stripped, holding her eyes as he fought his way out of his clothes, revealing a lean and muscled body, his golden skin dusted with strategic drifts of dusky hair.
And he was really, really aroused.
The image of primitive male beauty sent a fresh surge of breathless excitement through Sabrina’s body. One hand on the mattress beside her, he bent forward. Greedy, she looped her arms around his neck and dragged him down onto the bed beside her.
The first skin-to-skin contact drew a shocked cry of pleasure from her throat. His skin was like silk, his body hard, the lean strength of it different and intensely thrilling.
His hands moved in long sweeping movements down her sides, her quivering thighs, before moving to her bottom. He kneaded the tight flesh with his fingers, dragging her in hard against his body as she pushed up and into him, opening her mouth to the invasion of his tongue. Wanting to open herself to him so much at one level it scared her, but the fear was lost in the need; the deep, driving, relentless throb of need that had invaded every cell of her body.
‘Hell, Sabrina!’ he breathed against her mouth.
‘Hell, back,’ she teased, kissing the scar on his face, letting her tongue run down the length of it before framing his face between her small hands and saying fiercely, ‘I hated you hurting.’
He groaned. He was hurting now!
Was it always like this, or was this hot make-up sex? he wondered as he slid down her body. His thought processes stopped as he fitted his mouth hungrily to one perfect tight nipple and felt her moan and arch under him.
He tipped her over, sliding up her body until they were lying side by side. Her skin was hot to the touch and felt like silk...he couldn’t believe how soft.
‘Incredible,’ he murmured as he slid a hand down behind her knee and hooked her leg across his hip. She bent her head and pressed her face into his chest, kissing the hair-roughened skin.
He slid his fingers into her hair and dragged
