How could she have forgotten that?
“Lyssa?”
His voice was husky. He was still lying on top of her, his weight bearing her down into the softness of the bed. She wanted to hit him with her fists. Wanted to wrap her arms around him and tell him—tell him—
“Amada, are you all right?”
She swallowed dryly. He lifted his head, his hazel eyes questioning. What did he think she would say? That what had just happened changed everything? That she would do whatever he wanted? Go home, accept that nothing she could do would save her mother’s land?
The truth was, she had no idea what he wanted her to do…
Except bend to his will.
In the short time she’d known the Spanish prince, she had lost everything to him. Her home. Her future and now, her virginity. The only thing she had left was her pride, and she would never let him take that.
“Would you get off me, please? You’re heavy.”
He blinked. Apparently he was accustomed to a different kind of pillow talk. She was probably supposed to be telling him how wonderful he was, how exciting…
He was. He was all that and more.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize…” He rolled off her. Her body was damp; the air felt cold on her flesh. The robe lay crushed beneath her and she grabbed the edges of it and pulled them together.
Lucas leaned over her.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t realize…” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t think you were—”
“Really?” She sat up, her back to him. “But that was part of the deal, wasn’t it? Aloysius’s assurance to Felix that I was a virgin?”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Amada. I’m sorry you’re upset. I didn’t…I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
His voice was low. Husky with remorse. Somehow, that made it worse.
“Didn’t you?”
The clasp of his fingers tightened. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Alyssa shrugged off his hand, stood up and knotted the sash of the robe at her waist.
“I’ve been around horses all my life.”
The bed creaked. She heard the pad of Lucas’s feet and then he was standing in front of her, his eyes narrowed.
“And?”
There was warning in the single word but she didn’t care. The only warning that mattered was one that would have kept her from surrendering to him half an hour ago.
“And,” she said, wishing she were wearing more than this thin robe, wishing he weren’t so flagrantly, magnificently naked, “and I know all those theories about the best ways to make a mare submit to a stallion.”
Silence filled the room. Then Lucas reached for his sweatpants and stepped into them. His voice, when he spoke, was frigid.
“You think I seduced you to force you into some kind of obedience?”
An image of him kneeling between her thighs flashed through her mind, along with the memory of how it had felt to have him deep inside her.