Protected by the Prince

A gasping scream rent the air as Tamsin fell into pleasure. Everything swam around her except dark blue eyes, fixed on hers in the maelstrom of exquisite delight. Then, with a hoarse shout, Alaric followed her and she drew him close with trembling arms and an overflowing heart.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A VIRGIN.

Alaric shook his head as if to dislodge the knowledge that weighted him. How had he convinced himself Tamsin was experienced?

He doused his head under the basin’s cold tap but that didn’t obliterate the voice of his conscience. He’d seduced a virgin. Deliberately set her up to fall into his bed.

He grimaced. He’d shown little consideration for her inexperience as he’d hammered her untried body.

It was no excuse that the feel of her virginal body tight around him had been the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Experienced as he was he had no defence against the pleasure she offered so unstintingly.

Would he have held back if he’d suspected the truth?

Nothing on earth would have held him back. He was as bad as that old roué Rudi, the ancestor who’d designed the place to keep his scandalous liaisons from prying eyes. Alaric’s shoulders tightened. No, he was worse. The women Rudi had bedded had reputedly been experienced. Even his father had kept that rule.

Hell! This was a new take on noblesse oblige.

Alaric raised his eyes to the bathroom mirror, expecting, as ever, to see his sins marked on his face. But as usual he was the same. Unblemished. Outwardly whole. As if the darkness within were a figment of his imagination.

What right had he, of all men, to take her innocence? She deserved a man who could give her more.

Familiar pain lanced his chest, a physical manifestation of his guilt. The ghosts stirred and he waited for the inevitable chill to engulf him.

Yet there was only the remembered heat of Tamsin’s sweet body. The warmth of her eyes, looking up as if he’d done something heroic rather than ravish her virginity. And around his heart was an unfamiliar glow.

Alaric shook his head again, splattering the mirror and his shoulders with icy droplets. This was no time for flights of fancy. He grabbed a towel and roughly dried his hair. With a final accusing glare at the mirror he left.

‘You were gone a long time.’

He stopped mid-stride. He’d thought Tamsin would be asleep. Or was that his conscience hoping she’d be too exhausted to confront him?

His skin tightened as he looked up to find her propped against pillows, her hair a sensuous tangle of silk on pale shoulders. A flush coloured her cheeks and her lips were plump and enticing after those bruising kisses.

Alaric’s belly went into freefall. His penis throbbed into life and he wished he’d thought to take his clothes with him into the bathroom.

Colour intensified in her cheeks as her gaze skated down. His arousal grew, as if eager for her attention.

‘You’re…ready again?’ Her voice faltered and he winced, imagining her nerves.

‘Don’t worry.’ He paced to the foot of the bed where his clothes lay scattered. ‘I’m not going to pounce on you.’

‘You’re not?’ He imagined a thread of disappointment in her tone and gritted his teeth. He looked for any excuse to have her again, even pretending she was eager for more.

‘Of course not. You’re a virgin and—’

‘Was.’ The flush intensified, spreading over her throat and down to where she clamped a snowy sheet against her breasts. Alaric’s gaze lingered on the way they rose and fell. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Sorry?’ He’d lost the thread of the conversation.

‘The fact that I was a virgin. What’s that got to do with not having sex again?’

He liked the way she said ‘having sex’ with a slight hesitancy. It reminded him of her innocently incendiary kisses and the initially faltering yet devastating way she’d taken him into her body.

He scooped up some clothing. Damn. It was her shirt. Where was his?

‘Didn’t you like it?’ Now she sounded frosty. Good. They could do with reducing the temperature around here.

He grabbed something else off the floor. Her trousers, still warm from her body. Another reminder of the speed of their coupling. He should be ashamed. It was sheer luck she’d climaxed. Once he’d buried himself fully he’d been incapable of holding back to ensure her pleasure.

‘Alaric? You didn’t like it?’

He gritted his teeth. Thinking about what they’d done spun him to the edge of control. ‘Men don’t perform when they’re not enjoying themselves.’

‘Then why not again?’

He didn’t meet her eyes. Coward that he was he turned to scan the room for his trousers.