Yet as Cathy’s fingers kneaded softly at his shoulders and she grazed her lips over his nipple he felt himself shudder and knew he could not wait. Her fresh eagerness was like nothing he’d ever felt before—like fasting for days in the fierce heat of the sun and then suddenly finding a long, cool drink of something indescribably sweet.
He reached for a condom and began to slide it on, aware that she was watching him. If there was one thing which had been drummed into him since he had first entered puberty—it was the precious nature of royal seed.
Cathy bit her lip. Should she tell him how gauche she really was—and that she was terrified of disappointing him? But who in their right mind would want to let reality intrude and threaten this delicate magic he had woven over her? And then he pulled her back in his arms and began kissing her again, and it was too late to say anything.
She felt herself shiver as his tongue slid inside her mouth and that irresistible heat began to creep over her body once more, dissolving all thoughts in its wake. It was as if something had taken hold of her. Some urge. Some desire. Some need to feel him closer than close. Something beyond her control, which was orchestrating her movements.
She felt him suddenly tense as he shifted his position, his fingers parting her legs, and Cathy trembled as his mouth continued its heavenly plunder. There was a split second where one final consideration struggled to make itself heard and her lips parted to tell him. But it coincided with a single thrust, the sharp sense of pain mingled with the sweet sensation of this beautiful man filling her. Her strangled cry. And then his.
What was he saying? Surely not, ‘no’? No?
Something had changed. There was movement, yes—but the mood in that bedroom seemed to have shifted inexplicably from joy to anger. Yes, anger. Bewilderedly, Cathy struggled to chase the incredible feeling which had been so tantalisingly close, moving her hips in time with his.
‘Keep still,’ he bit out.
But it was too late. She writhed beneath him with an abandon which was driving him wild, and that—combined with her hot tightness—meant that he was lost. Completely lost.
It was the most intense orgasm he had ever experienced and yet he hated her for every gasping second of it, withdrawing from her just as soon as his body recovered its strength from those powerful spasms. Staring down at her as a heavy kind of blackness enveloped him.
‘Why did you keep something like that to yourself?’ he accused, getting off the bed and grabbing his robe, before knotting it viciously at the waist.
All she was aware of was the condemnation which was spitting from his eyes as he towered over her like some dark avenging angel. ‘But…Your Highness,’ she said shakily—still not quite daring to use his Christian name—and her sense of shame and confusion grew, ‘what have I done?’
‘Done? You know damned well exactly what you’ve done!’ he bit out with quiet rage. ‘What kind of game are you playing?’
‘G-game?’
‘Didn’t you think it might be a good idea to tell me you were a virgin?’
Chapter Four
CATHY shrank back against the pillows, her heart sinking as she stared up at the darkened fury of the Prince’s features. ‘I’ve done something wrong?’ she questioned, her voice shaking with bewilderment.
‘Wrong? Oh, please don’t play the innocent with me!’ Xaviero snarled, until the irony of his words hit him. Because she was innocent, or, rather, she had been—until about five minutes ago. But now he realised that a woman could be innocent in the physical sense while having the most devious of motives. And there he had been—imagining that she was a sweet little thing who had desired him as a man more than she had desired him as a royal. As if!
How could he have been such a fool not to have seen through her? To have realised that he was being lured into the oldest trap of all. Because she had misled him, that was why. And so cleverly, too—those big aquamarine eyes clearly concealing a scheming brain, that voluptuous body luring him with its seductive promise. His fist clenched with impotent fury. ‘Did you lie about having a fiancé?’
‘No!’ she protested. ‘I did have one!’
‘Then how can you still be a virgin if you were engaged to be married?’ he flared. ‘I know that nobody waits until their wedding day any more—well, certainly not in the world which you inhabit!’
Cathy saw the contempt which had twisted his sensual lips, and flinched at how little he obviously thought of her. Oh, what a fool she had been. What a stupid little fool. Her greatest gift and she had given it to a man who had thrown it back in her face as if it had been a dirty rag. Her virginity treated with the contempt with which he might have viewed the bargain-basket at the supermarket. Except that she doubted this man had ever been near a supermarket in his life.