King's Ransom (Man on a Mission 2)

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“It’s a lie,” Juliana told herself as she stormed back to her own suite and locked the door behind her with a savage twist of the bolt, something she didn’t usually do. “A damned lie.” A lie she was shocked to discover Andre had told Dirk. Why are you shocked? she asked herself. A man who will do what he did to me has no honor. None. So lying about it shouldn’t be a shock. But it was. Andre had never lied to her—not in so many words. And he’d never lied to Mara as far as she could recall. In fact, she couldn’t think of a single instance when he’d lied. “Except by his actions,” she reminded herself with a cynical twist of her lips. “Except when he let you think he loved you the night he made love to you.”

No, he didn’t make love to you, she corrected herself. He had sex with you. That’s all. Lovemaking on your part, yes. But just sex for him. Fantastic sex, maybe, but sex all the same.

Still, she couldn’t deny Andre’s growing tension and possessiveness. The edge of command, of a hint of savagery, was clear beneath his royal restraint. And she was responding to it. To him. Since the moment she’d seen Andre at the reception, she’d wanted him—a visceral response she’d fought that night...and every moment since. Her body had recognized what it wanted, what it needed, even though her brain said no. What she feared most wasn’t that Andre wouldn’t take no for an answer—he would never force her—but that her traitorous body wouldn’t take no for an answer. And that he knew it.

Still thinking about ways and means to protect herself from herself, Juliana wandered into the bedroom, where the bed had already been turned down by the maid assigned to her from the palace staff. She made her way to the dresser and pulled out a nightshirt to get ready for bed. It was early, but it wouldn’t hurt her to have a quiet night. She shut the drawer, laid the nightshirt on top of the dresser and unbuckled her belt. She’d just unbuttoned the line of tiny buttons running from neck to waist when out of the corner of her eye she caught a movement in the old-fashioned cheval mirror standing in one corner. She turned toward the mirror, then swung sharply around. Andre stood there in the middle of her bedroom. Watching her. Just watching her as she undressed.

She was so startled to see him there that at first she couldn’t speak. Anger, outrage and fear—of her own weakness where he was concerned—surged through her in a riptide. Then she found her voice. “Get out!”

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t move, either. Just stood there, his gaze sliding from her face downward, lingering on her bared skin, and then back again. Juliana clutched at the bodice of her dress, holding the two edges together in sudden desperation. Only then did he move, walking toward her with an unhurried gait. She backed away, unable to tear her eyes away from the determination in his face, but she didn’t have far to go before she backed up against the wall.

She wanted to say, “Don’t touch me,” but she couldn’t get the words out because he was already touching her, caressing her cheek with fingertips like the brush of a butterfly’s wings. Not an overtly sexual move, but unbearably arousing all the same.

“Do not be afraid of me, Juliana,” he said. “You know I would never hurt you.”

“You are,” she whispered. “You did.”

“When?” he asked softly, his hand sliding down to cup her breast through her dress, and the nipple tightened of its own accord beneath that sure but gentle touch. His breath rasped in his throat. “When did I hurt you? When I took you that first time? But I made it beautiful for you first, yes?” He kissed her just behind her ear, then her neck. Then his lips moved tantalizing to the open bodice of her dress, kissing her between her breasts but making no attempt to go further. “You knew there would be pain the first time. But did I not promise never again? And did I not prove it to you that night, twice over?”

“Don’t.” It was just a thread of a sound, and it was directed more to her treacherous body than it was to him. Don’t respond to him, she was saying. Don’t let him make you want him. Don’t let him do this to you again. But his words, his touch were bringing all those memories vividly to life, and she shuddered as a wave of heat began in the core of her being and swept outward, bringing her body to life along with the memories.

His warm, caressing hand left her body, but he didn’t move away. “‘Don’t?’” he asked softly. “‘Don’t?’ That is not what you told me then,” he said, his deep, seductive voice telling her he knew what he was doing to her. His head moved until his lips were a tantalizing inch away from hers when he whispered, “‘Please.’ That is what you said to me that night. ‘Please.’ Do you remember, Juliana? I do. ‘Please, Andre.’”