Temporarily His Princess (Married by Royal Decree 1)

“Like what?” He met her fury with utmost serenity.

“Okay, I changed my mind, too. You’re not a bulldozer. You’re an ocean. You’d erode mountains. No, a tsunami. You uproot everything, subside only with everything submerged under your control.”

He chuckled. “As much as I enjoy having you dissect and detail my vices, food is becoming a pressing issue. I had the chef prepare favorite dishes from Castaldini for you to sample.”

Her hands itched to tweak that dimpled cheek, hard. “Don’t change the subject.”

Ignoring her, he undid his seat belt, then leaned into her, undoing hers. “You really shouldn’t risk me getting any hungrier—in every way.”

Her gaze slid to the evidence of one hunger and…whoa.

She tore her gaze up, only to slam into his watchful, knowing, enticing one. Gasping with the need to explore him, she said, “Even in food you’re giving me no choice.”

He separated from her lingeringly, pushing buttons in a panel by the couch. It was still only when he stood up that she realized they were cruising steadily.

“I am. My choice is to feast on you and to hell with food. I’m giving you the choice to avoid what you really want by choosing food, for now.”

She bit back a retort. It would be silly to deny his assessment, when only the pilot’s announcement had saved her from being wrapped around him naked right now, begging for—and taking—everything.

Exasperated with both of them, she ignored his inviting hand to rise and walk to where he indicated. Behind a screen of gorgeous lacelike woodwork at the far end of the lounge by the closed quarters was a stunning table-for-two setup.

Though everything in the compartment felt like authentic masterpieces, with the distinctive designs of seventeenth-or eighteenth-century Castaldini, the furniture was discreetly mounted on rails embedded in the fuselage. Exquisite, delicately carved, polished mahogany chairs were upholstered in burgundy glossy-on-matte floral-patterned silk. The matching round table was draped in the most intricate beige tape-lace tablecloth she’d ever seen, set over longer burgundy organza, with its pattern echoing the stunning hand-painted china laid out on top. Lit candles, crystal glasses, a vase with a conflagration of burgundy and cream roses, linen napkins, silver cutlery and a dozen other accents—all monogrammed with the royal insignia of Castaldini—completed the breathtaking arrangement.

She looked up at him as he slid the chair back for her. “I somehow can’t imagine King Ferruccio here.”

His eyebrows rose as he sat across her. “You mean you still think it’s my jet?”

It hadn’t occurred to her to doubt that or anything else he’d said. She’d believed his every word, declaration and promise.

Which was only more proof that fools never, ever learned.

She sighed. “It’s not that. The rest of the jet is so grand, befitting a king and then some. But this setting is too…”

“Intimate?” he chimed in when she made a stymied gesture around the dreamily lit space. “Your senses are on the money. This section was designed by Clarissa as her and Ferruccio’s mile-high love nest.”

Glory’s simmering heat shot up, imagining all the pleasure that could be had here, and feeling she was intruding on someone’s privacy. “You sure he’s okay with you invading it?”

“He scanned my fingerprint into the controls.”

“Let me put it this way, then. Are you sure he cleared it with Queen Clarissa?”

“What I’m sure of is if he didn’t, he’d love to be punished for his unsanctioned actions.”

Her lips twitched as she imagined the regal figure of King Ferruccio being spanked by his fair queen. “Another D’Agostino with a fetish for female abuse?”

“Ferruccio would let Clarissa step dance all over him and beg for more. But since she’s part angel, she doesn’t take advantage of his submissive affliction where she’s concerned.”

His expression softened as he talked about his queen and cousin. Though she’d been a princess first, the previous king’s daughter, not much had been known about Clarissa before she became the illegitimate king’s queen. Ever since their marriage, she’d become one of the most romantic royal figures in history. Glory had heard only great things about her.

It still twisted her gut to feel Vincenzo’s deep fondness for the woman, to witness evidence that he was capable of such tender affections. What he hadn’t felt for her. What she hadn’t aroused in him.

Oblivious to her sudden plunge in mood, he smiled. “And speaking of access…”

He pushed a button on a panel by the huge oval window to his side. The door of the lounge whispered open. In moments, half a dozen waiters dressed in burgundy-and-black uniforms, with the royal emblem embroidered on their chests in gold, walked in a choreographed queue into the dining compartment.

She smiled back at them as they began arranging their burdens on the table and on the service station a few feet away. Even though domes covered the trays, the aromas struck directly to her vacant-since-she-read-Vincenzo’s-email stomach, making it lament loudly.

His lips spread at the sound, his beauty supernatural in the candlelight. “Good to know you’ve worked up another appetite.” The word another came out like a caress to her most intimate flesh. He was playing her body like the virtuoso he was. “Bodes well for your being more interested in food than using me for target practice.”

“I see you failed to acquire harmless tableware. But you like living dangerously, don’t you?” She picked up a fork, gauging its weight and center of gravity as if to estimate a perfect throw. “I mean, silver? Isn’t that deadly to your kind?”

He sat back in his chair, spreading his great body, as if to let her to take aim wherever she pleased. “If I was the kind you refer to, wouldn’t I be ‘undying’ dangerously?”

And she realized something terrible.

She was…enjoying this. This duel of words and wills. She found it exhilarating.

It shocked her because she’d never experienced anything quite like it. Certainly never with him. She’d once loved him with all her heart, lusted after him until it hurt, but she’d never really enjoyed being with him. Enjoyment necessitated ease, humor, and those and so much more had been missing from his life. He’d been too tense, too intense, in work and in passion. She’d felt only towering yet turbulent emotions while he was around.