The Illegitimate King (Castaldini Crown 3)

After ten minutes, she called out to him. He didn’t answer.

Confusion was starting to turn into panic that he’d fallen, hit his head and couldn’t hear her, when she noticed what was in front of her all the time. A huge box, exquisitely wrapped in violets, with a matching envelope on top.

She pounced on it, taking longer than her nerves could stand, preserving the wrapping. Then she snatched open the lid.

Inside was a folded lavender paper. He had everything in her favorite colors.

She unfolded it. His handwriting. She felt as if he was whispering the words in her ear.

“I’m resurrecting the Castaldinian ancient custom of prima notte di nozze nascondino. But this wedding night hide-and-seek has a twist to it. Instead of the groom pursuing the bride, you, leonessa, champion runner bride of mine, will pursue me. I’ve done my share of the running for six years, after all.”

“Did you think I was going to let you off the hook?”

She could almost hear his teasing, feel his hands and lips trailing a path of sensual torment all over her secrets and hungers, before he stepped away, left her gasping for more.

“But since I’m not a merciless, shameless siren, I’ll give you clues, so you can catch me.”

“My first clue is: Where did I first claim you?”

She was zooming up the stairs to his bedroom, when she faltered. He’d really claimed her with that first kiss.

She could be wrong, but what was the worst thing that could happen? She’d return to his bedroom to find her clue.

But she believed she was right.

She took off her high-heeled sandals, hooked them in one hand, gathered the layers of her skirt in the other and ran out, following the same route he’d taken her on that first night.

She again reveled in the feel of sand below her naked soles, wished he was there running with her.

She arrived at the spot of their waveside dinner, found the circle of brass poles blazing. In its middle, instead of their table, she found a huge mother-of-pearl sea snail shell.

She snapped it up, found her next clue.

“How did you know where I was the night I made you mine?”

The answer came to her at once this time. She’d headed west.

She headed west now.

The more distant she was from the mansion and the fire and the darker it got, the more the gibbous moon blazed to illuminate the night. Then she saw it in the distance. A path of flame-lit lanterns. She gathered her skirt higher and ran.

The trail ended at stone steps winding around the foot of the mountain she’d seen from the mansion. She’d run that far? Good thing she was in shape.

She scaled the wide steps, knowing now why he’d said no parachutes. Wearing one of those inflated skirts, she could have launched off the mountain with the strong gusts of breeze. There was also no way she could have climbed them in a permanent train.

Then she reached the top of the winding steps and finally saw her destination. An observatory-like building.

The huge edifice stood framed against the rising moon, making her feel as if she’d stumbled into a scene from a Gothic romance.

Which wasn’t far from the truth. She was rushing to her tormented, tormenting, irresistible, all-powerful lover.

She ran to the door, found it ajar. She entered, adrenaline rushing through her blood. She’d never felt so excited. So alive. One more unprecedented experience he’d given her.

And it was only beginning.

She put her sandals on again and followed the light.

With every step she felt she was wading deeper into another waking dream, as she reached the beginning of a path cleared between the candles he had crowding every surface imaginable.

Then the candles ended abruptly, and she found her next clue on top of a big brass lantern in the middle of the next dark hall.

“Now, follow what is your name.”

Her name. Clarissa meant bright or brilliant. But there was only darkness from here on. What else emitted light?

The moon. But how did she follow it inside here?

It came to her. She had to find windows. As long as she saw the moon from them, she was on the right track.

She found the windows, followed the moon. That led her to another chamber filled with candles, almost surrounded by open, floor-to-ceiling windows letting in the night breeze that kept the hundreds of tiny flames flickering. A huge bed spread in dark satin that she was sure was violet was at the far end by the western windows. By the eastern ones, there was a dinner set up like the one they’d had by the sea.

He walked in from the verandah. Her Roman god come to life.

“I knew you were brilliant, in every way.”

His voice cascaded over her, intertwining with the composite music of the night. The sea’s rushing and receding tempo, the wind’s whistling sighs, tranquility’s still song.

He prowled toward her slowly, so slowly across the expansive space, giving her a hormone-roaring show of contained power and inbred poise in his king’s regalia. She couldn’t bear it, started to run to him. He raised a hand, stopped. She stopped, too, starting to shake with the pressure of craving.

“Take that work-of-art wrapping off for me, regina mia. It’s done its purpose, tantalized and maddened me all day by how it worships your beauty, caresses and kisses and clings to your flesh when I couldn’t. It has overstayed its welcome.”

“Don’t—don’t you want to take it off me?”

“Undressing you is now my main mission in life, along with possessing and pleasuring you, but I’m feeling almost hostile toward the thing. I might not be considerate of the imbalance of power between us if I wrestle it off.”

“There’ll be no wrestling. It’s easy to take off. That was one of your demands.” Excitement and the blaze of appreciation and lust in his eyes made her brazen. She twisted around, leaned to make her hair spill forward, presenting him with a clear shot of her back, widening her stance and thrusting her hips at him slightly in provocation. “Down the zipper goes, and the dress follows.”

His rumble harmonized with that of the sea. “Or I can just flip up that skirt, bend you over and give you what you’re asking for.” She almost fell to her knees begging him for it. “And I will. Sometime during the night, I’ll put you back into that virginal torture device and ride you like that until you faint with pleasure again. All in good time. The best.”

The fire in her loins was spreading, consuming her. Gush after gush of readiness was now flooding down her thighs. And all he’d done was expose her to his visual and verbal desire. He could talk about torture. He was a connoisseur at it, after all.