One Night with Prince Charming (Aristocratic Grooms 2)

Eventually, as she relaxed further, tension built. She felt herself reaching for a release that she’d never experienced with a man before.

James stroked between their bodies, his fingers pressing on her most sensitive spot.

Within moments, she cried out with pleasure and then crested before she knew it. She was carried on a wave of sensation as feeling after feeling swamped her.

Her body undulated around James of its own accord, massaging him into his own frenzy of need.

“Have mercy, Pia,” he groaned.

It was too late, however. With a hoarse oath, he grasped her hips and pumped into her.

She came for him again. And then with a final thrust, he took his own release.

As James slumped against her, Pia hugged him and suddenly became aware of tears in her eyes.

He’d taken her across the final barrier to realizing herself sexually as a woman. Their joining and her first time couldn’t have been more wonderful.

Pia closed her eyes, and of their own accord, exhaustion and sleep claimed her.

The next time she blinked up at her ceiling, he was gone.

In a moment, Pia was brought back to the present. She realized she wasn’t staring at her ceiling, but at her apartment wall.

Different apartments, three years apart.

Same man, though.

Hawk.

His presence was palpable still, and her body was awakened and aware as if they’d made love moments, not years, ago.

Pia shook her head. No.

She’d let him into her sanctuary—her apartment—again, but she resolved not to let him into her life one more time.

The night after Hawk signed the contract at her apartment, Pia discovered they had a couple of the best theater seats in the house—no doubt thanks to Hawk’s personal connection.

Hawk had appeared at her apartment at seven and driven them so they could make the eight o’clock curtain call for Lucy’s show, an off-Broadway production of the musical Oklahoma, in which Lucy had a supporting role.

Pia made a show of studying her program as they waited for the lights to dim. Tonight, she reminded herself, was all about business. She’d dressed in a short-sleeved, apricot-colored dress that she’d worn to work-related parties before and that she hoped sent the appropriate message. She’d avoided those items in her wardrobe that she considered purely off-hours attire.

She stole a quick sidelong glance at Hawk, who was looking at the stage. Even dressed casually in black pants and a light blue shirt, he managed to project an air of ducal self-possession.

She just wished she wasn’t so aware of his thigh inches away from her own, and of his shoulder and arm within dangerously close brushing distance. If there was a petition right now for having individual armrests in places of public accommodations, she’d sign on the spot.

Determinedly, she pulled herself in, making it clear that she’d cede the shared armrest to him.

In the process, she absently tugged down the hem of her dress, and Hawk’s gaze was drawn to her actions.

As Hawk surveyed her exposed thighs, his expression changing to one of alert but lazy amusement, Pia rued her involuntary action.

Hawk’s eyes moved up to meet hers. “I have a proposition for you.?

??

“I-I’m not surprised,” she shot back, rallying and cursing her telltale stammer. “They do appear to be your forte.”

He had the indecency to grin. “You bring out the best—” he waited a beat as her eyes widened “—urges in me.”