Vows to Save His Crown

That was all he needed to settle his mouth on hers, her lips parting softly as a sigh of pleasure escaped her. Her hands clenched on his shoulders and he drew her closer so he could feel the delicious press of her breasts against his chest.

He deepened the kiss, sweeping his tongue inside the velvet softness of her mouth. She let out a little mewl, which enflamed his senses all the more. The need to kiss her became the need to possess her, with an urgency that raced through his veins and turned his insides to fire.

He slid his hand along the silky length of her thigh, spreading her legs so she was straddling him, the softest part of her pressed hard against his arousal. He flexed his hips instinctively, and she moaned against his mouth and pressed back.

He was going to explode. Literally. Figuratively. In every way possible. Mateo pressed against her once more as his brain blurred. Her hands were like claws on his shoulders, her breasts flattened against his chest. He slid his hands under her robe to fill them with those generous curves, everything in him short-circuiting.

If he didn’t stop this now, he was going to humiliate himself—and her. They couldn’t have their wedding night in a chair.

Gasping, he tore his mouth away from hers and with shaky hands set her back on the desk. Her lips were swollen from his kisses, her hair in a dark tangle about her flushed face, her nightgown in delicious disarray. Mateo dragged his hands through his hair as he sought to calm his breathing.

‘We need to stop.’

‘Do we?’ Rachel asked shakily. She pulled her robe closed, her fingers trembling.

‘Yes. This isn’t...’ He shook his head, appalled at how affected he was. The blood was still roaring through his veins, and he most definitely needed an ice-cold shower. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this way about a woman.

Yes, you can.

Abruptly he rose from the chair and stalked to the window, his back to Rachel. ‘I’m sorry,’ he managed to choke out. ‘I shouldn’t have taken such advantage.’

‘Was that what you were doing?’ Rachel asked with a husky yet uncertain laugh.

‘We’re not married yet,’ Mateo stated flatly.

‘I’m a grown-up, Mateo, and we’re getting married in three days. I think it was allowed.’ She sounded wry, but also confused. He still couldn’t look at her.

Their relationship wasn’t supposed to be like this. Yes, he enjoyed their camaraderie, and the physical attraction was an added bonus he hadn’t expected. But the way his need for her had consumed him? The way it had obliterated all rational thought?

No, that wasn’t something he was willing to feel. He could not sacrifice his self-control to his marriage.

‘You should go to bed,’ he said, his voice brusque, and a long silence ensued. He waited, not willing to turn, and then finally he heard the swish of silk as she slid off the table.

‘Goodnight, Mateo,’ she said softly, and then he heard the click of the door closing as she left the room.

CHAPTER TEN

RACHEL GAZED AT her reflection anxiously as the flurry of nerves in her stomach threatened to make their way up her throat. In just fifteen minutes she was going to enter the palace ballroom on Mateo’s arm, and be presented to all Kallyrian society as his bride-to-be.

Their wedding was in less than forty-eight hours, a fact that kept bouncing off Rachel’s brain, refusing to penetrate. In forty-eight hours they would be married, and then crowned King and Queen in a joint ceremony.

A fact which would have filled her with excitement last night, when she and Mateo had worked together on the list of potential cabinet ministers, and then he’d kissed her.

Oh, how he’d kissed her. Rachel had never been kissed like that in her life, and she’d been in a ferment of desire since, longing to be kissed again—and more. So much more. To feel his hands on her, his mouth possessing her, his gloriously hard body beneath her...

But since he’d rather unceremoniously pushed her off his lap, Mateo had avoided her like the proverbial plague. At least, it f

elt that way. Rachel told herself he had to be busy, but she knew it was more than that, after the way he’d ended their kiss and turned his back, quite literally, to her.

She had no idea what had made him back off so abruptly, but the fact that he had filled her with both disappointment and fear. Was she a clumsy kisser? Heaven knew, it was perfectly possible. It wasn’t as if she’d had loads of experience. Or maybe he’d gone off her for some reason—when he’d touched her? She knew she was a little overweight. Maybe Mateo now knew it too.

The thought made her stomach clench as she frowned at her reflection, all her old insecurities, the ones she’d fought so hard to master, rising up in her again. Whatever it was, he’d ended the kiss and then avoided her ever since, so she hadn’t seen him from that moment to this. At least, she hoped she’d see him in this moment—they were meant to enter the ball together, after all, in just a few minutes.

Taking a deep breath, Rachel ran her hands down the sides of her gown, a fairy-tale dress if there ever was one. Made of bronze silk, it was strapless with a nipped-in waist and a delightfully full skirt that shimmered every time she moved. The dress was complemented with a parure from the Kallyrian crown jewels—a tiara made of topaz and diamonds, with a matching necklace, bracelet, and teardrop diamond earrings. She truly was Cinderella; the only question was when and if midnight would strike.

A knock sounded on the door of her bedroom, and, with her heart fluttering along with her nerves, Rachel croaked, ‘Come in.’

The door opened and Mateo stood there, looking devastatingly handsome in white tie and tails. They were the perfect foil for his olive skin and black hair, his eyes an impossibly bright blue-green in his tanned face.