King's Ransom (Man on a Mission 2)

“Please, Andre.” Was that her voice saying those words? That breathless, desperate, needy sound? Her brain wanted to retract her plea but her lips refused to obey, and then it was too late.

His lips took hers. Warm. Firm. Sensual. Seducing her with no more than a kiss. “I did please you, little one,” he breathed when he raised his mouth from hers. His tongue touched her lower lip. “Each time.” His teeth caught her lip and tugged delicately. “Every time.”

She shook her head. She wasn’t denying his statement; she was trying to tell herself no, not to let him seduce her this way.

“Yes, Juliana. Do you think I could not tell?”

His hands slid beneath her skirt, pulling it up until it bunched at her waist. Then he lifted her effortlessly, sliding her body against his until she could feel him at the crux of her thighs—throbbing through the scant protection of her panties the way she remembered. Only then there had been nothing between them. Nothing but hard male flesh against tender female flesh. More than anything she’d ever wanted, she wanted him in that instant. Wanted him to rip away the barriers between them, to thrust himself into her the way her body ached for him to do. Wanted him to take her with that controlled male power she remembered so vividly, and in taking give and give and give.

“No!” She wrenched against him and he let her go immediately, let her slide down his body, then stepped back. She put distance between them, and her trembling fingers buttoned as many buttons as she could as quickly as she could. “You have no right,” she told him, panting a little, trying to catch her breath. “No right.”

“You gave yourself to me once,” he told her, an unreadable expression in his eyes. “I would have let you go untouched. But you came to me.” His jaw tightened. “Do you think it was easy for me? Two years. Two years I fought against taking you, knowing I had no right. I was one day away from letting you leave Zakhar a virgin. But then you came to me and you gave me that right. You cannot take it back. Not now. Not ever.”

He turned on his heels and strode toward one of the wall hangings, not toward her sitting room, where the door to the outside corridor was. Juliana’s gaze flew to the outside door just visible through the sitting room doorway, and she realized it was still firmly bolted. How did he get in? “Andre!” she called. He paused and turned back to her. “How...how did you get into my bedroom?”

The corner of his mouth curved upward in a faint smile. “Are you just now asking yourself that question?” he said, unexpected amusement in his face.

“I want to know,” she insisted.

“You are occupying the Queen’s Suite,” he told her, as if that should be answer enough. When she shook her head, puzzled, he lifted a hand and raised the heavy tapestry on the wall, revealing a doorway cunningly concealed in the masonry behind it, with an ancient wooden door that opened inward into a passageway. “The King’s Suite is at the other end,” he said, letting the wall hanging fall back into place.

When she gasped in comprehension, he said, “The passageway lends credence to the legend that this suite of rooms began as Eleonora’s. I discovered it when reading some old manuscripts from that era. After I ascended the throne and occupied the King’s Suite that had been my father’s, I located the passageway and had it cleaned out. At the same time I had the iron hinges on both doors oiled, and the rust removed from the locks and keys.”

“You mean you can just walk into my bedroom whenever you want?”

That faint smile came and went again. “Whenever I want,” he agreed.

“You can’t,” she protested angrily. “I won’t stay here. I won’t! Even if I have to move out of the palace, I won’t stay where I have no privacy.”

At first he didn’t say anything, as if assessing the sincerity of her threat. “No need,” he told her finally. “I only came to apologize for not believing you about DeWinter. But then...” He shrugged his shoulders. “You are a temptation that is hard to resist, little one.”

“Don’t call me that!” she said sharply. “Don’t call me ‘little one,’” she insisted, hurt by the memories it evoked of happier days with Andre.

“I cannot promise that,” he told her in his deepest voice. “It is what you are to me—small and precious. But I can promise I will never again use the passageway to come to you.” He indicated the key in the ancient lock. “Lock this door, and your privacy will be inviolate, Juliana. I will not use my key.” His words, his tone, the expression on his face told her he meant it. “But know this—I will not lock my door against you. You are welcome to use the passageway to come to me, if you choose. Anytime. Day or night.”