The Once And Future Prince (Castaldini Crown 1)

He groaned and crushed her to him for a moment before he loosened his embrace, let her slump back in its circle in a daze. “And I always keep my word, Phoebe. I won’t sweep you into my bed. You will come to me this time.”

She closed her eyes, let his spell claim the last corner of her sanity, and marveled at what a difference a few hours could make. She’d come here intending to deliver her arguments, stay the hell away from him, then run back to Castaldini to burrow out of sight until he’d made his decision—and bolt when he had.

Now—just look at her. Eager to go back to Castaldini with him, and the only burrowing she wanted to do was into his arms. As if he knew, as he’d always seemed to know, he stood up, lifted her from her stool and floated her back to the dance floor, taking her precisely where she wanted to be.

What felt like a few days of languorous, erotic torture later, she heard him rumble against her neck. “I have another promise, bella malaki.” She threw her head back over his arm, waited for it, at peace, in torment. “I won’t rush you, but there won’t be a minute when I won’t show you how much I want you in my arms and in my bed.”

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Six

W as it possible for a man to get older, to amass world-spanning experience and world-shaping influence, and not add one ounce of judgment or restraint? Basically, to remain a fool?

Leandro let out a shuddering exhalation as he stared at the source of all loss of control. She was presenting him with the elegance of her profile, the sootiness of her lashes shading her silver gaze as it turned sideways to the clarity and endlessness of the horizon as they drove along the coast heading to the capital, Jawara, from the private airport where his jet had landed on Castaldini.

Such beauty. The only kind that had completely commanded his appreciation, ruled his libido, wreaked havoc with his restraint.

Prince Overwhelming, indeed. Says Mind-Blowing Beauty.

He’d forgotten his plan to make her pursue him inside an hour. An hour? A minute. Within that time frame, he had barely stopped himself from dragging her down on that dance floor and taking her then and there. He’d not only succumbed to her “negotiations,” he’d practically blackmailed her into letting him do so.

And he hadn’t stopped there. Instead of ending that blistering night by taking her back to his bed after she’d admitted her desire, he’d sat there and promised he wouldn’t.

And here they were, with the sizzling rules of their new liaison laid down, finally in Castaldini.

All through the trip onboard his private jet, she’d tried to keep their interaction flowing, to inject it with lightness and teasing, and he’d struggled to match her attitude.

But it had been no use.

There was too much tension and pent-up passion between them, too much anticipation, too much…everything.

And that hadn’t been all. Something else had been happening. Something he’d been totally unprepared for.

The closer they’d gotten to Castaldini, and as the reality of his return there crystallized, the more his ability to keep up the pretense had faded. He’d looked down at the island as the jet had started to descend and had felt a pressure building inside his chest, around his throat, behind his eyes. It had escalated with every meter’s descent. And it had had nothing to do with the pressure change inside the cabin.

By the time they’d landed and disembarked to the limo he’d had waiting, the imaginary pins holding up his smile had seemed to pierce his flesh. He’d had to relinquish the expression, as well as any attempt at communication.

He’d been relieved when she’d withdrawn into herself, too. For about fifteen minutes. Then restlessness had started to claw its way to the surface. How was it possible to miss her when she was within arm’s reach?

He wasn’t about to reinitiate dialogue. He couldn’t. He had nothing to say—nothing he could put into words. But he needed to reconnect with her. Just…feel her. He reached for her hand.

She surrendered it to him with a squeeze that transmitted directly to his heart, and a smile that lodged there, too, before she resumed watching the scenery rushing by her window.

He dragged his eyes away from her, forced himself to look through his own window. He cursed himself for the reluctance, the trepidation that gripped his guts. It was just an island, just another beautiful country with magnificent nature and blessed weather. Looking at the scenery wouldn’t hurt him.

But it did. He felt things splintering inside him. The once-severed and reattached tethers of his heart snapped under the strain, one after the other with each mile deeper onto Castaldinian soil. For eight years, he’d lived with the certainty—the hopelessness—that he’d never see this land again.

He hadn’t imagined he could feel this way. He’d thought he’d long ago moved beyond such frailties as homesickness and nostalgia, that this land and all it represented had no more hold on him.

He might not have known, but Phoebe clearly had. She knew. Everything that was roiling inside him. He now understood what she was doing. She was trying to turn off her aura, her presence. She was trying to give him privacy. To sort through the chaos that returning to his homeland had kicked up inside him.

He felt something too warm for comfort swell inside his rib cage. Something achingly sweet. Gratitude. That she understood, gauged his needs and gave him the spiritual space and silent empathy that would soothe him, ameliorate his turmoil. And he just knew she’d also sense when he’d dealt with the first shockwave of response, would come back to him then.

He shook his head in self-deprecation as he succumbed, let storm through him the emotions he’d believed he’d never feel again—for the land that had exiled him, and the woman who’d deserted him.

Yes. A fool. In so many incurable ways.

Phoebe kept her eyes on the rushing by Jawara.

As capitals went, it was probably the only one in the twenty-first century that didn’t have one building built later than the eighteenth. Its mixture of Gothic, Moorish and baroque architecture was considered the best-preserved in the world. Or it used to be. There’d been cuts in the restoration programs over the last twenty years, channeling of funds into venues of a more pressing nature. To her—someone who hadn’t seen Castaldini before those times—the kingdom looked magnificent anyway, even with the disrepair. But Castaldinians said the decline had been noticeable. And though she hadn’t been at her most observant of the outside world these past years, she’d noticed the deterioration deepening.