He turned to see her flushed face, her arm covering those glorious breasts, the low cabin lighting turning her skin to gold. The shame rolled over in his gut, but right behind it was the fear that he’d let her see the feral kid who lurked beneath the man. The person he had always kept hidden from everyone. The boy he’d thought was long gone. Until he’d made the dumb decision to seduce a princess.
He reached out and tucked a sweaty curl behind her ear. Dragged his finger across her lips, reddened from his kisses.
Nothing was okay. Not one damn thing. Because he still wanted her, with a force and fury that defied reason. And thatscared him. But he forced himself to keep the tangle of emotions he didn’t want to feel off his face.
Pull yourself together, Caras.
‘Shouldn’t that be my line, Freya?’ he murmured, annoyed now by how adrift and untethered he was. How the hell had a simple seduction become so potent and provocative?
Especially as she had never done this before.
The surge of possessiveness at that realisation only annoyed him more. He was not the possessive type.
Perhaps it was just because he was her first. She’d given him a responsibility he’d never had before with any other woman. A responsibility he didn’t…shouldn’twant. And now he felt bound to her in ways he didn’t like. Ways he had never intended, and which would complicate the marriage proposal he’d been considering.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked, trying to keep the edge out of his voice.
Her eyebrows lifted. ‘Tell you what?’ she asked, the sheen of surprise not convincing anyone, especially not a cynic like him.
He leaned over her, propped himself on his elbow to stare at her. She squirmed, and the guilty flush turning her cheeks to a dusky pink told him all he needed to know.
‘You know damn well what. Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?’
Damn, had she planned this? Had he just been hoisted by his own petard. It would almost be funny—given the way he’d always used women in the past—that he had been bested by a virgin, and a rich, sheltered royal one at that—if it weren’t making the hole in his gut grow so huge it felt as if it might swallow him whole.
Instead of answering his perfectly reasonable question, she scooted out from under him. Grabbing the sheet, she shot offthe bed, to stand in the narrow space between the bed and the cabin’s luxury sideboards while hastily covering her nakedness.
‘Why do you care, when you climaxed, too?’ she asked.
Because I didn’t just come, I practically exploded.
He ground his teeth. No way was he telling her that. But worse was the knowledge it wasn’t just the intensity of his orgasm, or even her virginity that had freaked him out the most… It was the vicious surge of possessiveness, the hunger still humming in his gut, and the fear that he’d just taken a step he couldn’t un-take.
He’d assumed that seducing Freya would take the edge off, so he could concentrate on getting what he wanted out of this liaison—which wasn’t sex! But now he wasn’t so sure, because he couldn’t think straight while staring at her barely concealed curves and inhaling the musky scent of sex which filled the air.
‘I’m not angry,’ he lied. ‘I just want to know what you’re expecting here. Because I don’t do romance, Freya. So, if you’ve got some dumb notion I’m your hero—you may need to reassess.’
Her eyebrows shot up her forehead this time, but then, to his absolute astonishment, she laughed. No, not laughed, it was more like an incredulous scoffing sound.
‘Are you actually serious?’ she asked. But before he could get the spurt of temper under control—and the flicker of hurt that made no sense, because he had never allowedanywoman to get close enough to hurt him—she continued.
‘Do I look like an idiot to you? You kidnapped me…twice. And lied to me. If I was looking for a hero, I’d pick one less tarnished than you. And anyway, I’m not anyone’s damsel in distress. I don’t need to be saved. Because I can save myself.’
‘Oh yeah?’ he all but snarled, aggravated more by the hurt than the derogatory assessment of his character, which, to be fair, wasn’t entirely unjustified. ‘Then how come you’ve neverslept with another man before me?’ He rose off the bed, grabbing the quilt to wrap around his waist and hide the annoyingly persistent erection, which would not quit. ‘And if I’m such a disappointment, why did you choose me as your first?’
The flush spread across her collarbone, but she didn’t break eye contact as the deep emerald green sparkled with belligerent fury.
‘I didn’tpickyou. You’re just the first man I’ve ever been alone with who I desired.’
His own cheeks heated. Another first. Because now he wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or flattered by the bold statement delivered like a slap.
‘Good to know,’ he growled, deciding to go with insulted, because it felt safer.
The plane chose that precise moment to dip slightly, throwing them both off balance, and he found himself reaching for her. She pitched forward and they tumbled back onto the bed together just as a knock sounded on the door.
‘Mr Caras, we have started our descent into Helsinki. The pilot suggests getting strapped in as there may be some turbulence, sir.’
‘Thanks,’ he shouted, his arms now full of indignant princess. ‘Stop wriggling,’ he whispered into her hair.
