“No.” Eyes wide, she laid her hand over his with haste. “We will do nothing of the sort. This is positively scandalous. I must go.”
But her fingers had tightened on his hand rather than releasing him, and the air was suddenly filled with undeniable, potent awareness.
“Stay,” he said simply.
Her lips parted, their lush fullness on display along with her hesitation. She wanted to linger here with him, despite all her protests to the contrary. He could see it plainly in her countenance, feel it in her touch.
“Please,” Nando added when she continued to look torn between what she ought to do and what she longed to do. “Must I beg you, Eleanora?”
“I’ve told you not to be so familiar,” she said, her voice husky and distinctly lacking the reproach she likely had wished to instill in it.
“And I’ve promptly ignored you, just as you want me to,” he said. “You like hearing me say your given name.”
“I’ll admit no such thing.”
But still, she had yet to pull away from him.
“You needn’t make the concession. I can tell well enough from your reaction every time I call you by it.”
She stiffened and withdrew her hand quickly, as if she’d inadvertently burned herself. “As I said, I must return to my duties.”
“Must you, or are you merely afraid that if you linger, you won’t be able to resist me?” he couldn’t help taunting.
“There is nothing to resist,” she denied.
But he didn’t miss the breathless quality of her voice.
“Isn’t there?”
The scent of her, clean and womanly—soap with a hint of roses—wound itself around him. Her lips were parted. Blue eyes wide and no longer cold, but sizzling with the same fire he felt in his veins.
“Your Royal H?—”
He ended her protest with his lips. Partially because he didn’t want to hear her call himYour Royal Highnessone more bloody time, and partly because he couldn’t exist another second on this earth without knowing what Eleanora Brett’s mouth felt like beneath his.
Heaven.
Exquisite.
Perfection.
That was what her mouth felt like. Like the last mouth he wanted to kiss. The force of his reaction to her was astonishing. Nando had never felt anything so overwhelming. Her lips were silken and soft, hot and lush and giving. She tasted like tea and innocence, and he wanted more. Had to have more.
He could never have enough.
Nando cupped her cheek with his right hand, gently angling her face so that he could deepen the kiss. With a soft, almost breathy sound of surrender that he felt in his ballocks, Eleanora opened for him. He gave her his tongue.
Her arms wound around his neck, and she pressed herself against him fully. Her diminutive height kept her from cominginto contact with his wounded arm, sparing him from pain. But he would have kissed her anyway. No kiss he’d ever known in his life compared to this one, Eleanora Brett coming so deliciously undone for him.
He swept his hand from her jaw to her nape, cupping her head and keeping her from colliding with the door at her back as he kissed her deeper. Harder. Her tongue answered his, tentatively at first and then with greater confidence.
Deus, it was heady, the feeling of her in his arms, her completely yielding to him.
And just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Interrupted by three sound raps on the chamber door. She flew away from him like a startled bird, darting to the side, staring at Nando with a dazed expression, her lips swollen from his kisses. A thundering bolt of possession jolted through him.
He wanted to see her thus again.
Soon.
