Until something gave, there was a sound, and he was inside her, her walls wrapping tightly around him in the most intimate of embraces.
Bliss.
Theo wanted to howl with success. He let himself feel the perfection of being enclosed by tight flesh that wrapped around him, cocooning him, before he was withdrawing, his hips moving to their own score. Not all the way, this connection was too important to lose. Before he plunged into her again. And only then did the sound he’d heard make some kind of sense. A cry, coupled with the resistance he’d felt. He didn’t want it to register. He wanted to blot it out, he wanted to deny it, refute it, his body already on a trajectory that he could no longer stop or wanted to, but one that he sensed could ruin his life—and hers—forever.
But it was too late, and right now there were more important things to worry about.
She cried out, calling his name, her muscles tightening around him, urging him on, desperate to hold on to him when he withdrew, welcoming him when he plunged ever deeper. Until he emptied himself in one final juddering thrust. Her cries told him of her own climax as her whole body shuddered around him with her own orgasm.
His bliss was short-lived, as the whole horror of what he’d just done registered. And post-coital bliss turned to self-hate in an insta-second. There was no time for wrapping her in his arms and cuddling her next to him. No time for breathy kisses and warm shared words as their bodies hummed down from their heights. Instead, Theo pulled out of her, sat up on the side of the bed, rubbing his jaw with one hand before he headed for the bathroom, wanting to rid himself of the evidence of his actions as if he could so easily wipe out the truth of it. He returned to the bedroom to pull on his underwear, before turning to look at her.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
The Princess looked still shell-shocked, like she’d been thoroughly made love to as she had, her hair mussed, her features in glorious post-coital disarray, and that didn’t help matters at all. That just made him angrier.
‘Tell you what?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘What do you think? That you were a virgin!’
Her eyes flickered between opened and closed. ‘Oh, wasn’t that in the dossier you were given?’
‘Actually, it was. But since then, you’ve had however many flings with some surfer dude and a barista and who knows however many else. Isn’t that what you said?’
She sighed, pulling the covers up over her, but not before he saw a telltale smear of blood on the sheets.
‘Did I ever say that I’d slept with any of them?’ She raised herself up on one elbow and looked at him disingenuously. ‘I might have admitted to being tempted, but I never admitted to having sex with anyone, did I?’
It was worse than Theo had imagined. It was a horror story but a horror story of his own making. His rescue was a virgin—had been a virgin—and he’d been the one entrusted to return her home, but he’d been the one to deflower her. It was a nightmare.
‘That was—um, nice,’ the Princess said from the bed. ‘Is there any chance we might try that again?’
‘No! Was this one of your plans, then, Princess? To seduce me and try to convince me not to return you to your homeland?’
She blinked, looking sheepish. And he didn’t need her to answer to know that he’d been played. That this had been her plan all along. To seduce him, to bend him to her will. A pity it wasn’t going to work.
He pulled the bedcovers from her. ‘Get out of my room. Pack your bag. And stop with the tears, because, like it or not, you’re going home to Rubanestein tomorrow.’
He didn’t wait for her response. He took himself to the bathroom, stepped into the shower. If he couldn’t erase every memory of what had just happened, he could at least try to erase every possible scent of her from his body.
Forget thinking that the Princess might be telling him the truth. Forget thinking that she might have a case. She was a manipulator, pulling his strings any way she could. A sob story about her brother bartering her off. A sob story about him abusing her puppy. Forget feeling sorry for her, or that her brother was taking advantage of her. She’d just pulled the worst strings of all.
Her story was rubbish.
As a result, he was more determined than ever to deliver her back to her home. She would be someone else’s problem then.
And they were welcome to her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ISABELLA MADE HERway back to her bedroom trance-like, her clothes clutched in her arms. Theo had made love to her, worshipping every part of her body, and it had been spectacular. More spectacular than she could have ever imagined. There had been no time for her body to recover, she was still glowing, her senses still hypersensitive, the space between her thighs still humming.
And for once it almost didn’t matter that he was still determined to return her to Rubanestein. Not after tonight. Tonight, she’d discovered the wonder of what making love to a man you wanted to make love to was like. This is what she’d always wanted, to know what it was like to make love to a man that meant something to you.
Okay, so this wasn’t a man who was going to marry her, but her dream of marrying for love was already in shreds, and if she had to take a second option, she’d settle for making love to Theo. She’d never have come up with Plan A if she hadn’t been attracted to him. If she hadn’t felt the heat of their connection. If she hadn’t felt the magnetism between them.
And whatever happened in the future, she wanted to file that memory away, knowing that this one time she had actually had sex with someone she wanted to. And it had been glorious. And Theo had seemed to be enjoying it too, if she hadn’t been mistaken. He’d been so eager for her. So hungry.
Until the moment he’d realised.
