‘So why all that effort to sneak out the window?’
‘Because you’re stalking me! And now you’re making up some crazy story to justify kidnapping me.’ She squirmed and tugged, harder this time, but still to no effect, except for the damning friction she created in her efforts. ‘Let me go!’
‘You must have known that someone would catch up with you eventually. You’re lucky that it’s me. And now, to quote the classic line from the movies, it would be easier for us both if you came quietly.’
Quietly?
Now there was an idea. There was nothing on this island to confirm her true identity—all her ID was in Erin’s name. It was her word against his and who was going to believe a man who wanted to take her from the island against her will? She opened her mouth, only to feel his hand clamp hard over her open mouth, smothering her attempt to scream.
‘There’s no point fighting the inevitable, Princess. Prince Rafael wants you home safe and sound, and that’s where I’m taking you.’
Izzy had always known what being caught meant—an end to her new-found freedom and the beginning of a new hell, a forced marriage to a man she could never love. But it was hearing mention of her hateful brother’s name that tipped her over the edge. She writhed and bucked, kicking out at him, trying to find traction even as he held her high and hard against him. But her feet couldn’t reach the ground and all she succeeded in doing was landing kicks at his legs. Not that he so much as flinched. Her brother had sent a robot to hunt her down, the man must be made of metal or stone. But curse Rafael and his man-mountain, she wasn’t going back. Not if it meant she would serve as a pawn in one of Rafael’s selfish schemes.
‘Ngh, ngh!’ she muttered against his hand, finally finding a crack between his fingers to spit out the words, ‘I’ll see my brother rot in hell first!’
And the hands wrapped around her eased a fraction, as a deep voice whispered in her ear. ‘Thank you, Princess. You can stop with the pretence now.’
And Isabella knew she’d been had. She went limp in his arms, the fight gone out of her.
‘That’s more like it,’ he said, and swung her into his arms.
‘What are you doing?’ she protested, as her body slammed against his chest.
‘Taking you back through the front door so you can pack your things. Although, if you prefer, I can toss you back through the window the same way you came out?’
He was laughing at her now. And yes, so maybe it wouldn’t be the most elegant way to enter the cabin, but she might actually prefer it if he did. It was impossible to think with his arms under her back and legs, impossible to think when she was this close and when his every movement generated friction where their bodies rubbed. And she so needed space to think. Whatever this man thought, she wasn’t about to give up her freedom, just because he’d found her. She’d find a way to get away. She couldn’t go back. Not to what her brother had planned for her.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded, turning on her most imperious voice, a voice that had been known to turn grown courtiers into simpering wrecks. ‘Why are you manhandling me like this?’
He laughed out loud this time, a gruff laugh that only served to ratchet up her ill humour, as he bounded up the steps to the veranda like she weighed nothing, her body jolting against his firm torso—histoo hard, too hottorso—with every stride. And the more she tried to squirm away, the more friction she caused. Curse the man, why couldn’t he have felt cold, like the stone he looked like he’d been carved from?
‘You have the nerve to laugh at me?’ she said, if only to pretend she thought nothing of the sizzling heat where their bodies met.
‘I don’t know who you think you’re ordering around, Princess,’ he said, ‘but it’s wasted on me. I’m Theo Mylonakos. The Prince wants you home where you’ll be safe, and it’s my job to get you there.’
‘The Prince wants?The Prince wants?And you pander to him like he’s the only person who matters. What about whatIwant? Why does what I want count for nothing?’
‘You are a princess of Rubanestein,’ he said, using his foot to kick the front door closed behind them. ‘Your duty lies with your country and its people.’
His words rankled. She didn’t have to be lectured about her duty, she’d lived for nothing more than her country and its people for most of her twenty-five years, all through the reign of her father and his premature death, the coronation of her brother and the honeymoon period of his reign—in fact, right up until the time her brother had announced that her premier duty to the principality was to be sold off like she was no more than his personal chattel in order to cover his gambling losses.
‘And if I refuse to go?’
He let her go so unexpectedly that her knees buckled beneath her. She would have collapsed to the floor but for the large hands that seized her waist, arresting her fall. Air whooshed from her lungs, not only out of shock, but because there was that burn again, this time at her waist. He had big hands. Long-fingered hands that made such a mockery of the fabric of her T-shirt that it might just as well have been made of silk—gossamer-thin silk that transmitted the heat of his hands to her senses. She could feel the heat from every pad of his fingers, she could feel the press of every single digit of his hand against her flesh.
It was sheer hell. Yet at the same time, it was mesmerising.Hypnotising.She knew she should protest at his intrusion, at the personal invasion of her space and her body, but with the sensation spiralling through her flesh, sending sparks to places she’d never felt the touch of sparks—in the tightness of her nipples, in the aching flesh between her thighs, sensation stalled any immediate protest.
She felt his breath fan across her face, and she looked up to see him looking down at her, his face inches away, his eyes dark, his expression stern, like she was some kind of problem to him. And only then did she realise that she must have thrown out her arms in desperation and that her own hands were full, clinging to his firm shoulders.
She tested her knees and found her footing. He was too close, his masculine scent invading her space, and she needed to get away.
But it was he who let go before she did.
She wobbled just a little as she spun away, feeling relief that his hands were gone, at the same time feeling their absence—feeling the lack of his proximity—like a loss.Madness.But the heat hadn’t gone. It had moved, surging into her cheeks at her own ridiculous thoughts.
She turned back, hoping that he took her reddened cheeks as embarrassment, or better still, outrage. Outrage.
Now there was the preferable option.And she should feel outraged. She jerked up her chin and puffed out her chest. ‘I could order you fed to the palace eels for manhandling me the way you just did.’
