Page 35 of Always a Princess
“Why would that change my mind?”
Her shyness crept back in, and she broke eye contact. “Because I’ve known a man before. I am not untouched.”
“Thank God,” Alexander said, causing surprise to flash across her beautiful face.
“What?”
“The last thing I would ever wish to cause you is pain. It matters not to me that you are widowed. So long as you are not married now and out of my reach. That is the only thing that could keep me from you.”
Thea released a long breath. “Thank you.”
“Answer me one question though,” he started.
“Anything.”
Her unguarded openness entranced him.
“Were you loved?”
She nodded with a small smile. “Yes. Very much.”
“And you loved him.”
“Yes.”
“Can you love me just as much?”
A soft smile curved her lips, and her fingertips stroked over his cheek. “Yes.”
It was all Alexander needed. He guided her lips to his, wanting the taste and intensity of her once more.
Her hands curved around his head, tangling in his hair. His tongue dipped into the heat of her mouth. She was like fire in his arms. Every time he kissed her, she went up in flames.
But before they both ended up naked on the library floor, he pulled back and took a deep breath. “We will find love matches for your cousins forthwith. With all haste. I don’t care what it takes.”
Thea threw back her head and laughed. “From a kiss?”
He smoothed her disturbed coiffure. “Not just any kiss. Yours.”
She leaned toward him once more and pressed her lips lightly against his. “I should go, shouldn’t I?”
“If you do not wish to wake up in my bed in the morning, it would be wise.”
“And if I do want that?”
He pulled back to meet her gaze and cupped her soft cheek in his palm. “Then you know the only word you must say.”
Her brown eyes glittered like the richest Baltic amber. “Soon.”
He kissed her again. “I must get you home.”
“Soon,” she whispered again, leaning in to kiss him once more.
CHAPTER 17
“The last thing I want in this world is to let you leave this carriage right now,” Alexei, her prince, said as he kissed her once more.
“I never wanted to leave the library.”
