Page 25 of Awakened On Her Royal Wedding Night
Her hand unconsciously curled into the sheet. Despite some virginal wariness, she wasn’t as apprehensive as she ought to be. In fact, her body heated with a flush of anticipation as she imagined the loom of his wide shoulders over her. How would the weight of his hips feel between her legs? Or the sensation of his strong thighs pushing hers apart? Would it hurt when his flesh thrust into her?
Her inner flesh clenched involuntarily, aching with longing.
“Do you want me to help you sleep?” he asked in a rumble that made her pulse skip.
“What?” she squeaked. “I thought you were asleep.”
“How can I sleep when I can feel the pounding of your heart and hear the unevenness in your breath?”
She swallowed, mortified.
“I’m as aroused as you are, thinking of what it might be like when we make love.” He shifted to sprawl his arm over his head, staying on his back. “But I came into this bed planning to show you that I won’t act on my desires unless it’s something you want as badly as I do. The only way this alliance will work is if we trust each other and here, where you’re most vulnerable, is the most important place for me to build your trust.”
He was aroused? Did he have the same throbbing ache in his pelvis that she did? If she reached out, would she find him as hard as he’d been when he had kissed her? Aside from a few fumbling caresses with fellow college students, she hadn’t really explored a man. Even those had been driven more by curiosity than genuine desire.
This fire of yearning in her was a far more carnal want. She needed to know how hard he was. How thick. How hot and weighty against her palm. She wanted tofeelhim.
“I could very easily be persuaded to take the edge off your cravings with my fingers or my mouth. Would you like that?”
The rough texture of his voice might as well have been his tongue between her thighs, her response was such a visceral rush of damp heat into that place.
It wasn’t rational!Thiswas what made him dangerous to her—his ability to bring her to the brink of climax with his voice.
“No,” she choked and rolled away, aware of the thin satin that was riding up her thighs. It would take nothing for him to brush that out of his way and give her the orgasm she craved however he chose to deliver it.
Behind her, he made a noise that was both resigned and amused. “Another time, then. Good night, Claudine.”
She lay awake a long time, thinking,When?
Felipe’s mother was aghast. That was what struck Claudine like a slap as she performed her curtsy to the King and Queen.
Queen Paloma radiated appalled astonishment, clearly blindsided by this impromptu invasion of her morning by her firstborn and the substandard fiancée he’d brought with him. She didn’t speak for a full minute, only kept her pink-painted lips in a tight purse. Her stunned yellow-brown eyes pierced like a stiletto into Claudine’s lungs as Claudine politely murmured that it was an honor to meet them.
The Queen’s voice was thin as parchment paper as she asked something in Italian.
“English, please, Mamma. Yes, you’re correct. Claudine is the missing contestant.”
Claudine turned one of her pageant smiles onto the Queen. She had a well-practiced arsenal that ran a gamut from a resting expression of poise, worn when waiting in the wings but still likely to be caught on camera, to the full-wattage smile held for long minutes when stuck on stage waiting like a mannequin for the rest of the contestants to be introduced and take their place.
In this instance, she found a midrange smile of polite attention, one she would reserve for a conversation with a judge.
This was not a pageant, though. Rather than the armor of a ball gown and full makeup, she wore an understated three-quarter skirt in navy blue with a matching jacket, ensuring her scrapes were all hidden. Her white blouse had a lace tab collar and she’d had Ippolita pull her hair into a demure chignon. Hopefully, her light coat of face powder hid the bruise on her cheek and the worst of her flush as she faced the Queen’s blunt, “No” of rejection.
“I’ve approved the union,” King Enzo stated.
“Why? You’re notthatclose to death!” the Queen scoffed.
A silence landed so hard in the room Claudine dropped her wide-eyed gaze to the floor, expecting it to be split wide open. The King was ill? This would be the detail Felipe had not wanted to share with her yesterday.
“Does Francois know?” the Queen asked of Felipe. “Did you take her from his pageant deliberately, to put him in this awkward position? Or has she taken it upon herself to attempt this climb from pageant princess to—? No. Surely you can see that she is the worst sort of opportunist. Enzo?”
“Insults you may speak in Italian,” Felipe said coldly. “So my fiancée doesn’t have to hear them. But if you must know, Francois sent her to me.” Felipe glanced at Claudine, providing her with an opportunity to elaborate if she so chose.
Her throat locked up.
When her reaction was only a subtle recoil at being put on the spot, he smoothly added, “Any embarrassment that Francois suffers around the pageant is very much of his own making. One way or another, this will be the last year his pageant comes to Nazarine.”
“Do not try to distract me with that old argument. What do you mean that Francois sent her to you?” his mother demanded.
