Page 33 of Awakened On Her Royal Wedding Night
“I’m upset because I felt manipulated. Go ahead and deny it, but I won’t believe you,” she threw at him. “I’m pretty, not stupid. You keep talking about how we need to trust each other, but how can we if we’re not going to be honest with each other?” A thread of despair entered her tone as she saw endless suspicions and avoided truths unspooling into the future. It wouldn’t work. It couldn’t. “You wanted to control me and you did. Why the hell would I want to marry that?”
She felt his stare like the concentrated heat of sunlight through a magnifying glass, trying to penetrate her skin.
When she met his gaze, his eye ticked, betraying his inner tension.
“It’s not you I was trying to control.” He rose so abruptly she gasped and fell back a step. “It was myself. I want you, Claudine. More than is healthy.”
His hands descended on her, fingertips gripping her shoulders through the plush velvet of her robe. She threw her arms up between them, but he didn’t try to pull her any closer, only held her before him.
“You want honesty? Then stand here and listen to it. The way you fell apart in the car is all I can think about. I want to tear open your robe and clear that table and eat you for breakfast. I want us to break every piece of furniture in here and, after that taste last night, I’m confident we will. When the time is right.” He searched her expression with lust in his eyes and concern pulling his brow. “After what you told me—that you’re a virgin—I have even more reason to stay this side of rational, otherwise I might unwittingly hurt you.”
She couldn’t seem to catch a full breath. His strong hands on her upper arms were probably the only thing holding her up.
“The fact that you responded that strongly to my touch, Claudine...” He slid his hands upward to cup her jaw. His thumbs rested at the corners of her mouth. “We’re a dangerous combination. Do you understand that?”
He might be right. She had the most indecent urge to turn her head and open her mouth so she could suck on his thumb.
His fingers splayed and he slowly trailed his touch down her throat where he spread the edges of the robe to expose more of her collarbone.
“Are your nipples hard? Shall I feel for myself?”
“Yes,” she breathed, eyes fluttering closed.
Her arms fell away as his light touch stole beneath the lapels of the robe, loosening the belt as his hands found her naked breasts and caressed the swells, fingertips grazing the turgid points of her nipples. They stood tall and eager against his light pinch. Dampness gathered between her thighs.
“I bet you could come just from this, if we had time,” he murmured, lowering his head so his breath washed across lips that stung as hard as her nipples. “Touch yourself. Let me watch.”
It was such a flagrant request she dragged her eyes open, fearful he was taunting her for his own amusement.
If he had been, she didn’t know what she would have done because she was willing to do nearly anything he asked, he had that much of a hold over her. It was a disturbing realization. It would have been outright terrifying if there hadn’t been a glaze of blind lust in his eyes that mirrored what was going on inside herself. Nothing more sinister, just pure animalistic craving.
Recognizing that sent a drive of compulsion through her, one that wanted to see how far she could push him past his discipline. How far could they push each other?
Thatwas sobering. She checked herself from throwing herself into his arms. He was right. They were a potent combination.
“Now you see.” He gently withdrew his touch from inside the robe and doubled it closed again, as though bundling her against an arctic wind.
Then he gathered her close in a hug that would have been purely one of consolation if she hadn’t felt the press of his arousal through the layers of robe and trousers.
“Make no mistake about how much I want you, Claudine. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone in my life. But once we start that fire, it may incinerate us both.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“MOM.”CLAUDINEDIDN’Trealize how much stress she’d been under until she almost burst into tears at the sight of her mother.
She wanted to crash into her, but she had learned as a child to open her arms and wait for her mother to hug her first so Claudine could take her cue from the strength and length of her mother’s hug as to how hard and long she could hug her back. Today, she was wrapped up in a good, strong one that let her soak up some of the reassurance she desperately needed.
She could have stayed there all day, but Ann-Marie drew back. “Introduce me to your fiancé.”
Claudine did and watched Felipe gently take the hand her mother offered and simply cover it with his own, being so careful with her it squeezed Claudine’s heart to see it.
“How are you feeling?” he asked her. “Are they treating you well here?”
“Better than the celebrities. I feel like a quee—Um...” She sent a perplexed look to Claudine.
“Good.” Felipe’s mouth twitched and he released her.
“It’s okay, Mom.” Her mother was down-to-earth and not impressed by fame or wealth, always far more interested in character or heart. “We wanted you here for privacy as much as medical care, but how are your symptoms? Are they settling down at all?”
