“I SUPPOSE WE will be making more than one announcement tonight,” Felipe said, his tone hard.
Then he straightened the cuffs on his jacket and walked back into the ballroom. Leaving Briar standing there by herself feeling utterly helpless. His reaction was frightening, and she didn’t know what to do with it. Didn’t know why she cared. Didn’t know why it hit her quite so squarely in the chest and made it so hard for her to breathe.
Then she saw people begin pouring out of the ballroom. Heading back up the stairs, leaving the party much sooner than she was sure they had been planning. She lifted the front of her gown and hurried inside. She could hear Felipe shouting, but didn’t understand what he was saying as he was speaking in Spanish.
Then he switched to English. “The party is over,” he said. “My father is dead. I will be assuming the throne now. But we will not dance anymore tonight. Go home. Everybody get out.”
And his word was obeyed for, after all, he was the king.
The only people who hesitated were her parents. She looked between Felipe and her mother and father, then she went to the king and queen. “You should go,” she said, reaching out and placing her hand over her mother’s.
“Are you certain you’ll be all right?” the other woman asked.
She looked back at Felipe, who was standing there perfectly smooth and unruffled. She knew it was a lie. She just did. Whether or not it made any sense, she knew. This was another of his games. Another of his facades.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Leave me with him.”
That left her in the ballroom, empty all except for herself and Felipe. And she realized that it had not been the moment she had accepted his proposal, not the moment he had placed the ring on her finger, that she had truly chosen this, chosen him. It was now.
She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to explain why. Only that he needed her. He needed someone. She didn’t know who else it would be.
The tables were still laden with food, and there was music being piped in over the speakers. But no one else was there. Not a single guest, not a single servant. With the chandelier glittering above and all the lights lit, casting the golden room in a fierce glow, it all seemed rather eerie. Particularly with the deep emotion radiating from the man who stood before her.
Apparently, she was with him. She had a feeling that she had been from the moment she’d first set eyes on him. Her world had shifted then. Regardless of what had happened since, in that moment...she had connected with him.
“Are you all right?”
He looked at her, the expression on his face indicating that he was surprised to find her still there. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” He straightened his sleeves, then his hands moved to the knot on his tie, and he straightened that, too, even though it hadn’t been askew at all.
“Your father is dead.”
“Yes. And I am now the king. And everything that I have wanted to do for the past two decades can now come to fruition. I’m more than all right.”
He didn’t look it. He didn’t sound it.
“Felipe,” she said, taking a step toward him.
He turned abruptly, gripping the edge of one of the tables that was laden with food, and he turned it over. She gasped and took a step back as glass shattered on the marble floor, champagne running through the tiles like a river.
“I feel better,” he said. “Yes. I feel better.”
“That was a waste of food.”
“I’ll make a donation. Around the time I make a donation that matches the cost of your ring. Do you find that acceptable?”
“I wasn’t... I was just...”
“My father had not one quality to redeem him, Briar,” Felipe said. “Not one. He victimized every person who walked through his life. And this—” he swept his hand to the side, indicating the mess he had just made “—would have appalled him. He could not abide disorder. Could not abide disorder while he created chaos inside everyone who lived underneath his roof. I always found that the greatest irony. He claimed he wanted everything to run smoothly while he ruined my mother from the inside out. Tell me, does that make any sense?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“No. It doesn’t. I will not make you miserable. I promise you.” He began to pace, his movements agitated. He gripped the edge of his sleeve with his thumb and forefinger and straightened it again. Then he repeated the action again. “Because it makes no sense. I’m not a soft man. I don’t believe in love. I don’t believe in romance. But I can certainly accomplish the amazing feat of not being a cruel bastard.”
She stood where she was for a moment, not moving away from him, but not moving forward, either. She wasn’t sure if another explosion of violence was going to come. She wouldn’t be surprised if it did. He was all barely leashed energy and a strange kind of manic emotion that she had never seen before.
It turned out, she didn’t have to move toward him at all. Because a moment later he was closing the distance between them. His dark eyes blazing into hers. And then, those eyes were all she saw. All she saw as he wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her hard up against his body.
She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t even have a moment to react. Because then, his mouth was crashing down on hers, his lips taking hers, consuming her. She had never been kissed before, so she didn’t know what she had expected. But it hadn’t been this. No, she never could have anticipated this, not in her wildest fantasies.
Because in her imagination a kiss had always been a sweet thing, romantic thing. In her fantasies, a kiss was meant to be shared with someone you loved, or at the very least someone you cared about. She couldn’t claim that she cared about Felipe at all.
But that didn’t seem to matter. Because while there wasn’t...caring, there was something else. Something hot and reckless that burned through her like wildfire. And whatever he had been before, whatever she thought about him, was consumed by it, leaving behind nothing but ash. Making it impossible for her to remember how she had gotten here, and who she was. If she was Princess Talia, or Briar Harcourt. If she was a prisoner, a forced bride, or if she was kissing this man simply because he was the only man she had ever wanted.
For a moment she simply stood there, stood and marveled at the kiss. As his tongue slid over the seam of her lips, requesting entry. She didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what she wanted. Her heart was thundering so hard she was certain that he could hear it. Certain that he could feel it butting up against his own chest as close as he was holding her.
Her arms were pinned to her sides, her hands curled into fists.
But then, his hold on her changed. He shifted, spreading his fingers, holding on to her in a way that was firm, sure and comforting in the oddest way. Then with his other hand he cupped the back of her head, tilting his head and granting himself access to her mouth, tasting her deeply.
After that she was lost. Completely and utterly. In the sensations that were pouring through her body like a liquid flame, in his heat, his presence, the strength of his body. And in the need that she hadn’t realized her body was capable of feeling.
She had always thought she was somewhat dispassionate. After all, she had never even been tempted by the boys she had gone to university with. But that was the problem. The problem, which she had realized that first moment she had laid eyes on Felipe. They were boys. They were nothing but boys, and he was a man. A man who called to everything woman inside her. The man who made her realize that she was a woman.
The man who made her realize what a wonderful thing that was.
Her breasts ached, and he tightened his hold on her, crushing her up against that hard, muscular wall of his chest. She wanted him to touch her. Wanted his hands on her, not just this kind of passive contact that teased her with what she wanted without actually giving it.
As if he read her mind, he shifted, and instead of putting his hands on her he simply let her feel what she did to him. Let her feel the evidence of his own arousal, pressed up against her belly like an iron rod.
She had never been close enough to a man to experience anything like this. And she... She loved it. She was glorying in it. In the effect that she had on him. She didn’t feel awkward. She didn’t feel different. She felt singular. She felt beautiful. That she had the power to affect this man—this glorious, intoxicating man—in the way that she was... How could she feel anything but wholly, purely desired?
Except that he was the man who had kidnapped her. The man who had forced her into this engagement. Those thoughts swirled around in her mind along with the fog of arousal. She knew that she should grasp on to those little bits of sanity. But she didn’t want to. She didn’t want sanity. Not now. She just wanted this. This kind of reckless madness that she was certain would be her undoing.
But she was undone already, wasn’t she? She had been cautioned all her life, told to be careful, and it was all because she was running from this man. But here she was, she was in his palace, she was in his arms, and he was consuming her. It was too late. She had been taken by the dragon, and she might as well give in to this, as well. There was nothing else that could be done. And in this moment, it seemed the most logical thing of all to give him this, too.
He growled, reversing their positions and pressing her back up against the wall. Against the windows that overlooked the garden outside. She knew that—despite the fact it seemed they were in isolation—there were still hundreds of people milling around the palace. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything. Nothing but this.
He moved his hands, dragging them down so that he was gripping her hips, his blunt fingertips digging into her skin. But she liked it. Loved that feeling of him anchoring her to the earth, because she still felt like she was in danger of floating away.
Then his hands moved upward, and he gripped the neckline on her dress, tearing the delicate fabric, exposing her breasts to his hungry gaze. She gasped, wrenching her mouth away from his, the breath dragged from her lungs in long, unsteady pulls.
“Felipe,” she said, gasping his name, but he didn’t seem to listen. Didn’t seem to hear. He was like a man possessed—his dark eyes wild, desperation pouring from him in waves. This was the real man. It was, and she knew it. Shaken, unhinged, broken. Needing something that she wasn’t certain she knew how to give. Something she wasn’t sure she wanted to give.
She had only known him a week. And in that time she had pledged her life to him. But she had not fully known what it might mean to pledge her body to him, as well. She still didn’t. But then he lowered his dark head, sucking one tightened bud deep into his mouth, groaning harshly as he did.
She lifted her hands, not sure if she was moving to hold him to her or push him away. Instead, she ended up threading her fingers through his dark hair, resting them there as he continued to lavish attention on her breasts. And she wondered, just for a moment, what sort of woman she was. She flashed back to those words he had spoken to her. Knowing that he was a monster, she still wanted him.
And seeing him like this now, she wanted him even more. She liked this man better than the playboy she had met the first day. Liked him more than the twisted, cynical prince who always seemed intent on scoring points off her. She liked him sharp, liked him dangerous, with rough edges that could easily cut her all the way down to the bone.
Or perhaps like wasn’t the word. Perhaps it was something deeper than that. Something that cut through the loneliness of that careful childhood she’d led. That strange sense of isolation, of feeling wrong, feeling different, that had always followed her wherever she went.
No, like was not the correct word. She wasn’t sure that she liked any of this. But it was driving her, creating a need inside her as quickly as it satisfied it.
She had spent her entire life fully in control. Of her actions, of her desires, of everything around her. Being so entirely without it was terrifying. Liberating. She should tell him to stop. She should want him to stop. She wasn’t going to. She didn’t want to.
She had a feeling she knew where this was going. She might be inexperienced, but she wasn’t innocent of the way things went between men and women. Though she wasn’t sure she had any way of knowing how she would withstand it. What the consequences might be for her. It was like helplessly clinging to a speeding train, unsure of whether she should ride it out or jump off. Unsure of which might do more damage.
“I have to,” he said, his voice sounding frayed, tortured, as he tilted his head to the side, sliding his tongue down the column of her neck, all the way down to her collarbone and down farther still, tracing the outline of one tightened nipple. “I have to,” he repeated again, tearing her bodice completely so that the whole front of her gown was gaping wide.
She clung to his shoulders, the glass against her back warm now from her body being pressed against it for the past few minutes. She looked beyond him, at the empty ballroom, still all lit up as though it was expecting a crowd. But it was just the two of them now. Just the two of them and the broken glass on the floor and whatever ghosts Felipe was contending with.
He took hold of the flimsy skirt of her gown, curling his fingers around it and tugging it upward, past her hips. Then he pressed one hand between her thighs, bold fingers moving beneath the waistband of her panties, and then on through her slick folds. She was wet for him. There was no hiding it. Not from him, not from herself.
What does that say about you, I wonder?
Those words rolled to her head again, and she pushed them away. It didn’t matter what it said about her. She didn’t care. She had always cared. Had always tried to be the perfect daughter. To do exactly what her parents had told her to do. To earn her position in their household. No, they had never acted as though she had to do that, but it didn’t matter. She had put that weight there. Had done her best to follow their rules, had done her very best to succeed, to be a monument to all that they had poured into her.
This stood in antithesis to that.
This served her. The immediate. The moment. The physical, yawning need inside her. And whatever the consequences might be after, she couldn’t bring herself to think of them now. Couldn’t bring herself to care.
He pressed one finger inside her then drew it back out again, rubbing it over the sensitized bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs. She gasped, letting her head fall back, and he took advantage of that vulnerable position, pressing a hot, openmouthed kiss to the tender skin on her neck.
And all the while he created wicked magic between her legs with his fingers. Made her feel things that she had never imagined possible. Things that she had certainly never managed to make herself feel, no matter how hard she’d tried on long, lonely nights in her bedroom. This was different. This was different because it was him. Because she had no control over what he might do next. Over how hard or soft he might touch her, how quickly he might stroke her, or when he would pull away again.
Then he growled, removing his hand and gripping her hips again, pressing her more firmly against the window. He took hold of one wrist and raised it up over her head, before going to collect the other, pinning that one down, as well, holding her fast with one hand.
He tried to hold her skirt in place with his free hand, but quickly became frustrated and wrenched the skirt to the side, rendering it nothing more than an expensive strip of silk. Her panties suffered the same fate. And she realized she was standing there wearing nothing but the facsimile of a dress in front of this man who might as well be a stranger.
But could he really be considered a stranger now? Now that he had touched her in the most intimate place on her body? Not when she had let him. Surely, they were more than strangers now.
He kissed her then, deep and hard, and she could feel him shifting against her, but it didn’t click exactly what was happening until she felt something hot, blunt and hard pressing up against the entrance of her body. Her stomach went into a freefall, nerves assaulting her. Of course she had known where this was going.
She felt a shock of nerves, but then he was kissing her so long and deep, and her head felt dizzy with desire and pleasure. And nerves didn’t matter anymore. Only how much she wanted him.
He flexed his hips upward, breaching the barrier there, a sharp, tearing sensation assaulting her, making her feel as though she couldn’t breathe. He was too much. Too big. She was too full and it didn’t feel good. She wiggled her hips, trying to get away from him, but she was trapped completely between the hard, uncompromising window, and the hard uncompromising man. And he was too far gone to realize that she was in distress.
He only gripped her harder, retreating from her body before he thrust back inside her again. Only this time, it didn’t hurt quite so bad. This time, a part of her welcomed the feeling of fullness. He retreated again then returned to her. And with each thrust pleasure began to edge out pain. Desire consuming fear.
And then she gave herself up to it, to him. Opened herself to him, rolled her hips in rhythm with his movements. There was nothing gentle about it. Just like her first kiss—which had happened an astonishingly short time ago—this was void of the kind of sweetness and gauzy romance she had always imagined the act would contain.
But she didn’t mourn it. Because she had never wanted anyone else. She wanted him. So how could it be anything other than perfect?
It was a messy kind of perfect. A broken kind of perfect. But as the pleasure built, deep and intense inside her, she realized she didn’t care. He rolled his hips up against hers, and bliss broke over her like a wave on the rocks.
She just shook and rode it out. As she shuddered out her pleasure, turning her face into the curve of his neck, doing her best to hold back the tears that began to push against her eyes, pressure building to almost unbearable levels.
He tightened his hold on her, his thumb and fingers digging so hard into her wrists she was certain it would leave a bruise. And then, he let out a harsh, feral growl as he found his own release. He released his hold on her, burying his fingers into her massive curly hair and claiming her mouth in a kiss that mimicked the act they had just finished.
This was no sweet, silent afterglow. It was a conflagration that still raged on in spite of their release.
And when it was done, he took a step away from her, regarding her with wild, dark eyes. “You will spend the night in my bed tonight,” he said, the words a command and not a request.
And then, he turned away from her, striding away from her, not offering her so much as a comforting touch.
In spite of the heat that was still coursing through her body, she shivered.