Chapter 6
Stazzi had no idea what she was doing sitting in the back of the limousine beside Alexandre, her hand held securely in his much larger one, as they were driven through the lamplit streets of London back to the Meyers Hotel. One of the bodyguards was sitting in the front with the driver, the other five following closely behind in a black SUV. Both vehicles had tinted windows so that no one could see the occupants.
Maybe part of the reason she had agreed to go back to the hotel with Alexandre was because she was still in shock?
Stazzi had done as he’d suggested and called Lissa instead of running after her. Three times. Each time, the call had gone to voice mail. Then she tried texting her friend, asking if Lissa wanted her to come home. Half a minute later she received the text back of “no.” Stazzi’s return of “why not” had eventually been answered with “not there.” She had almost been afraid to ask the next question ‘where?’ There was a much longer pause this time before Lissa replied “with Ash.”
How had she missed what Alexandre so obviously hadn’t, that the sniping between Lissa and Ash was actually a fierce sexual attraction? Lissa had been engaged once a long time ago and been badly stung when it didn’t work out. She never went home with any of the men she had dated since, and tonight, with Ash, hadn’t even been a date.
Come to that, how had Stazzi missed seeing that Will Granger was a two-timing bastard?
Her emotion radar was definitely off-kilter.
Which probably meant acting on her own equally fierce sexual attraction to Alexandre by going back to the hotel with him for his suggested nightcap was also a bad idea.
Probably?
It was a bad idea. If Daniel or any of the other hotel staff saw her—
“Maintaining a hotel guest’s privacy is the whole point of having the separate lift up to the penthouse floor.”
She turned to Alexandre in the semidarkness. “How did you know what I was thinking?”
He smiled. “Your face is sometimes like an open book.”
Really? Did that mean he’d seen the way she couldn’t take her eyes off him this evening? For instance, did he know how watching him eat, the parting of those sculpted lips and the placing of food inside, had made her think of having Alexandre eat her pussy with just as much enjoyment?
“Sometimes?” she repeated nervously.
“Most of the time.” His chuckle was husky.
Oh good Lord, he does know.
“Don’t say it.” Alexandre had turned to place gentle fingertips against her lips as she would have spoken, his face now only inches away from hers in the darkness, his glittering gaze holding her captive. “I promise you that nothing will happen tonight that you don’t want to happen. You only have to say no.”
Which was no help at all, when what Stazzi wanted right now was him. Both of them naked, on that king-size bed in the main bedroom in his hotel suite. She ached to have Alexandre’s hands and lips on her. Her mouth, her breasts, between her thighs. Especially between her thighs. Merely thinking about having his mouth there was making her pussy weep and her clit hard. She clenched her thighs together as she felt the hot flow of juices that dampened her panties.
Bad, bad, bad idea—
She gasped as Alexandre’s mouth replaced his fingertips against her lips. Not gently or questioning, but hard and demanding, his tongue running along the seam of her lips to part them before thrusting fiercely inside.
Oh God, yes!
This was what she wanted, who she wanted, and to hell with everything else.
Stazzi pulled her hand free of Alexandre’s and turned in the seat to put her arms about his shoulders, fingers tangling in the hair at his nape as she pulled him in closer still. Lips devouring, tongues dueling, his chest like steel as he rubbed it against the aroused ache of her nipples.
She gave a low whimper as Alexandre continued to kiss her even as he maneuvered her onto her back on the leather seat, pushing her dress up to her waist before he followed her down to lie between her parted thighs. His cock was long and hard against the thin material of her panties and his trousers as he began to slowly thrust and grind that hardness against her pulsing clit to the same rhythm as his tongue thrusting inside the greedy heat of her mouth.
Stazzi had been in a state of half-arousal all evening as she sat next to Alexandre, and so very aware of everything about him. This overflow of sensations, his claiming lips and tongue, matched with those grinding thrusts against her clit, pushed her over the edge, and she half screamed against his mouth as her orgasm ripped through her and caused her body to arch up into his.
Alexandre continued to taste and lick and bite her lips as he rode her through it, his cock hot and hard against her clit, his hand caressing her waist before moving higher to cup and hold her bare breast, prolonging her orgasm as he pinched and pulled on the sensitive nipple.
“Again!” His eyes glittered down at her in the darkness when he pulled back to hold her gaze captive. His hand moved caressingly down her inner thighs before pulling the lace of her panties aside. “You are so fucking wet,” he groaned. His long fingers stroked that wetness over her swollen nether lips and clit, stroking, moistening, before two of those fingers plunged inside her.
Stazzi cried out even while she continued to arch up and meet those thrusts, the pleasure intense as his thumb pressed and stroked her oversensitive clit and those fingers stroked deeply inside her.
“I’m going to take you so hard once we get back to the hotel.” Alexandre’s voice was guttural, his expression dark and fierce as he looked down at her. He was every inch a demanding and savage lover, rather than the urbane and sophisticated Prince Alexandre. “I’m going to take you everywhere. Be so deep inside you, I’ll fucking own you.”
Stazzi’s breath was a gasping sob as she felt her release surging over and through her for a second time, deeper and more intense than the first, as Alexandre’s fingers curled inside her to touch and stroke a place she never knew existed, and causing her juices to flow more copiously. That elusive G-spot? Stazzi didn’t care what it was, could only scream with pleasure this time as the intensity and length of her second orgasm claimed her and she lost all sense of anything but that overwhelming pleasure.
She had no idea how much time had passed when she finally came back to an awareness of her surroundings. Of Alexandre as he now lay half on her and half on the car seat rather than having his whole weight on top of her.
On the car seat!
The two of them were in the back of his limousine, with a driver and bodyguard seated up front. Okay, so there was a tinted privacy glass dividing the front and back of the car, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been able to hear her screams.
“You’re okay,” Alexandre soothed, his fingers gentle as he caressed away the tears of pleasure from the dampness of her cheeks. “It’s okay, Anastazia—”
“Of course it isn’t okay!” she protested. She wanted to sit up, to tell him to stop the car and let her out here, but unfortunately, her body still felt boneless, even her arms too heavy for her to lift them. The most she could manage was to put her parted legs together now that he was no longer lying between them. “What did you do to me?” Her vision blurred with fresh and mortified tears.
“I only pleasured you. Damn it, it wasn’t my intention to frighten you,” he said with soft self-condemnation, unmoving, as if he didn’t want to alarm her.
As if Stazzi wasn’t spooked enough already!
She had never— It had never been like that for her before. Never.
She was twenty-seven years old, and there had been other men for her. Not many, but some. Men she had cared about, loved for a short time. Like Will— No, not like Will. The men before Will had cared for her too. But none of them had affected her like Alexandre had. She had never passed out from an overload of pleasure as it seemed she might have done with him.
“Anastazia?” Alexandre frowned his concern as the tears continued to trickle down her cheeks. “Did I frighten you?” He sat up and took her with him, straightening her dress before lifting her onto his thighs to hold her tightly in his arms, his face buried in the perfumed silk of her hair. “Please tell me I didn’t hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me.”
“But I frightened you with my intensity?” He knew he’d lost control for a few minutes.
“Not exactly.”
Alexandre gave an impatient shake of his head. “I need you to tell me how you feel. Tell me if I did something wrong.”
Her eyes were downcast as she gave a shake of her head and trembled in his arms, causing fresh tears to fall.
For a moment, Alexandre’s heart ceased to beat at the thought of having frightened her so much she couldn’t even talk to or look at him. “I know I was out of control.” His arms tightened about her. “But I never want to hurt you, Anastazia. Please, stop crying.”
“I’m not crying because you hurt me, Alexandre.” She raised her head to gaze at him through tear-wet lashes. “I’m crying because that was amazing. Totally crazy too,” she conceded wryly. “Sensual overload.” One of her hands moved up to his clenched jaw, fingers a light caress to ease his tension. “But now I need for you to take me home.”
Alexandre’s gut clenched at the thought of not being with her tonight. All night. “I know you’re worried about Lissa, but I seriously doubt she’ll be back to your apartment until the morning, and we would be more comfortable together at the hotel.” He glanced pointedly at the bodyguard in the front of the car. “Where I go, they go,” he reminded her.
“I realize that.” Stazzi sighed, her cheeks burning at the memory of her screams. Screams those men couldn’t have helped but overhear. “But the same doesn’t apply to me. And I do really need to go home. Alone. This is all… It’s too much too fast, Alexandre,” she added as his expression darkened.
“I’m only in London for a week,” he groaned as she moved out of his arms.
Stazzi knew that. As she knew also at the end of that week, this ruling prince would return to his island, and she would never see him again. She needed time, away from Alexandre, to gather together her fractured thoughts and emotions—and her shattered and satiated body—because when she was with him, she couldn’t think beyond the moment, let alone what the consequences might be of falling for this man.
It was only twenty-four hours since she had believed she would be agreeing to marry another man. This attraction to Alexandre could merely be a reaction to that, on the rebound, because she felt so hurt and humiliated—
I was attracted to him before I knew what a bastard Will is.
Well, yes, she had been, but it was an attraction she had denied, out of misplaced loyalty to Will. And despite now knowing of Will’s betrayal, she simply wasn’t the type to jump into bed with a man after knowing him for only one day.
I don’t seem to have any problem with that in the back of his limousine.
Because Alexandre was like no other man she had ever met. On the surface so suave and charming, controlled, but underneath that was the dark and intense savage who had made love to her while telling her he was going to “fucking own her.”
She gave a shiver, unsure whether it was one of apprehension or anticipation. And if it was the latter, what did that make her? What would it do to her to be owned by this man, body and soul, and then discarded, forgotten, when he returned to his Mediterranean island?
Alexandre was a prince, unmarried or even engaged, but she had no doubts that he would be, and not too far in the future. He was aged in his midthirties, a ruling prince, and one day very soon, he would need an heir. If she hadn’t been good enough for Will, she certainly wasn’t good enough for this rich-as-Croesus prince.
Nor, once Alexandre married, was she mistress material. It simply wasn’t in her to hurt another woman by sneaking around behind her back by having an affair with her husband. Her parents had brought her up never to do anything to another person she wouldn’t want done to her. Which meant she could never be any man’s mistress. Even more so when she could still feel the humiliation of knowing Will had cheated on her in that very same way.
And she was jumping way ahead of herself. Yes, there was no doubt that Alexandre wanted her now, tonight, maybe even for the rest of the week he was in London, but nothing he had said or done indicated he would be interested in continuing any sort of relationship with her once he returned to Androcco and his life there.
Better not to become involved in the first place—
“Have dinner with me tomorrow night. Just the two of us. At the hotel.”
“I can’t…” she groaned.
“You can,” Alexandre pressed, not touching her, but his proximity was overpowering nonetheless. “All you have to do is say yes. Say yes, Anastazia.”
“Ye— No,” she substituted with a decisive shake of her head. “This evening was…different,” she acknowledged ruefully as she thought of Lissa’s and Ash’s behavior, and the fact that her best friend was, in all probability, going to spend the night with the other man. That really was different. “I enjoyed this evening, I really did. But I’ve had a stressful couple of days and…and I don’t want to… Please understand, my last relationship ended only last night, and this—you and I, the attraction between us—could merely be a reaction to the abrupt ending of that relationship. I’m sorry.” She grimaced, heart sinking as that frown became even darker on Alexandre’s brow, his eyelids narrowing to slits over glittering eyes. No doubt as physical evidence he didn’t like what she had just said.
He confirmed that was the case by moving back to his own side of the car before pressing a button on a panel in the door. “Miss Carmichael’s apartment, if you please, Tomas,” he spoke into the intercom, giving the other man the address.
“Yes, Your Highness,” came the immediate response from the front of the limousine as the car immediately changed direction.
“I really am sorry, Alexandre.” Stazzi winced at the remoteness of his expression in profile as he looked out the side window rather than at her.
“No problem,” he dismissed tightly.
Neither of them spoke for the rest of the journey to Stazzi’s apartment. Her own feelings were ones of discomfort at that taut silence, but she had no idea how Alexandre felt or what he was thinking as he continued to keep his distance from her, physically as well as emotionally.
Finally, she couldn’t stand that silence any longer. “Are we parting as bad friends?”
Alexandre almost laughed at the ridiculousness of that question. He didn’t want to be friends with Anastazia. Damn it, he had wanted her, in his bed, before he even met her. He wanted her even more since meeting her. The last thing he wanted to hear from her was that her responses to him could just be on the rebound from her last boyfriend.
How fucking ironic was that? The international playboy prince who’d had any woman he wanted, now the ruling prince of Androcco, who had only to snap his fingers to have any woman he wanted, being told by the one woman he did want that her attraction to him might have been on the fucking rebound.
There had to be some sort of poetic justice in that.
All these years, Alexandre had never felt any more than a fleeting desire for the women he took to bed. Even though several of them had professed to be in love with him, he had never returned those feelings. Now the one woman he wanted so badly it made his teeth ache didn’t feel the same way about him.
Poetic justice, indeed.
“Alexandre, please…”
He turned at the sound of her beseeching tone. “What do you want from me, Anastazia? I listened to what you had to say, I accepted your decision, and you are now being driven back to your apartment, as requested. What else do you want from me?”
Her gaze roamed searchingly over his face for several seconds before her lashes lowered and she sighed before turning away. “Obviously, nothing else.”
Alexandre’s hands clenched on his thighs in his frustration with this situation. This was unchartered territory for him, and he had no idea what to do or say to break the tension that now existed between them.
There was so much he wanted to say. But he very much doubted Anastazia wanted to hear that he believed her ex-boyfriend was an idiot. That Alexandre had wanted her from the moment he saw her photograph on the hotel website. That he wanted her still. Ached with wanting her, in fact. No, Anastazia’s behavior made it clear she didn’t want to hear any of those things from him.
So he said nothing.
They arrived outside her apartment a few minutes later, Tomas parking the car before immediately getting out to come round to the back of the vehicle to open Anastazia’s door for her so she could step out onto the pavement.
“Don’t bother to get out.” She didn’t look directly at Alexandre as he would have slid across the seat to follow her. “Thank you for this evening. I— No matter what you may think, I did enjoy myself.” Her gaze was lowered to the pavement rather than him as she turned and walked away.
To hell with that!
Alexandre caught up with her as she was putting in the code to open the door and enter the building. He grasped her arm and swung her round to face him, his anger dissipating as she looked up at him with blue eyes swimming in tears. “Anastazia!” he groaned as he pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against him, his cheek resting on the top of her sweet-smelling hair.
Stazzi’s arms moved about Alexandre’s waist, her cheek pressed against his chest as her tears now dampened the front of his shirt. “Please don’t be angry with me.”
He snorted. “You do know that your ex-boyfriend is an idiot, don’t you?” He couldn’t hold back on that comment any longer.
She laughed without humor. “I do, yes.”
“Good.” Alexandre held her tighter still. “I’m not asking this time, Anastazia, I’m telling you. We’re having dinner together tomorrow evening at seven o’clock in my hotel suite.”
She lifted her head to look up at him quizzically. “Oh, we are, are we?”
“Yes.” He returned her gaze challengingly. “Dress casual. We’ll order room service, burgers maybe, and then we’ll watch a movie together of your choosing. Okay?”
Her smile was less strained. “Okay.”
“And if Daniel Meyers wants to know what you’re doing in my suite, you can tell him I want to discuss the arrangements for the rest of the week.” He dismissed that problem.
She eyed him teasingly. “What arrangements would they be?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” he announced arrogantly. “But you can rest assured they all involve the two of us getting to know each other better.”
“Okay,” she said again.
“Okay?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all it took to get you to agree?” His brows rose. “A little bit of arrogance on my part?”
“Well, it was hardly little, and you are a prince…”
He winced. “Don’t remind me.”
She laughed softly. “Not as glamorous as it sounds?”
“Not glamorous at all.” He sighed with a pointed look at the bodyguards who had left the limousine and black SUV and were now standing only feet away in a protective circle, not quite in listening distance but close enough to make their presence felt. “No privacy either.”
Anastazia glanced at the other men too. “I see what you mean. Okay, burgers from room service and a movie tomorrow evening it is.”
“Thank you.”
She eyed him mischievously. “You don’t know what movie I’m going to choose yet!”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be watching the movie anyway,” he confided huskily.
He was going to be watching her, Stazzi realized. At the same time as she realized she didn’t mind.
Those few minutes of tension between them a few minutes ago, when she was sure Alexandre didn’t want to see her again, had at least shown her that she did want to see and be with him again.
And it had nothing at all to do with being on the rebound from Will…