by Pippa Roscoe
He took her lips with his, pressing against the perfect pink plumpness, lathing it with his tongue, drawing moans of pleasure as he plunged into her hot, wet depths, knowing that they were both imagining his tongue somewhere else on her body.
He wanted skin against skin, he wanted to see the rosy, taut nipple he could feel pressing through the material that separated them. He wanted to taste it, tease it.
The dress was beautiful, but it was in the way. His hands ran down her sides, looking for a zip, something, anything to release her from the wrapping and get to the present of her body beneath. He groaned when he could not find anything.
‘Theo?’
‘The dress...it’s...’
She groaned her own frustration. ‘It needed nearly two people to get me into the damn thing.’
He looked down on her, for a moment their shared frustration a shared amusement.
‘It will only need me to get you out of it,’ he said, giving her one last assessing gaze before he took the bottom of the dress, found the side-seam and tore apart the fabric with his hands.
The squeal, almost guilty in its pleasure, that came from Sofia drew an impossible smile from his lips. A smile that died the moment he took in the body that he had been dying to see, touch, taste for nearly ten years.
She was incredible. Her chest bare to him completely, the perfect rounds of her breasts, full and almost tear-shaped against her torso, only her modesty covered by the thin scrap of lace that he had encountered between her legs. She tried to hide from him, her face turned aside as if she was embarrassed by her own skin. Her knees came together before him, as if she was protecting herself from him. He couldn’t help the words of praise that fell against her skin.
‘Do not hide from me, Sofia. Not now,’ he growled, hating how his voice almost broke under the power of his arousal, of his desire for her. His hands went to her knees, gently levering them apart to make room for him as he leaned over her, finally taking one of her nipples between his lips, lathing it and toying it into perfect hard submission.
Her back arched upwards, against his mouth, the almost sob that fell from her lips the greatest satisfaction. He worked his mouth and lips lower, in open-mouthed kisses, leaving a damp trail that he knew the air would cool, sending shivers of arousal over her skin.
‘Theo,’ she begged and the sound of his name on her pleasure-filled voice nearly undid him.
‘You want me here, Sofia? My touch, my tongue?’ he demanded.
‘You would make me beg?’ Her voice broke.
‘I would make you own it, own your pleasure, Sofia.’
Each time he said her name, her pupils dilated with pleasure. He almost couldn’t say it enough. She nodded but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to hear it, hear her wants, desires...needs.
For a moment they simply stared, the war of control ebbing and flowing between them like a tide, as he held himself back from what they both so desperately wanted. Until she said it, until she commanded it, until she gave in to it.
‘Yes, Theo. I want—’
Her words were lost to a cry of pleasure as he pulled aside the thin, silken material between her legs, as he uncovered the heart of her with his tongue, as he lathed the length of her and returned again and again to the one place that drew the most exquisite sounds of tormented need from her.
Her hips bucked beneath his ministrations, and he placed a hand low on her abdomen to hold her in place for him, his thumb stroking the silken curls hiding her womanhood.
He took her to the brink of her pleasure again and again, refusing to let her fall. Because when she did, he wanted her to be there with him.
‘Theo, please...’
He knew what she wanted, what he wanted, for the first time their needs the same.
He reached into the pocket of the trousers he still wore, finding the slim wallet and retrieving the foil packet it contained. He left her body only to discard the trousers, never once taking his eyes from her, as he placed the latex over himself.
‘This is the last time I will ask, Sofia. If you have any doubts—’
This time it was she that cut off his words, reaching up to pull him down to her, her hot hand like an anchor at the base of his neck, her legs parting for him as if welcoming him home, her lips barely an inch away from his as she said, ‘This is what I want, Theo. That is the last time you will ask me.’
Never had he seen her so regal, so commanding, so powerful in her focus, her intent, her need.
He slid into her, filling her slowly, shifting and...
And the moment he felt her tense, he stopped. Shock and surprise as much in him as it was in her. Theos, he hadn’t even thought. Hadn’t even imagined...
‘Sofia—’
‘Wait, please...just...’
His body was almost shaking, and he bit back the curse that lay on his tongue. As the implications of her innocence struck him, anger poured through him and he realised the true extent of the lies of her first marriage. She was a virgin and he had not known. And somewhere deep within him that made him both fiercely angry and deeply satisfied. But he held back, because he knew his fury would scare her. Damn, her naivety burned him, etching her name on his soul.
As her body relaxed into him, she moved her hips experimentally beneath him.
‘Sofia,’ he tried again, tried to warn her of what she had already lost.
‘I knew what I was asking for, Theo.’
No, she hadn’t known. But she would. Soon, she would know and for the first time he hated himself for the path he had set for them both.
She shifted once more against him, his body utterly at her mercy now. All thought fled and, coward that he was, he hid in his body’s needs, in Sofia’s wants, and finally released the hold he had on his control.
Gently, so gently, he withdrew from her, only to resume a torturously slow return. Subconsciously his body recognised the difference, the change from hurried intent to languorous pleasure, pleasure that was to be all hers.
Theo lost track of time in the sounds of her cries, needful and wanting, he knew only the ripple of her skin, the acres of smooth silk beneath his hands, the warm, luxuriously wet heat of her as he drew them towards the point of completion again and again.
Finally, at Sofia’s desperate pleas, he took them into an abyss full of starlight and his last thought was that he was fundamentally changed for ever.
* * *
As the water poured over her skin, her heart still racing from what they had shared, still pounding before she’d even lifted her eyes to the scattered stars across the still night sky through the large windows of her room, she marvelled at the stretch of unfamiliar muscles across her body. Languid, but poised, as if already wanting Theo again.
She had meant what she’d said. She had known what she was asking for, asking of him. But she had not realised that it would make her feel... She shook her head in the shower, scattering drops of water from her hair. What did she feel? It was too much for words.
But there were words she did know. She knew that they needed to talk. Needed to confront the past...or as much of that night, ten years before, as she would be able to share. Because whether he’d wanted to or not, he had given her a moment of choice, of control. And as a result, it had become vital that she explain, vital that he knew that she hadn’t had a choice when she’d left that night. That she hadn’t purposefully set him up as he clearly believed. She couldn’t tell him everything, the secret that locked her heart tight against the truth of her father’s diagnosis, the secret that was to protect her country from instability and chaos, one so deep she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to reveal it. But she hoped that she could give him something...give him some sense of resolution about the past. Give him some truth amongst the one lie she still maintained.
She left the shower, wrapping herself in the large towel and retrievin
g a lightweight trouser suit, readily accepting any armour she could against the conversation that she knew would follow, any protection against Theo’s impossibly penetrating gaze.
She dressed and went to sit beside the large windows, peering through the darkness to the elusive shadowscape of her beautiful country. The rolling hills she knew lay beneath the deep night, the mountains in the distance, and all the sleeping inhabitants of Iondorra in between. She heard him stir behind her, the sound of his roughened palm against the smooth silk of the chaise longue, consciously or unconsciously reaching for her, she wondered.
‘We should talk.’
‘Then I should have coffee.’
She gestured to a coffee machine in the corner of the living suite of her rooms. Soon, she heard the spluttering, juddering sound it made as it filled the air with the fragrant, almost bitter taste of coffee that instantly made her mouth water, and turned to find him standing there in his suit trousers and nothing else. She pushed down the distraction of the smooth planes of sun-darkened skin across his powerful torso. They needed to have this conversation. If there was any hope...
‘If we’re going to marry—’
‘If?’
‘If we’re going to marry, then we need to clear the air. We... I need to tell you about that night.’
Nothing in him moved, not a muscle or a flicker of his eyes. Brooding and powerful. She’d always sensed that ability in him, latent, shimmering beneath the surface, but now? Now it had exploded in a technicolour aura that even the most obtuse would be able to identify. The alpha.
‘Would you like to sit?’ she said, gesturing to one of the two chairs framing yet another large set of windows.
‘I’ll stand.’
She nodded, returning her gaze to the panes of glass, but instead only seeing his reflection appearing behind her. Somehow she had always felt his presence, waiting, hovering over her shoulder.
‘It may not surprise you to know that I was a wilful child. Stubborn and mischievous. My parents despaired of me. I managed to outwit at least three of the most professional nannies and au pairs Europe had to offer. Two were more than happy to sign non-disclosure agreements protecting their reputations as much as my family’s. The last, instead, chose a change in her career path. I believe she is now working with horses.’ She paused, taking a breath. Steeling herself against what she was to say. ‘It’s hard to explain what life was like growing up the only child to two parents whose first and last duty is to their country. Especially when one’s own nature seems to run contrary to that sense of duty and self-sacrifice.
‘When my parents agreed to enter me at the boarding school with my mother’s maiden name, it was excused as being for my protection,’ she said, with an absent laugh. ‘It may have even been to protect the royal name, in case my wildness ruined that too.’
‘In case?’ Theo queried, as if the thought of her being anything other than the reckless, wayward teenager was impossible.
‘But for me it was my one chance. Not to be seen as a royal, not to be the woman who would one day rule a country from beneath her father’s long shadow, he the perfect king, and me the improper princess. In truth, we’re quite minor royals in the grand scheme of Europe’s nobility. It was surprisingly easy, especially given the infamy of many of the other students at the school.
‘And at first it was easy. Creating the lies that kept my identity secret. They gave me protection from having to join many of the friendship groups my parents thought would help iron out my unsuitable behaviours. It allowed for me to be seen as me. And you were such a breath of fresh air to me, and I... I relished it. You didn’t treat me as if I would break, or as if I was a disappointment, a failure. You just saw...me. You laughed with me, teased me and I couldn’t get enough.
‘Rather than bowing and bending to the rules of the school, I struggled against them, seeing it only as another form of constraint, another cage I would eventually swap with a crown.’ Sofia took a deep sigh, sore and hurting for the child she had been. ‘Much of my behaviour then was selfish and, yes, without thought for the consequences of my actions. I am sorry that I lied to you about who I was but... at the time it was my only comfort. The only light I felt within a bound and trapped existence.’
She watched as Theo shook his head against her words. ‘You may excuse your lies as much as you want, but you knew what you were doing, knew that it was impossible for you to run away with me as you begged me to.’
She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. ‘I think... I think that I believed the story I had told. I wanted so much to go with you, to run away from the school, from my responsibilities, from my future. The hours we spent talking about how it would be, where we would go, they had painted a future so firm in my mind that I...’ She had thought she would die if she did not live it. ‘Honestly, Theo—of all things, believe that what we shared was what was in my heart. I had no intention of making you take the fall for the prank on the headmaster’s car. I had no intention of you being expelled.’
‘Then what happened?’ he demanded.
‘I’d been furious with the headmaster. In design class, I and three others had been assigned a group project, but Anna—one of the group—had needed to return home and failed to pass on her part of the project and the remaining three of us were given detentions by the headmaster for not fulfilling the brief. It seems so petty now, but...then? It had seemed like a great injustice. So we hatched the prank to end all pranks. He loved his Mini Cooper. It was the most precious thing he owned, I think. We realised that if we could put two long planks up against the side of the sports hall, we could get the car onto the roof. Between us, the weight of the car wasn’t too much, but the sharp edge of the wheel arch hurt, so I used your scarf to protect my hands and... I must have left it behind.
‘I had arranged to meet you, to tell you about it. That was my surprise. I had...been showing off, I suppose. But an hour before I was supposed to meet you that night, there was a knock at my door. When I saw my parents standing there, I thought that they had discovered my part of the prank, I thought that they might have discovered my relationship with you. I was frightened then. For you, for me... So I was confused when...’
And now she began to pick and choose her words. She couldn’t reveal her father’s diagnosis. They were not yet married, the risk to the country still too great. Perhaps if somehow they managed to pull this marriage off then she could finally unburden herself of her secrets. But not yet. She had already prepared this speech, spent hours of each night in the last month, since he’d forced her hand, trying to work out the best possible threads to share, to unearth, to expose...
‘They told me they had come to take me home. Iondorra was in a delicate state politically. There was a trend at the time for the smaller European countries to exchange royal rule for political governance, but our parliament was neither old nor strong enough to assume control. But there was enough talk within the parliament to force my father’s hand and have me return in order to assume responsibilities much sooner than intended.’
He had still not moved, and she was still ensnared in his predatory gaze, as if his eyes were gently pressing against her words to find the truth of them.
‘That night it was agreed that I would return to the palace, and begin learning what I would need.’
She had thought that at the very least she’d have two years before she would even have to start thinking of assuming royal duties. Two years in which maybe she could come to an understanding with her father...and if her father could just meet Theo—see what she saw in him—maybe she could somehow get him to recognise their marriage. Even now, her thoughts showed just how naïve she had truly been then.
In a rush she had told her parents about him. Explained that she was in love, begged and pleaded with them not to do this. Not to take her away from him. She remembered the way she had pulled on her father’s lapels with white-knuckl
ed hands, the way her mother had looked at her with both sympathy and pity.
But, as had been made painstakingly clear to her that night, she was their country’s future and could no longer entertain a dalliance with ‘that Greek’, as her father had called him, her father’s fear and frustration severing the softness of his affection for her and the freedom he had so often before encouraged.
‘Could you not have come to me? Could you not have explained? Could you not have told me so that when the headmaster discovered me I could defend myself? So that I could make him believe my innocence?’ His words were quietly spoken, but nonetheless whip-quick and just as painful, and Sofia resisted her body’s urge to flinch.
‘No and no,’ she said sadly, because in truth—she still could not. She knew that the excuses she had presented to him, while very much real, were not the whole story. And she counted on his anger as much as her hope for his understanding—because if he was angry he might not see the gaping holes in what she had told him.
‘Would you make the same decision again?’
He almost wished he could recall the words the moment that they left his lips. But he knew he needed to hear her answer as much as he needed her to say them. If she said no, then he might try to find a way out of this, to extricate himself from his path of revenge. It was as if there was a tide between them, pushing one way and pulling another. He felt like a man drowning, knowing that one push of the ocean would take him to the depths, one pull could see him back to shore, to safety, to a future he could have only prayed for.
As if Sofia felt that same tide, that same sense of the precipice before them, she turned to him, finally facing him, drawing herself up to her full height, her chin angled up as if to meet an oncoming army.
‘There was never a choice. For my country, for my duty, yes. I would do it again in a heartbeat.’