The Princess Stakes

by Amalie Howard

  The result of hard outdoor labor was what she saw now. Acres of bronzed muscles spanned his broad chest, covered in a light patch of brownish-gold hair that arrowed down his hard stomach…where more stacked muscles vied for attention.

  A shirtless Rhystan wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before on the Belonging—she’d gawked enough from her perch on deck. But ogling from afar and knowing she was seconds away from running her fingers over all those mouthwatering ridges and valleys were two vastly different things. She swallowed hard as his fingers unbuttoned his trousers, letting them gap open to hang on his narrow hips as memories of his cabin swamped her.

  Pausing, his eyes lifted, his gaze full of wickedness. “More?”

  “Definitely more.”

  With a grin, he gave her what she wanted, shoving the fabric down until he was standing there like a proud warrior god. Nude, muscled, spectacular. All he was missing was a wreath of laurel leaves and a sword.

  Well, she supposed he did have a sword of sorts. Her eyes dipped to view a very prominent, large, heart-palpitating weapon jutted from his groin. Her mouth dried as her gaze dashed away, a hand flying up to her throat. Sarani couldn’t breathe because her damned lungs refused to work.

  “Guh…”

  And evidently, intelligent speech had deserted her as well.

  Rhystan grinned and joined her on the bed. Despite her momentary panic—she was not uninformed in the ways of carnal joining, after all—Sarani gave in to her desires, letting her palms run over his thick arms. “No wonder you’re so strong,” she murmured. “You’re as hard as rock.”

  “Lately, my natural state where you’re concerned,” he said with a pointed look down.

  He was teasing her, but yes, that was hard, too. A sudden burst of nerves skittered through her. Was she really going to do this? Give him her maidenhead? Offer him her body without the vows of marriage in place?

  Sarani almost laughed out loud. Given Rhystan wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing and she wasn’t covered in much more, they were quite beyond the point of misgivings. But a lifetime of indoctrination regarding a woman’s place and a woman’s worth did not vanish so easily.

  His fingers caressed her cheek, his gray-blue eyes the color of a brewing storm. “What is it? You don’t have to do this.”

  “No, I want to do this. With you.” She searched for the right words, wanting to articulate what she felt. “Right here and right now with nothing between us…no titles, no rules, no duty. Just you and me. A man and a woman making a choice to…” Make love.

  It wasn’t love. Sarani knew that.

  She bit her lip, cheeks going hot. “Do what we’re doing.”

  “Fucking,” he said helpfully.

  “Must you be so vulgar?”

  He kissed her, biting her lower lip and tugging on the ties to her night rail. The garment loosened with shameless ease, pooling to her hips in a glimmer of silk and lace. “You like it.”

  “I do,” she admitted on a moan as his clever mouth dipped to find her bare breast.

  “You have the most beautiful nipples, Sarani.” Goodness, she loved it when he called her by her real name and not Sara as she insisted. It made her think that his affection hadn’t all been burned away by betrayal. “Your skin is like velvet, and I want to gobble you up.” He tossed away the night rail and lowered her to the bed before turning his attention to her other breast. She whimpered as his teeth grazed the sensitive peak. “Tell me what you want.”

  “You,” she said breathlessly.

  His hands slid down to cup between her legs, and Sarani arched beneath him, a shock of hot need blooming beneath his palm. “You need to be more specific,” he said, kissing up her throat. “I need to be certain.”

  His grinning mouth captured hers in a drugging kiss. Goodness, he was ruthless. She squirmed under him, knowing exactly what he wanted her to say and shying away from it. She couldn’t possibly be so crude. “I…I want you to take me.”

  “Take you where? To the theater? The opera?”

  “Brute!”

  Sarani would have shoved him away if what he was doing with his tongue wasn’t so heady. He was back to her breasts, alternating between her pebbled nipples, and as it was, she was hard-pressed not to have her eyes roll back in her head from the pleasure streaking through her.

  “Tell me, Sarani, what do you want?” He pressed one finger between her slippery folds. “Do you want this?”

  “Yes,” she gasped, rolling her hips to increase the delicious friction.

  He withdrew his finger, the cruel wretch, caging her against the mattress with his big, heavy body. “Then say it. Say the dirty, filthy, vulgar word.”

  “Fine. I want you to…fuck me. Happy?” Her cheeks flamed, but strangely, the crass demand made her feel powerful, especially when she saw the answering flare of his irises. That she could reduce the dominant, formidable man above her to a mass of want and desire made her feel bold. “I need you inside me, Rhystan. Now.”

  Her smug-faced lover rewarded her with a deep kiss and then positioned himself on top of her, his hips in the cradle of hers. “As my princess wishes.”

  “I’m not a princess.”

  Sarani stared at him, seeing nothing but hunger for her in those beautiful storm-ridden eyes. There was no judgment there, only need. A need that was deeply, fiercely reciprocated.

  “No,” he whispered, notching himself at her entrance. “You’re a queen.”

  And then he slid into her body.

  Sarani nearly screamed, clutching at his shoulders. The fit was distressingly tight, the friction almost impossible to bear as her untried body adjusted to his size.

  “Sarani? Are you all right?” Rhystan’s face was strained, a muscle flexing in his cheek.

  “Yes,” she said. “But go slowly. Are you in pain?”

  He shook his head. “No. You feel so good. So tight.”

  Only when he was finally seated did she attempt to pull a breath into her lungs. The movement pushed her breasts into his chest, the rub of his hair against her sensitive nipples making pleasure spiral through her. She felt so full, so deliciously full of him as her body accommodated his alarming girth.

  “Oh, my word,” she blurted out. “That was rather not what I expected. Then again, it’s simple mathematics—volume and displacement really. I should not have been surprised, given your dimensions.”

  “Dimensions?”

  A smile stretched his lips, one brown brow arching with amusement. She was babbling like a lunatic, while he was still seated inside her.

  “Size, then,” she said, blushing. “Er, what’s next?” She bit her lips, fighting for composure. She did not want to seem like an oblivious, incompetent henwit, even though she was technically incompetent. “I seem to recall a promise about not being able to speak my own name? Was that a euphemism?”

  With a low laugh, Rhystan shifted his hips, drawing a gasp from her. “I always deliver on my promises. No speech, guaranteed.”

  He withdrew and slid back in, to her sublime delight, the erotic push and pull making her body crave deeper and faster contact. Instinctively, Sarani rolled her pelvis forward on the next thrust, ripping a growl from his chest as she lifted her hips to take him deep.

  “Yes, love, like that.”

  His face was still scrunched, his eyes dilated with pleasure as his body worked. Every slow rock of his huge frame sent her spiraling higher and higher, climbing toward some invisible summit. “Rhystan, please… I need…”

  “I know, sweetheart.” He took her lips with his, a warm palm finding her breast and kneading. The sensation gathering within her was almost too much. Her skin felt like it was on fire, her very soul enflamed.

  When she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, her moans dissolving into incoherent sounds, Rhystan reached his hand between them and slid his han
ds to the top of her sex, circling a spot that made her body bend like a bow. One swipe of his fingers and she was shattering into a million pieces of light as her orgasm crested and broke.

  A few short thrusts later, Rhystan followed her into bliss, a groan wrenching from his chest as he pulled from her body and spent his seed on the sheets between them. Sated and undone, Sarani exhaled, grateful that at least one of them had been thinking about the probability of conception.

  Her heart gave a sad twinge. If circumstances had been different…he might have finished inside. Then, they would have cherished whatever came of their union. But those stars had never aligned and that future was not to be. They were merely lovers, not in love. They’d fucked, in his blunt words. They hadn’t made love.

  Love did not factor into anything between them. In the wake of such devastating pleasure, Sarani suddenly felt a beat of sorrow. She shook it off. She hadn’t done it for love. There’d been very practical reasons, very rational reasons. Her virginity did not belong to the male sex to do with as they pleased. She’d wanted to experience carnal pleasure with a man she trusted with her body. And life was too short for regret.

  Nothing to do with love whatsoever.

  Twenty

  If he could have booted the man out on his pompous arse, Rhystan would have. Bloody fortune hunter. Viscount Marvelle was in debt up to his ears, and Rhystan had nearly laughed at the ludicrous offer of marriage for Ravenna.

  How much is the chit’s dowry? The duns are after me. I’ll take her off your hands.

  Marvelle was lucky he was leaving the residence with his legs in good working order. Rhystan wished he could say the same for his unraveling temper. He rubbed his temples. That was the sixth offer this week, all from known scoundrels. Titled gentlemen, but sodding wastrels. Once he’d reinstated Ravenna’s considerable dowry, they’d come out of the woodwork.

  Lord Belford, heir to a marquess, was a known gambler. Lord Penderton, an earl in his own right, was barely hanging on to his entailed estates. Mr. Lincoln Trent, son of a prominent barrister, had three by-blows living with him and was a known profligate. Rhystan respected the man’s decision to acknowledge his progeny, but a man who fathered God knew how many children with different women was not the husband for his little sister.

  None of them were sodding good enough.

  Just like you.

  The wayward thought struck him hard.

  The truth was, who was he to talk? He’d ruined an innocent woman—a royal no less—because he needed to sate his lust. All because he wanted her. Rhystan raked a hand through his hair, stalking to the mantel where he poured himself a full tumbler of whisky.

  “She consented,” he muttered. “We both knew what we were doing.”

  Doesn’t mean she wasn’t innocent.

  She’d been a virgin. Sarani had been so passionate, so responsive, but innate sensuality did not imply that she was experienced. Rhystan didn’t know what he’d been expecting. She’d been engaged to Talbot for a few years. In hindsight, he’d made a stupid assumption. Sarani was Sarani.

  Rhystan scowled. Hell, he was the worst kind of cad. Worse than Trent possibly.

  He tipped up the whisky, feeling its contents burn a hot path to his stomach and waiting for the ease it would eventually bring. In the meantime, his thoughts remained on Sarani. In the aftermath, they’d lain together in his bed in a strange sort of comfortable quiet.

  Neither of them had spoken until he’d risen to find a cloth, which he had used to wipe away the evidence of both her virginity and his prudence.

  “Do you wish to return to Huntley House?” he’d asked. She’d stared at him, eyes unreadable, the barest flicker of something in them. Regret? Hurt? It had made his sudden awkward vulnerability become more acute. “Before it gets too late.”

  “I suppose I should return,” she said, rising gracefully from the bed like the apsara he’d likened her to.

  It’d been on the tip of his tongue to beg her to stay, but he’d held back. Once was enough. More than enough for them to get whatever it was between them out of their systems. Once would have to suffice. From then on out, abstinence would be in order.

  As she’d dressed and retied her cloak, Sarani had glanced at the bed and then at the discarded cloth with pale-pink stains discoloring the pristine linen, her cheeks tinting. “Won’t Harlowe…” She’d trailed off, embarrassed.

  “I’ll toss it in the grate. No one will know.”

  She’d nodded, pinning her lips. “Thank you.”

  Rhystan did not know how he’d had the presence of mind to withdraw, given his insensible state at the time, but she was inexperienced. He was not. Conception was not an outcome for either of them: him as a seafaring duke, her as an independent spinster. Their lives were meant to diverge at the end of their pact.

  Sex did not change anything.

  Until it does.

  With a snarl at the logical voice in his head, he scrubbed a hand over his face, stopping himself from getting another drink. Whisky solved nothing.

  “Your Grace?” Harlowe asked, knocking on the door to the study. “Her ladyship has sent a messenger inquiring whether you will attend the Van Dunne masquerade this evening.”

  Rhystan’s eyes narrowed. “Which her ladyship? My sister, my mother, or my…or Lady Sara?”

  “The second, Your Grace. She is adamant that she must receive a response.”

  Of course she was. Rhystan groaned. The last thing he needed was yet another ball, but a part of him knew he needed to come up with better suitors for his sister. And the truth was, he wanted to see Sarani again. In a safe place, surrounded by people, where he would not do anything untoward like drag her off to a deserted alcove to ravish her.

  He’d done that already.

  He truly was a dreadful excuse for a duke.

  “Inform the duchess I will attend,” he said.

  Appearances had to be maintained. For Ravenna’s sake, anyway.

  * * *

  Playing the wallflower on the fringes of the Van Dunne ball, Sarani did not feel any different. Not that she’d expected to—but she’d imagined that being ruined would feel somewhat salacious. That people would be able to see through the haze of immorality surrounding her.

  Then again, she was wearing a mask. She huffed a laugh—not that the aristocracy didn’t wear figurative masks every single day. Very few let their real selves be seen for fear of being hurt or ridiculed by their peers. For all their culture and confidence, fashion and fortunes, aristocrats were extraordinarily frail. Like almost everyone else, Sarani supposed.

  Ravenna and Rhystan caught her eye as they twirled past. They made a stunning pair. Ravenna was radiant in a ball gown the colors of the sunset and a beautiful red-feathered mask, and Rhystan wore black. Without a mask. Sarani wondered if he’d done it to be contrary. Or perhaps he was one of those few who refused to hide who he was. She frowned, recalling his stony-faced demeanor in his bedchamber.

  No, Rhystan’s masks lay behind his eyes and appeared at will.

  Few ever saw the real man.

  “You won’t have him, you know,” a waspish voice taunted.

  Sarani turned to see a lady in a buttercup-yellow gown with a Venetian-style mask hiding her identity, but those spiteful eyes were instantly recognizable. Lady Penelope, if Sarani were to hazard an educated guess. Given Sarani also wore a mask, she wondered how the woman had recognized her in the first place. Then again, she’d be standing with Ravenna, who was now dancing with her brother, the maskless duke. And from Penelope’s tone, she’d been watching Sarani since their arrival.

  She looked away. “Why is that?”

  “You’re a nobody,” she said. “The dowager duchess won’t stand for it. No one in the ton will stand for it.”

  “Good thing it’s not up to her or anyone else,” Sarani replied.

&nbs
p; “You think you are above us, don’t you?”

  A bubble of laughter burned in Sarani’s throat. It’d been quite some time since she’d felt above anyone. Practically her entire life, from childhood to adulthood, Sarani had felt as though she couldn’t quite measure up, that something essential was missing that would elevate her…allow her to play with the other children, to marry a man who valued her, or to feel worthy of being loved. Even now, in pretense with Rhystan, she existed on the periphery. Good enough for some things. Not enough for others.

  “All your airs and standoffishness,” Penelope went on, “but secrets will always come out. Remember that, Lady Sara, when you look down your nose at the rest of us and covet that which does not belong to you.”

  “I did not covet anything that did not want to be coveted,” Sarani said calmly, though the way Penelope had snarled “Lady” sent a wary shiver shooting up Sarani’s spine. “And the duke is not a that, he’s a who, and contrary to what you may think, he does have a mind of his own.”

  “No one denies me what is mine.”

  Sarani lifted her chin with as much haughtiness as she could muster. “Then it seems you’ve been rather spoiled, Lady Penelope. Please excuse me.”

  She strode away before the other woman could reply, her thoughts swirling. What had Lady Penelope meant by secrets having a way of coming out? If Sarani’s biggest secret were to be exposed, the scandal would be unavoidable. Did Lady Penelope know something?

  Sarani was so caught up in her own world that she nearly crashed into a small mountain. Or rather, a large duke.

  “Your Grace, I beg your pardon,” she murmured, her pulse already at war in her breast at his nearness. “I did not see you.”

  A pair of keen blue-gray eyes narrowed on her. “You are upset. Where were you running off to?”

  She drew a strangled breath, though the sudden short supply of air had nothing to do with Penelope and everything to do with the man sucking the oxygen out of the room. Good gracious, why was the ballroom so bloody hot? Every hair on her body stood alarmingly on end, his very presence making her feel like she’d been touched by lightning.