Carrying the King's Pride

by Jennifer Hayward

  Gathering her to him, Nik deepened the kiss, his fingers at her jaw holding her captive as he explored the softness of her lips, the recesses of her mouth. All of her.

  A soft sound left her throat, her fingers curling in the thick hair at the base of his neck. Nik lifted his mouth from hers, a satisfied glitter in his eyes. “Now you don’t look like a cardboard cutout. You look insanely beautiful tonight, Sofía.”

  “Efharisto.” Thank you. A word he had taught her in his language. “And you,” she murmured, “had your usual throng of fans.”

  His eyes glittered. “Jealous? Is that what has you off center for once? If so, I like it.”

  The taunt knocked some common sense into her head. She pushed a hand against his chest and forced him to let her go. Sliding off his lap, she took her seat back and straightened her hair. Searched desperately for a source of innocuous conversation to fill the space.

  “Congratulations on your big deal. The analysts half expected it to fall through.”

  He inclined his head. “I thought it might at one point. But making the impossible happen is my forte.”

  She smiled. No ego there. But why wouldn’t there be? First in his class at Harvard, a genius with numbers and forging high-stakes deals, the Wizard of Wall Street as he was known, he had turned his tiny Mediterranean island of Akathinia, a glittering former colonial jewel that hosted much of the world’s glitterati, into a thriving, modern economy over the past decade, his reckless, some would say suicidal, deal making paying off with deep dividends for his country. It was the envy of the Mediterranean.

  She shook her head. “Your need to win is insatiable, Nik.”

  “Yes,” he said deliberately, his gaze trained on her. “It is.”

  A flush heated her cheeks. He had set out to win her after her initial resistance to his invitation to dinner and succeeded. Not a fair game, really, when she’d discovered the reckless, rebel prince had far more layers than anyone thought. Brilliant and deep with a philosophical side few knew about, he was undeniably fascinating.

  She leaned her head back against the seat and eyed him. “What happens when winning isn’t enough anymore?”

  His lashes lowered in that sleepy, half-awake big cat look he did so well, when he was anything but. “I think I’m in the process of finding that out.”

  She blinked. It was the first deeply personal insight he’d given her. To have it come tonight of all nights was confusing. Tangled her up in a knot.

  Carlos dropped them off. They rode the elevator, reserved exclusively for the penthouses, to the fifty-seventh floor and Nik’s palatial abode.

  Sofía kicked off her shoes while Nik opened a bottle of Prosecco and walked through to the salon with its magnificent views of the park, the floor-to-ceiling windows encasing the luxurious space offering a bird’s-eye view of the Empire State Building and the sweep of the city with its breathtaking 360-degree perspective.

  A light throb pulsed at her temples as she stood in front of the windows and took in the view. Lights blazed across the smoky, steamy New York skyline, as if a million falling stars had been embraced by the sweeping skyscrapers.

  Nik’s spicy aftershave filled her senses just before he materialized by her side with two glasses of sparkling wine. Tipping her glass toward him in the European-style version of the toast he preferred, her eyes on his, she drank.

  Finding Nik’s seeking gaze far too perceptive, she looked back at the view, following a jet as it made its way across the sky, silhouetted against the skyscrapers. It reminded her of what tomorrow was. Had her wondering if that was why she had chosen tonight to end this. Because it had reminded her of her priorities.

  “You’re thinking about your father.”

  “Yes. Tomorrow is the twentieth anniversary of his death.”

  “Has it gotten any easier?”

  Did it ever get any easier when your father’s plane dropped from the air into the Atlantic Ocean because of faulty mechanics that, properly addressed, could have saved his life? When it had cost her the guiding force of her life?

  “You learn to let it go,” she said huskily. “Accept that things don’t always make sense in life. Sometimes they just happen. If I had allowed my anger, my sadness, my bitterness at the unfairness of it all to rule me, it’s I who would have lost.”

  “An inherently philosophical way to look at it. But you were only eight when it happened, Sofía. It must have affected you deeply.”

  That seemed too slight a description for what had unraveled after that phone call in the middle of the night—her mother in her grief—her childhood ripped away in the space of a few hours with one parent gone and the other so emotionally vacant she might as well have been, too.

  “I have an understanding of what it’s like to lose something precious.” She moved her gaze back to his. “It makes you aware of how easily it can all fall apart.”

  “And yet sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you go on to make something of yourself. Create and run a successful business...”

  Her mouth twisted. “Which could also fall apart if the market changes.”

  “Any business could fall apart if the market changes. It’s the reality of being in the game. You don’t anticipate failure, you believe in your vision.”

  She absorbed the verbal hand slap.

  “How did you fund the business?” he asked. “You never did tell me.”

  “The airline was at fault for my father’s accident. Faulty mechanics. The settlement was held in trust for me until I turned twenty-one. I put myself through design school on a scholarship in the meantime.”

  “What was the ultimate intention? The business or the designing?”

  “Both. My first love is designing, but I put that on hold when we started the business. We needed to get the store in the black, pay off some investments. Now I finally feel like we’re getting to the point where we can hire some staff and I can work on a line for the store.”

  “How many years have you been open now?”

  “Six.”

  “Six years is a long time to wait on a dream, Sofía.”

  Heat singed her cheeks. “These things don’t happen overnight. Interviewing is time-consuming, not to mention finding someone I can trust my baby with.”

  “Perhaps it’s you you don’t trust.” Nik’s softly worded challenge brought her chin up. “When you want something badly enough, you make it happen. There are no can’ts in life, only barriers we create for ourselves.”

  “I’m getting there.” She hated the defensive note in her voice. “We don’t all cut a swath through our lives like you do, Nik, impervious to anything or anyone but the end goal.”

  His gaze sharpened on her face. “Is that how you see me?”

  “Isn’t it true?”

  He studied her silently for a moment. She looked away, his criticisms broaching an uncomfortable truth, one she’d been avoiding examining too closely. Putting off the designing had been practicality in the beginning when establishing Carlotta and finding a steady clientele had been a matter of survival. The problem was the longer she put it off, the harder it was to pick up her sketch pad again. Doubt had crept in as to whether she had what it took.

  “You know what I think?” Nik said finally. “I think you’re scared. I think you talk a good game, Sofía, but you aren’t nearly as tough as you make yourself out to be. I think you’re scared of investing yourself in something you care so much about because there’s a chance you might fail. And it’s personal, isn’t it, designing for you? You’re putting yourself out there. What if you do and New York rejects you? What if it all falls apart?”

  She blinked at how scarily accurate that was. “I think that’s a bit of a stretch.”

  “I don’t.” He stepped closer and reached up to trace a finger down her cheek, an electric
charge zigzagging its way through her. “I know how easily it can all fall apart. Your words, not mine.”

  “Philosophical musings,” she denied.

  His fingers dropped to her mouth, tracing the line of her bottom lip. “I think my first impression of you at that benefit that night was right. You don’t fully engage with life, you hold a part of yourself back so you won’t get hurt. So there’s no chance it will fall apart. But that’s a delusion you feed yourself. Nothing can prevent a tragedy or a failure or someone walking away because it isn’t right. To reap the reward you have to take the risk.”

  She had no answer for that because she was afraid it was true. All of it. But if it was true about her, it was equally, if not more so, true about him.

  “And what about you?” she countered. “You hide yourself under this smooth veneer, Nik. No one ever really gets to know the real you. What you dream of. What you hope for. Tonight, what you said about winning, about not knowing what happens when it isn’t enough anymore, it was the first time you’ve admitted anything truly intimate about yourself to me. And soon, my time will be up, won’t it? You’ll decide I’m getting too close, your attention span will wane and I’ll receive a very nice piece of jewelry to kiss off and fade into the sunset.”

  His gaze darkened. “I never promised you more, Sofía. It’s the way I am. You knew that.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I did. We are two birds of a feather. Unwilling or unable to be intimate with someone else. Which is why I think we should end it now while it’s still good. While we still like each other. So it doesn’t get drawn out and bitter. We did promise ourselves that, after all, didn’t we?”

  His eyes widened, then narrowed. “You arranged to meet me tonight to end things between us?”

  She forced herself to nod. “Be honest. You were going to do it soon, weren’t you? Your silence this week was your way of demonstrating to me I can’t depend on you.”

  His mouth tightened. “I was swamped this week, Sofía. But yes, I did think we should end it soon. I was waiting for the chemistry to burn its natural course.”

  Which it hadn’t. She had a feeling it would be a long, long time before that happened. But it was about more than that for her now, more about who Nik was and how they connected on a deeper level. She’d thought it might be more for him, too, sometimes she could swear that it was, but apparently she’d been wrong.

  She lifted her chin, her chest tight. She’d wanted to be different from the rest. Realized that’s what tonight had been about. Wanting him to say they were different. And now she knew her delusion had been complete.

  Nik closed the distance between them. There was a dark glitter of emotion in his eyes she couldn’t even come close to identifying. “It was good, Sofía.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, shocked at how steady and resolute her voice was. “We were.”

  His gaze held hers—probing, searching. “Is this how you want to end us?”

  “No.” She stepped closer and lifted up on tiptoe, her eyes on his as she cupped the hard line of his jaw. “I wanted to end it like this.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  HEAT FLARED IN Nik’s gaze, wiping out the cool blue perusal that was his default expression and replacing it with a banked fire she knew preceded extreme pleasure.

  He kissed her then, his lips parting hers with none of his earlier gentle coaxing. This time he demanded her acquiescence, insisted she give in to the electricity between them, and despite her better sense, she wanted this. She had known it would end like this, known it would have to end like this between them because their chemistry had always been beyond compare.

  She sank into the kiss, gave herself permission to taste the lush depths of his mouth. The familiar, intoxicating flavor of him, enhanced by the wine, was deadly to her senses. She slid her arms around his waist to rest against the smooth fabric of his shirt. His hand came up to cup the back of her head, every bone in her body going liquid at the sensation of being back in his arms.

  He released her lips to explore the curve of her jaw with butterfly kisses. She arched her neck to give him better access, sighing as he found the ultrasensitive spot between neck and shoulder. His fingers found the zipper of her dress and pulled it down, his palms sliding beneath the fabric, the heat of his fingers on her skin a brand she craved.

  She pressed closer as his hands shifted lower to shape her hips against him. The heavy, potent force of his arousal imprinted itself on her; stirred a sweet, deep ache low in her abdomen.

  “Nik...”

  He pulled away from her and reached up to tug his tie loose. “Take off the dress.”

  She eyed him. “Was that an order?”

  “What do you think?”

  She couldn’t deny the command was a turn-on. Power and his outrageous sex appeal were a lethal combination.

  Electing to acquiesce, she slipped the straps of her dress off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. Nik stripped the tie off and reached for the buttons of his shirt. His eyes never left hers as he worked his way methodically down the row.

  She stepped out of the dress. He crooked a finger at her. “Come here.”

  “I like these orders.” She closed the distance between them. “You do the prince thing so well.”

  His mouth tipped up at one corner. He closed his fingers around hers and brought them to his unbuttoned shirt. “Take the rest off.”

  She slid the shirt off his broad shoulders, the anticipation of exploring all that masculine power making her feel all tied up inside. Her breath jammed in her throat as she dropped the shirt to the floor. He was so beautiful: powerful biceps and forearms honed at a Manhattan gym with a world-class boxer as a sparring partner every morning, his chest a work of art with its deep ridges defining rock-hard muscle. The sexy V that forged his lower abdomen drew her eyes to the potent masculinity straining against his trousers.

  The low-grade intensity of his stare as she flicked the button of his pants open and lowered his zipper made her stomach clench. Swallowing past her fervent anticipation, she tunneled her fingers underneath the waistband of his pants, bent and pushed them off his hips to the floor. Her position kneeling before him was undeniably provocative. As if she had been summoned to satisfy the prince’s desire.

  She found the thick, rigid evidence of his lust for her and freed it from his close-fitting black boxers. He was silky and mind-numbingly virile as she took him in her hands and ran her fingers from the base of him to the tip.

  His hands curled in her hair. “In your mouth, Sofía. Take me in your mouth.”

  The rasp in his voice heated her blood. He had always loved it when she did this for him. It made him crazy. Desperate. But she didn’t give him what he wanted, not right away. She teased him with her tongue first, tracing the throbbing veins that etched his shaft, exploring each one until his muffled curse filled the air. Only then did she take him deep into the heat of her mouth, again and again until his fists bunched tight in her hair and his patience failed.

  “Enough.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her to her feet. A heady satisfaction filled her as he slid an arm beneath her knees and picked her up in a thrilling display of strength and carried her through to his bedroom. Dark and masculine it was dominated by an enormous four-poster bed. She landed on the whisper-soft silk bedspread. Nik stripped off his boxers and came down beside her.

  Bracing himself on an elbow, he ran a finger across her bottom lip. “I have been craving this wicked mouth for weeks. On me, under me...”

  Her heart slammed into her chest. She reached for him, curving her hands around his muscular torso. He caught her mouth in a kiss that was a blatant seduction, his tongue stroking the length of hers in a long, slow caress that made her shiver. The slide of his thumbs over her nipples deepened her shudder. They were alread
y hard from wanting him, but his expert touch brought them to a rigid tautness that made her stomach curl, her insides ache. It had been too long since she’d had him and her body was crying out for release.

  He broke the kiss, reached underneath her and unhooked her bra. The heat of his gaze on her turgid flesh made her tremble. He pushed himself upright to come down over her, his palms cupping her breasts. “I have missed these, too, glykeia mou.”

  She closed her eyes as he took a rigid peak in his mouth. His tongue and teeth worked her nipple, the hard suction he applied intensifying the sweet ache inside of her. She moaned his name as he transferred his attention to her other nipple, his thumb teasing the damp, throbbing peak he’d left behind.

  It was too much. Too much.

  “Nik...”

  His mouth still at her breast, he nudged her legs apart and slid his palm up her thigh. She trembled at the pleasure she knew he could give her, spreading wide for him. A guttural sound of approval left him. Her flesh was moist, ready for him as he pushed her panties aside and traced the line of her most intimate part.

  God. She pressed her head back against the bed as he brought his thumb to the hard nub at the center of her at the same time he slid one of his long, masculine fingers inside of her. Her body tightened around him, missing him, aching for his touch. Nik knew how to work a woman until she begged; always made sure she was never anything less than fully aroused before he took her. Made her wild for him.

  His eyes were hot on her face now, watching her reactions, absorbing every sound of pleasure she made. Slowly, deliberately, he brought her higher, until her hips were writhing against his hand. Then he added another finger and filled her so exquisitely, her vision glazed over. Her hands clenched the silk coverlet as the pleasure built and built until she was drowning in it.

  Eyes glittering, he brought his mouth down to hers, their breath mingling. “Come for me, Sofía. Now.”

  His sexy command pushed her over the edge. The insistent caress of his thumb against her nerve endings strung tight with tension sent her spiraling into a white-hot release that curled her toes. A release only Nik could give her.