by JoAnn Ross
In minutes he was asleep.
* * *
SABRINA LAY ON HER BACK on the thick feather bed, staring up at the gauze of the high canopy. For the past three hours she’d been trying her best to fall asleep. For the past three hours she’d been failing. Miserably.
A virtual cavalcade of disconnected pictures kept tumbling through her mind: her first sight of Prince Burke, his face stained with oil and his eyes as hot as embers; the way he looked days later, when he’d approached her in the theater and stood so very close, and she’d seen their mutual attraction reflected in all those mirrors, blatantly obvious.
She remembered every devastating moment of that first shared kiss in front of Katia’s portrait. She relived their entertaining time together at the casino and wondered why she’d even bothered to pretend that she hadn’t wanted to go.
She knew that she’d never forget their stolen kisses in the back of the limousine, while the soft rain pattered on the roof. And most of all, Sabrina knew that if she lived to be one hundred, she would never—ever—forget the icy terror that had torn through her when she’d thought, for that long, suspended moment, that she was going to lose him. Before she even had him.
Sabrina had never been very assertive with men. Sonny, despite his own checkered past, or perhaps because of it, had been an incredibly strict father. None of his daughters had been permitted to date before their sixteenth birthdays. Telephone calls from boys had not been permitted, and Sonny Darling had always threatened that if any of his precious girls dared to call a boy, she would instantly lose telephone privileges.
By the time she was permitted to date, the word about Sonny’s protectionist attitudes had gotten around and there wasn’t a boy at Nashville Senior High School brave enough to ask Sabrina out. Sonny’s reputation followed her to college, but although there had been a handful of young men intrepid enough to chance the singer’s wrath by taking out his lovely daughter, Sabrina’s absolute lack of dating skills left her too shy to accept their invitations.
Instead, Sabrina had immersed herself in the college drama department, where she found the stage a perfect—and safe—outlet for all her tumultuous emotions.
Her very first beau had been a fast-talking Yankee who swept her into his bed, onto his stage, and in front of a Connecticut justice of the peace before Sabrina had known what hit her.
When her marriage had broken up, friends had advised her to throw herself back into the social whirl. But feeling emotionally bruised, and uncomfortable with the New York fast life shared by so many of her contemporaries in the theater, once again Sabrina shunned the dating scene. Indeed, with the exception of a few platonic dinners with actors she worked with, evenings were spent in her apartment, studying lines and watching old movies on the Arts and Entertainment cable channel.
And now, as she tossed and turned, chasing the illusive solitude of sleep, Sabrina realized that her sex life resembled that of a cloistered nun. Even in her marriage, true passion had eluded her. From the night he’d taken her virginity, after they’d shared two bottles of champagne at the famed Rainbow Room, overlooking the dazzling lights of Manhattan, Arthur had always been the one to instigate lovemaking. He liked to instruct her what he wanted her to do, just as he directed her on the stage. Dedicated actress that she was, Sabrina had tried her best to give a stellar performance.
A goal in which she’d apparently succeeded. Because when she’d angrily informed him that she’d never—in six years of marriage—experienced an orgasm, the unflappable Arthur Longstreet had appeared honestly shocked by such an unwelcome revelation.
So here she was, twenty-eight years old, suffering in a too-lonely bed when the man she wanted with every fiber of her being was just down the hall.
“No!” she whispered, rolling onto her stomach and pulling the snowy down pillow over her head. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t have the nerve.
But then she remembered how close Burke had come to dying today. And how close she’d come to losing an opportunity of a lifetime.
It wouldn’t be anything but a one-night stand, a little voice in her mind piped up. At best, a brief affair. Because in four short days the prince would become regent and she and her sisters would leave Montacroix, continuing the tour.
It wouldn’t be the fairy-tale ending she’d dreamed of as a child. Prince Burke was not going to ride up on his white charger and carry her off to his castle, where they’d live happily ever after.
But, dammit, Sabrina decided, throwing the pillow onto the floor, at least she’d have one night—one magical, fairy-tale night—to remember all the rest of her life.
Making her decision, she left the bed, slipped into her robe, took several deep breaths to calm her galloping nerves, then headed down the hall.
CHAPTER 9
AFRAID THAT SOMEONE would hear her knocking on Burke’s bedroom door, and even more afraid that she’d lose her nerve, Sabrina took another deep breath, briefly closed her eyes and then, before she could change her mind, turned the antique brass handle.
When the door squeaked, her heart jumped to her throat and she pictured hordes of royal guards descending on her. She quickly slipped inside, shutting the door behind her.
After her quick race down the hall, the bedroom, by contrast, seemed as dark as the inside of a cavern.
Gradually shadows became forms, and Sabrina was able to view Burke, lying naked on his back in a magnificent high bed. He’d thrown the sheet off during his sleep. The moonlight slanting through the high palatine windows outlined his sculpted, muscled chest under the sprinkle of dark curls.
His hips were lean, and although she knew it to be wrong, she couldn’t resist looking at his sex, which appeared half aroused. Her heart took up an erratic beat and her blood warmed. She dragged her gaze down his legs, unsurprised to find them strong and muscled. His feet were long and narrow and beautifully arched.
Sabrina stood beside the bed for a long silent time, drinking in the sight of this man she’d been so instantly attracted to, despite her best intentions. The man she wanted. The man she loved.
Love. The word, which her rational mind had not allowed her to consider, bounced around in her head like a steel ball in a roulette wheel. But instead of terrifying her, Sabrina felt a certain welcome calm. She did love Burke. Enough not to ask him for what he could never give. She would have to settle for only this brief time together.
And given the choice, a few fleeting days of absolute happiness were far preferable to a lifetime of regrets.
A soft summer wind sighed in the branches of the ancient oak trees outside the window. Inside, there was only the soft, steady sound of Burke’s breathing. And the wild staccato beat of Sabrina’s heart, pounding in her ears.
She remembered how, during the family’s celebratory dinner earlier this evening, he’d assured everyone that he was fine, that he’d only suffered a slight concussion. But his eyes had been laced with pain and he’d promised a clearly distraught Jessica that he would take the pain pills the doctor prescribed as soon as he retired.
What if the pills had put him in such a deep sleep she couldn’t rouse him? Sabrina wondered now. Or worse yet, what if he awoke only to turn her down? The humiliation would be horrendous.
But leaving now, and never knowing, would be worse.
Sabrina untied the ribbon holding her robe closed. It landed in an emerald satin puddle at her bare feet. As she sat on the bed the mattress sighed; Burke murmured inarticulately, but did not wake up. A dark lock of hair had fallen over his forehead. When Sabrina hesitantly brushed at it, her tender touch drew a smile.
Emboldened, she trailed her hand down his cheek, then traced the outline of his mouth. Her hand continued down the strong column of his neck, across his broad shoulders. She pressed her palm against his chest, liking the strong, solid feel of it. Burke exhaled a long breath and covered her hand with his. But he did not wake up.
It was exhilarating, this freedom to watch him, to touch him, unobserve
d. It made her head light; desire sang its high sweet song in her veins. Sabrina felt dizzy. She felt warm. She felt wonderful.
With a forwardness that once would have shocked her, she pressed her lips against his chest. His flesh was warm and tasted so marvelously, mysteriously male. When she flicked her tongue against one of his dark nipples, Burke growled and thrust his hands into her flowing blond hair.
Burke was having the sweetest, sexiest dream. He was lying on a sun-warmed beach in Monte Carlo, or Cannes, perhaps, with Sabrina. For some inexplicable reason, the beach was deserted, save for them, giving them the freedom to touch and be touched. To love and be loved.
Her beautiful, slender hands were like gentle birds as they explored his heated flesh; her warm sulky lips created a deep ache inside him that went all the way to the bone. Then farther still.
Her hair draped over him, carrying the scent of gardenias and feeling like strands of exquisite silk against his skin. He pulled her down on top of him, pressed her body to his, and ran his hand down her smooth back.
A warm ocean breeze caressed their bodies, the ebb and flow of the tide echoed their lovers’ sighs.
“Sabrina,” he murmured against her throat, drinking in her sweet scent. “Ma chérie.”
She moved fluidly against him, making the fires burn even higher. “Oh, Burke.”
She whispered his name once. Then a second time. And, as her lips brushed against his, teasing, tantalizing, a third.
This time her soft voice parted the gauzy curtain of his dream. Burke opened his eyes and found himself looking directly into hers. They were wide and misty and shone with a woman’s secret pleasure in the slanting silver moonlight.
“If you are a dream,” he murmured, skimming his hand over the emerald column of her silk nightgown, “please, don’t ever wake me.”
Sabrina gave him a womanly smile that reminded him of how Eve must have greeted Adam when she’d arrived in his garden, with her flowing silk hair, creamy flesh and tempting, dangerous female allure. Then she kissed his cheek, roughened with a day’s growth of beard.
“I seem to recall you saying that you save ‘please’ for the really important things.”
Her words sank in, having the effect of a fire alarm. “Mon Dieu,” he said, his hands tangling tighter in her fragrant hair, “you are real.”
Lowering her mouth back to his, Burke kissed her. The kiss, long and lingering and infinitely intoxicating, went on and on and on.
“Extraordinary,” he murmured as he nudged the thin strap of her nightgown aside with his mouth and kissed her shoulder.
With only his clever hands and his wicked, wonderful lips, Sabrina felt like she was floating. “What?” she managed thickly, wondering when exactly she’d lost control of the situation. When she’d first sat down on the bed, she’d been the one to touch. To taste.
But now her head was swimming and her bones were melting and she had surrendered all control—all power—to him.
“You.”
He rolled over onto his side, bringing Sabrina with him. His hands followed the outline of her soft curves while hers trailed along the more rigid lines of his body, the smoothness of taut skin over muscle. “You are absolutely extraordinary.”
“So are you,” she whispered. And it was true.
For a long drawn-out time they lay facing each other, exploring the differences in their bodies by touch, by taste, by smell.
Outside the leaded glass window, a pale white moon rose. Inside, passion built. Sabrina was straining against Burke, eagerly, desperately.
His lips found one of her nipples and he sucked, drawing fire. Drawing life. As he kissed her swollen breasts, the sensitive back of her knees, the cord at the inside of her thigh, drawing a soft cry of absolute pleasure, Burke realized that he’d been wanting this woman all his life. He’d been waiting for her. She was everything he’d ever dreamed of in a woman, more than he’d hoped for in a wife.
Wife. That singular word, which he’d successfully and deftly avoided all these years, seemed so perfectly matched to Sabrina Darling that it could have been coined with her in mind.
Even more than any of the innumerable European princesses his father had invited to the palace during these past months, Sabrina Darling was a woman born to wear flowing satins and silks and rich, disturbing scents.
And she was his. All his.
Rocked by an unexpected and riveting surge of possessiveness, Burke swore at the silk barrier between them. His long fingers curled around the lace bodice of the nightgown and ripped it ruthlessly to her waist. Sabrina did not protest. Rather, she moaned and wrapped her arms around him. Her mouth locked greedily to his, her hands clutched at him as if she feared falling off the edge of the world. Pleasure burst from her to him; desire flared.
She was hot and smooth and fragrant; the torn nightgown clung to her damp skin. His name burst from her lips on a husky, sensual cry as Burke’s ravenous mouth found her breast. Caught up in a whirlwind of passion, Sabrina was unaware of the breathless, erotic demands she uttered.
Burke’s hands, and then his mouth, burned a slow path across her breasts, down her body, over her stomach, to the inside of her thighs. When his fingers slowly circled their way through the golden nest of curls, prolonging each touch, Sabrina arched her hips, offering, welcoming.
“Exquisite,” Burke murmured, brushing a fingertip over her quivering, moist flesh.
“Please.” Taut with anticipation, Sabrina dug her fingers into the sheets. Passion shimmered in that single aching word.
Needing no further invitation, Burke touched his tongue to the rising, pulsing bud. Startled by the flare that shot through her, Sabrina gasped and jerked away.
Infinitely patient, Burke soothed her with soft, husky words, touching and kissing his way around the ultrasensitive flesh, assuring her that he would not do anything she did not want him to do.
“You tell me when you’re ready, chérie,” he murmured, his cheek nuzzling the soft triangle of hair, his warm breath feathering the gold curls. “I promise, I won’t hurt you.”
She saw the truth in his eyes. She felt the love in his voice. And as his hand caressed her hip, Sabrina did something she thought she’d never do again. She allowed herself to trust.
“No,” she whispered. “You’d never hurt me.”
Her trust was strangely more staggering than her obvious desire. More sobering. Burke vowed to be worthy of it.
“Let me know what you want.”
Tremors coursed through her. “I think,” she said, on something close to a sob, “I’d like you to do that again.”
Sensing that she was not accustomed to putting her needs into words, Burke didn’t question her further.
He flicked his tongue once more against the pink nub. Although she closed her eyes and her fingers dug into his shoulders, this time she did not move away.
Encouraged, he began to suck lightly, tasting the honey, the warmth. “Do you like this?”
Sabrina gasped as first one finger, then two slid into her. All the time his mouth did not cease its sweet sensual torment.
“Oh, yes.” Her thighs were trembling, a slick sheen of perspiration beaded up on her burning flesh.
“How about this?” His voice vibrated against her most intimate place, and then she felt his caressing fingers replaced by his tongue.
“I...don’t...know.” The wicked, clever tongue was licking at her, probing her secrets, drawing her out. “Yes,” she admitted breathlessly. “Please. Don’t stop.”
Burke had no intention of stopping. In truth, as his own body throbbed with unrequited, painful need, he didn’t think he could. Sabrina was like no other woman he’d ever met. She was an intriguing blend of sensuality and innocence. In fact, if he hadn’t known she’d been married, by her initially shy response to what should be a natural part of lovemaking, Burke would have suspected that she was a virgin. She was, he realized, an emotional virgin.
The idea that no other man had ever
brought her to such heights was immensely gratifying. As her hips began to rotate in uninhibited demand against his mouth, and the soft, eager sound of a woman approaching climax escaped her parted lips, Burke felt a surge of what he recognized to be purely chauvinistic satisfaction.
Sabrina could hardly breathe. Desperate, she wanted to beg him to wait, to give her a moment. But she couldn’t get the words out. All she could do was hold on for dear life as he took her higher and higher.
Wetness was pouring from her, hot and thick. Then, finally, blessedly, secrets hidden for a lifetime exploded, hurling her across time and space.
She was still trembling from the aftershocks when she felt him enter her, fill her.
Smiling, Burke touched his mouth to hers, giving her a taste of herself. Silent tears streamed wetly down her cheeks, sparkling in the muted light like trails of diamonds. Still smiling, Burke gently brushed a tear away with his finger.
And then, although she’d never believed it to be possible, before she’d even recovered, he was driving her up and up again.
Lost in a passion of their own making, Sabrina wrapped her arms around him, hung on tight and followed Burke into the mists.
* * *
SABRINA LOST TRACK of how many times they made love that night. The lingering touches, the kisses, all melded into one another, like a series of sensual dreams.
Hours later, they were lying entwined, a tangle of naked arms and legs, when she heard the sound of a cock crowing outside the palace window. A pale silvery light was banishing the midnight shadows.
“I have to leave,” she whispered.
“Mmmph.” He pulled her tighter against him and buried his mouth against her throat. “Why?”
“It’s almost morning.”
“So?” She was so sweet. So wonderful. And, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time this night, she was his.
“If anyone sees me leaving your room—”
“They won’t be surprised.” He ran his palm down her back, pleased by her answering tremor.
That was, unfortunately, all too true. “You don’t understand,” she said, pulling away from his hypnotizing caresses. She sat up against the hand-carved headboard, glanced around for the sheet to cover herself, then decided that it was a bit late for modesty.