by Abby Green
Elizabeth gasped as the water droplets clinging to his body and the soaking fabric of his swim trunks quickly penetrated her thin clothing. She closed her eyes, hoping he hadn’t seen in her eyes the way this sham of an embrace affected her senses.
Leaning away from him, she attempted to step back, but Rafe didn’t release her. Well, she wasn’t going to dignify his behavior by struggling. She’d just stand here until he let her go.
But her grand plan backfired. With her eyes closed, her world was defined by her other senses. He smelled of the fresh, clean scent of the water in which he’d been swimming, and his naked flesh was cool where their arms touched. Against her body, his much larger frame felt solid and hard, and, unlike the cool skin of his arms, an intense heat radiated from him. She felt dwarfed by him, strands of her hair clinging to his tanned bare shoulders.
His breath stirred the hair near her ear, and as they stood there locked in silent confrontation, she felt his breathing change, become faster as his chest rose and fell.
“Elizabeth.” He put one hand to her face and cupped her cheek, and she opened her eyes again. His face was only inches from hers, his blue eyes so compelling that she couldn’t look away. His thumb caressed the line of her jaw and then he slipped it beneath her chin and exerted a light pressure, tilting her face up to his.
His features became a blur as his face moved closer, and then his lips closed over hers.
She’d kissed him before, so she really shouldn’t be so overwhelmed. His mouth was gentle but firm and insistent, warm and mobile as he explored her. His tongue traced the shape of her upper lip, then flicked along the closed line of her mouth before firmly delving between her lips, forcing them to part for him.
When her head fell back, he cradled it against his shoulder, keeping his mouth angled over hers while he plumbed the depths of her mouth. His free hand smoothed up her body from her hip to her shoulder, then firmly back down again to press her against him. She could feel him growing aroused through the thin, wet fabric between them and her body, recognizing him as surely as it had from the first, relaxed into his embrace.
Her hands had been clutching his muscled arms, prepared to push him away, but as warm pulses of fevered arousal swept through her, she slowly stroked her palms up over his shoulders, feathering delicate fingers up the back of his neck.
He shuddered. Then he tore his mouth from hers and pressed her face against his shoulder. He was panting and she hoped he wouldn’t notice that she was, too.
“So you’ll stay.” It wasn’t a question.
The self-satisfied tone in his voice had the effect of a thousand gallons of water being sprayed on a bonfire. She stiffened in his arms and, with one of the hands still around his neck, she plunged her fingers into his thick, black hair and tugged. Hard.
“Hey!” He released her immediately. “What was that for?”
“For assuming you can use sex to get me to do whatever you want.”
“It worked once, didn’t it?” His eyes were dark and furious.
“Now wasn’t that the height of chivalry speaking.” She knew her fair complexion was slowly becoming the vivid orange of an Arizona sunset and the knowledge only made her angrier.
“I never claimed to be a white knight,” Rafe said. He thrust his own fingers through his hair and clenched his hand into a fist, his frustration evident. Then he heaved a great sigh. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to get into a shouting match with you.”
“Then I’ll leave and you won’t.”
He ignored the deliberately provocative statement. “Can we start this conversation from the beginning again?”
She shrugged. Part of her wanted to get as far away from him as fast as she could. But another part, a treacherous, yearning hopefulness that she seriously despised, kept raising its own little chorus in her head, reminding her of the ecstasy she’d known in his arms and the dreams she’d woven during the long weeks since she’d seen him last. “I suppose we might.”
“You’re planning on keeping the baby, correct?”
She nodded. “That’s correct. But I don’t expect anything from you. I merely felt an obligation to inform you that you had fathered a child.”
“You mean your sister felt that obligation,” he reminded her. She bristled immediately and he held up a placatory hand. “I’m sorry. The point is, I would like you to stay in Arizona for a while as a guest in my home.”
She couldn’t keep the suspicion from her voice. “Why?”
He took a deep breath. “We—you and I—are going to be parents. We barely know each other. For the baby’s sake, we need to learn more about each other and discuss the rearing of the child.”
“This baby is mine!” Elizabeth put a protective hand over her stomach. “You wouldn’t even know about it if you hadn’t noticed for yourself, and you certainly weren’t thrilled when you did. I told you, I don’t want or need anything from you.” On the verge of tears, she halted, unwilling to relive the hurt and shock she’d felt after their meeting in the restaurant, when she’d realized how little the moments in the garden house had meant to him.
“You’re being unreasonable,” he said. “You just walked into my life again two days ago and I learned you’re carrying my child. It was a shock, and I’m sorry if I reacted badly. Elizabeth…” His voice softened, and those devastatingly direct blue eyes caught and held her gaze. “I’d like to get to know you better.”
She hesitated. Staying here was a very bad idea, when all the man had to do was walk into the room, and her body began to yearn for his touch. But he was probably right. They did have some things to talk about. If she could just remember that his caresses meant nothing, that he had only kissed her in an effort to get her to weaken and agree to stay, she could handle a few days of this.
The problem was that she couldn’t even remember her own name when he touched her, much less any principles.
Still, she owed this to her child. If her baby’s father wanted to be involved in its life, then she was just going to have to learn to deal with Rafe Thorton. Only for the baby’s sake, she reminded herself as she felt her insides automatically loosen and warm beneath the smoldering intensity of his gaze. He was only interested in her because she carried his child.
Slowly, she nodded her head. “All right. I’ll stay for a few days. But you have to promise me one thing.”
“Anything,” he said, clearly pleased with his persuasive technique.
“No more kissing,” she said.
His big body had relaxed when she’d agreed to stay. But now his muscles tensed, and his dark brows snapped together in clear displeasure. “Why?”
“Promise me.” She ignored his question.
“We’re attracted to each other. Don’t you think it’s natural for us to want to…kiss?”
The devil. She knew exactly what he was doing. His purposeful hesitation had brought all manner of memories rushing to the surface of her mind, distracting her from the conversation as she remembered the hot, wild ecstasy she’d known in his arms. Firmly, she said, “I’m not interested in casual sex. Promise me you won’t start that kissing again or I’m getting the first plane out of here.”
“All right,” he said, and there was a grim set to his mouth. But as she watched, his lips curled into a lazy grin that curled her toes inside her shoes. “There was nothing ‘casual’ about the night we were together and you know it. Pretending you don’t want me and I don’t want you isn’t going to work.”
“It will have to,” she insisted, though her stomach did a wild flip-flop at the look in his eyes, “or I won’t stay.”
It was probably just as well that he hadn’t told her she’d be staying longer than a few days, Rafe reflected the next afternoon as he pulled into his driveway. He had no intention of letting her go back to Wynborough. His child was going to be a citizen of the United States of America.
He strode into the house, wondering what she’d done with herself all day. They’d agreed that she woul
d rest and he would work as usual. He’d spent his time at the office getting things in order so that he could take a few days off.
“Hello.” Elizabeth stood framed in the doorway to the kitchen.
He told himself the relief and satisfaction that rushed through him were merely a response to his concern that she might have packed and left while he was out, though she’d promised him she wouldn’t. “Hello,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
To his surprise, she laughed. The sound of her husky, feminine chuckle touched chords of sexual awareness inside him, but he firmly shoved those impulses away.
“I feel fine,” she said. “I’m pregnant, not ill, you know.”
He smiled in return. “I know. It’s just instinct, I suppose, to feel protective toward a woman carrying a child. Especially to a mere man who can’t even imagine what it must be like.”
Especially when that woman looks like a green-eyed angel, and she’s carrying your child.
He started forward. “What did you do today? I felt badly, leaving you to your own devices, but I wanted to get my staff in order so that I could take a few days off.”
“You’re not working?” She sounded startled and a little dismayed.
“Not for the next few days,” he said easily, though he hadn’t missed her reaction. “We can’t get to know each other if we don’t spend time together, right?”
“I suppose you’re right.” She sounded less than gracious.
“Did you lounge around all day? Looks like you spent a little time in the sun.”
Instinctively, she touched the tip of her nose with a fingertip, obviously making an effort to smile and match his friendly tone. “Is my complexion giving me away? I swam this morning, and I swear I sat by the pool for less than thirty minutes slathered in sunscreen, but these freckles can’t be banished.”
“I didn’t notice the freckles. You simply have a little extra glow.”
“Oh.” She appeared to be at a loss for words. “I watched a chef on your telly this afternoon,” she offered in what he recognized as a bid for a safer subject. “He made the most scrumptious-looking chicken dish. My mouth was watering by the time he finished. I wrote down the recipe, but I’m not really sure why—I’ve never cooked in my life. It looked like fun.”
Rafe chuckled. “Most women don’t consider cooking fun. They’re so busy rushing around with careers and family commitments that cooking is just one more thing on the list to get finished. Where’s your recipe?”
She turned and gestured behind her. “On your kitchen counter.”
“Would you like me to teach you how to make it?”
She stared at him. “You can cook?”
“I have become a thoroughly modern American male,” he announced in an overly grand tone. “I can cook, I can clean, I can provide. And all this with one hand tied behind my back, of course.”
“I’d like to learn to cook,” she said in a somewhat hesitant tone. Then she smiled, and her eyes grew soft. “My family will be so surprised when I get home.”
And in that moment, he promised himself that by the time she got home, she was going to think of him and smile like that, with that faraway look of familiar intimacy that made onlookers feel they’d been left outside the magic circle. But he didn’t tell her any of that. “Then I’ll teach you,” was all he said.
Over the next few days, he worked hard to make Elizabeth feel at ease. He gave her the big guest suite at the far end of the hallway from his room, and he let her have private time by the pool. He helped her learn her way around his kitchen and took her shopping for a few clothes and things to extend her stay.
She wouldn’t let him hang around while she browsed the women’s clothing section, which he thought was amusing. And she guarded her packages fiercely when he tried to find out what she’d bought.
“Just odds and ends,” she said. They were seated in a little ice-cream café with her bags beneath the table.
“What kind of odds and ends?”
“Ladies’ odds and ends,” she said repressively.
He had to laugh. “I’ve seen ladies in their odds and ends before, you know. Out of them, too, come to think of it—” He stopped at the look on her face. “Magazines,” he said hastily. “Men’s magazines.”
“Right.” She made a little pout. “Here I am, buying stretchy knickers and getting fatter by the day, and you’re talking about seeing women in the altogether. Thin women, no doubt.”
So that was why she’d been so coy about her purchases. She was shy about buying maternity clothes. And it suddenly struck him that he was being less than a gentleman when she was probably feeling insecure enough about her body. “Elizabeth,” he said. “There hasn’t been a serious woman in my life in…well, ever.” He leaned across the table. “And you don’t have to buy any knickers for my benefit. I like you just fine without them.”
Her face was a study in consternation. “Sh-h-h! This is hardly the place to talk about my lingerie!”
He couldn’t agree more. The thought of Elizabeth as he’d seen her the night they made love, clothed only in moonlight and shadow, had its usual effect on his body. Why, he wondered, could one special woman make every one of your senses sit up and take notice while the rest… Since he’d met Elizabeth, he couldn’t even remember another woman’s face.
Still, he was glad he’d brought up the topic. Or pursued it. Whatever. She might insist on no kissing, but he planned to make sure she didn’t forget what it had been like between them that night.
Because he fully intended to repeat it. Soon.
Her eyes were alive with wary sexual recognition and he smiled at her, a predator’s smile, lazy and content because he knew that eventually he’d get what he wanted. “Okay, we’ll change the subject. What would you like to do tomorrow?”
“Cook breakfast,” she said eagerly.
He stared at her for a second, then threw back his head and laughed. “Okay, we’ll cook breakfast. Shall I teach you how to make French toast?”
As she nodded, it occurred to him that she was changing, absorbing American ways and independence and enjoying herself in the process.
She was never going to fit comfortably into her sheltered royal life-style again. He’d have her thoroughly Americanized soon.
The thought was more satisfying than it should have been.
A few days later, in yet another restaurant, where they’d gone at Elizabeth’s request for a taste of authentic Mexican cuisine, she had the nerve to laugh at him when he suggested some of the spicier fare might not be good for the baby.
“The baby won’t suffer, but I might.” She smiled as she liberally splashed a hot sauce over her dish.
“Tell me about your childhood,” he said, taking the bottle and setting it beyond her reach. “Not the official bio— I know that. What were you and your sisters like as children?”
A soft smile touched her lips and he wondered if she knew what her smile did to his nervous system.
“As children…well, I suppose it depends on which of us you’re discussing,” she said. “Alexandra is the eldest and she was a very responsible little person who took her duties much too seriously. I think she felt she had to be especially good at doing ‘the royal thing’ since Mummy and Daddy had lost their only son.” The laughter in her eyes dimmed and he could see shadows of sadness. “My parents were very loving, but there was always an awareness, if you can call it that, that our family wasn’t complete. It’s rather silly sounding, but true. James, my brother, was kidnapped before any of us was even born, so it wasn’t as if we’d known him and missed him. It’s hard to explain.”
“He was a part of your family,” Rafe said quietly. “I remember the kidnapping. I was about five then, I think. The whole world mourned. I remember my mother sitting in front of the television crying.”
There was a moment of silence between them. Elizabeth looked as if she was about to say something more on the topic, but then her lips firmed into a line as if sh
e was pressing back the words.
To get her mind off the sober twist in the conversation, he said, “Tell me about your other two sisters.”
Elizabeth’s introspection vanished in the blink of an eye and she smiled that fond, intimate smile that reminded him that back in Wynborough she had a life waiting for her that didn’t include him. “Katherine is two years younger than I am. She’s the quiet one most of the time.” She grinned. “Unless you make her mad. She was the one who put the brakes on some of our crazier stunts.”
“So you were the wild one?”
“Not quite. Serena’s the baby. We all treated her like a little princess—literally—when she was small and we spoiled her terribly. If she wasn’t such a sweet person, she’d be a terrible brat. Serena could twist anyone around her finger. She came up with some of the most outrageous ideas.” She paused. “Or shall I say that Serena came up with the ideas that got us in the most hot water?”
“I can’t imagine it was too bad. All the press I ever saw portrayed you as well-behaved young ladies.”
“Oh, we were,” she assured him. “For the most part.”
“And the other part?”
Her eyes twinkled with mirth, and her lips parted in laughter. When she began to speak again, the little dimple in her chin deepened, and he had to resist a sudden, insane urge to reach over the table and lay his finger right in the center of that small depression.
“When I was about twelve, Serena had this great idea involving buckets of syrup and bags of feathers suspended over a doorway. Katherine tried to talk us out of it, but then she decided it might be fun and she quit whining. We did it in the stable where we could hide in the hayloft and watch. We figured we might get one of the stable lads, maybe the trainer if we were lucky.”
“And did you?”
She shook her head, miming sorrow. “Unfortunately for us, my father had gone riding that day.”
“You poured syrup over the king?” He was still steeped in his royal roots enough to be truly horrified. And he could only imagine his own father’s wrath over such a stunt.