The Heir: A Contemporary Royal Romance

by Georgia Le Carre

  ‘Hello, Jewel.’

  Chapter 5

  Lily

  For a couple of seconds I do nothing. Just stand there, a gentle breeze lifting my hair from my neck, savoring the sensation of unfolding drama and the reckless abandonment his voice has brought into my being. I know when I turn around the world will be different.

  I prepare myself and face him slowly. Even so the breath catches in my throat. I blink and stare at him.

  He towers over me in an emerald suit. Sexual energy glimmers off him like the wavy heat effect in a desert. His eyes—green marbled with violet or black, beautiful at any rate—glow with desire. Every fiber in my body contracts and buzzes as if he is a great dynamo and I am some dumb equipment that is absorbing too much energy. And the worse part: he knows it.

  ‘Or is it Lily?’ His sinful lips caress my name like a kiss.

  Heat prickles up my arms. ‘It’s whatever you want it to be.’

  He lets his wicked, smoldering gaze drift over my body. ‘I want it to be Lily.’

  I shrug. ‘OK,’ I say carelessly.

  He takes a drink from a passing tray and hands it to me. Our fingers brush and I shiver. Visibly. His eyebrows lift, but his eyes remain inscrutable. My cheeks flame with sexual tension. I grip the glass tightly. Shit. What the hell is this? Christ in heaven. Get a fucking grip, Lily. I can’t believe how affected I am by this man. I need time to sort myself out.

  I force a smile onto my lips. ‘Thank you,’ I say politely, and make to move away. His hand shoots out and touches my bare arm. This time my reaction is clear. I jerk my hand away.

  ‘We don’t have a no touch policy in this house,’ he observes quietly.

  ‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. Who are you?’

  Green sparks of amusement dance in his eyes. He knows I know exactly who he is. ‘Who do you want me to be, Lily?’ His voice is lazy like a deadly snake coiled in the sun. One wrong move…

  An unfamiliar warmth shivers and fizzles through my veins. ‘My lover’s brother.’

  The amusement vanishes from his eyes—the reptile has been rudely awakened—replaced by a bolt of blazing fury.

  My heart stops. I resist the instinctive reaction to back off. For a few moments, or it could have been thousands of years, we stare at each other and then he turns on his heels and strides away, his back ramrod straight.

  I grip the champagne glass tightly and watch his tall figure cut through the human crush. He stands out the way a hawk stands out in a crowd of canaries. A woman in a sophisticated ivory velvet evening gown lays a manicured hand on his sleeve. He stops and bends his head to her. She says something. Her laugh is tinkling. I feel a furious tightening in my belly. I am jealous. I am sickeningly jealous of the horny bitch.

  ‘Did you miss me?’ Shane asks in my ear.

  At the sound of his easy voice, relief floods me. It’s like having a stiff drink on a cold day. The warm waves radiate out from the middle of your belly. I turn toward him. ‘Desperately.’

  ‘How desperately?’ His teeth flash.

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  He laughs. ‘Come on. I want you to meet my brother.’ Before I can protest he puts his hand on my elbow and steers me along toward his brother and the beauty in the ivory dress. She has coffee-colored hair and empty silver eyes.

  ‘Jake, I want you to meet Lily.’

  Jake turns stiffly toward me. ‘We’ve already met,’ he says dryly.

  ‘Oh! When?’

  ‘Moments ago.’ He seems cold and uninterested.

  Shane looks at me quizzically.

  ‘You didn’t give me a chance to tell you,’ I say weakly.

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me, darling?’ the woman says adoringly, as she slides her hand up his black shirt. Her hand dislodges his jacket and I see its pale blue lining. Jealousy shoots like quicksilver into my blood, scorching it. I look up and meet his eyes. They are dark and carefully veiled.

  ‘Andrea Mornington, Lily Hart,’ he says curtly, then very deliberately curls his arm around her waist.

  ‘Hello, Lily,’ Andrea says, turning her empty eyes toward me, except they are no longer empty but precise and direct, like a key turning in a lock. She perfectly understands what has not been spoken.

  I force a smile. ‘Please excuse me, I need to find a washroom.’ As I turn away, Shane’s hand falls on my wrist. ‘Are you OK?’

  I look into his eyes. Already I can see the weight of responsibility he has taken for my well-being. It warms and saddens me. ‘Yes. I’ll be back soon.’

  I don’t have to look at his brother to know he is watching me. I feel it like a dagger in my back or an act of fate.

  I don’t find the washroom. Instead I drift inconspicuously into an adjoining room. It seems to be a salon of some kind. As with everything else in the house it is beautiful. There is nobody in there. I close the door and lean against it.

  The attraction is so inconvenient, so absurd that I had never even considered the possibility. And yet here it is. I want him so bad it is like an ache. I push away from the door, put my glass of champagne on a low table, and walk to a tall window. I stare out of it into the dark and see only my ghostly reflection.

  A dozen thoughts come and go. I know I should be going back to Shane, but the part of me that loathes to see them together is the stronger. My thoughts are interrupted by a sound at the door.

  I whirl around in surprise.

  For God’s sake! An emerald suit and a diamond encrusted ring on his pinkie! He should have looked ridiculous, but he does not. He starts walking toward me—sure, confident, leonine. Dazzling.

  There is an arrogance and authority to the set of his jaw that is not at all to my liking. His gaze is aggressively bold and virile. His eyes travel down my body.

  ‘Lost?’

  ‘No, I was trying to be alone.’

  His eyes dip down and linger suggestively and I am certain deliberately on my breasts. The mental disrobing is meant to unruffle me.

  ‘Positively breathtaking,’ he murmurs softly, but with a hint of sardonic amusement.

  ‘Insufferably arrogant, aren’t you?’

  ‘It has been said,’ he concedes with a wry grin.

  ‘What do you want?’ I ask. My voice rings out like a bell in the vast room. I hear the panic in it, the revelation that I do not trust myself.

  He stands in front of me, his cheekbones flushed with sexual heat. ‘Isn’t it perfectly obvious what I want?’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘I want you to stay away from my brother.’

  I blush. Then I laugh mockingly. ‘You’re a gangster. Don’t act high and mighty with me.’

  He smiles slowly, his eyes crinkling with amusement. ‘Say that word again.’

  I blink. ‘What word?’

  ‘Gangster.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you make it sound so sexy I want to go out and become one.’

  ‘Am I supposed to believe that you’re not one?’

  He shrugged disinterestedly, but his eyes take on a new glitter. ‘I can be if you want me to be.’

  Suddenly I feel so flustered I can’t even look at him. I drop my eyes.

  ‘Is that what you really want…Lily? A gangster?’

  ‘It’s the last thing…’

  He moves, and fast. ‘So what the fuck are you doing playing nice with his brother,’ he snarls and gripping my forearms pushes me roughly against the wall by the window.

  I do what I did when I was nine years old and I opened the front door of my nan’s house and there were two unsmiling skinheads outside. One of them was holding a hammer. I didn’t pause or consider. I simply reacted.

  ‘Let loose the two Alsatians, Nan,’ I screamed.

  For a second the heavily tattooed heads looked at each other, and then they bolted away so fast there was not enough time to say skin. My nan didn’t have a dog.

  Again I let my instinct guide me.

  I gr
ab Jake’s surprised face and, pulling it down, kiss him hard on the mouth, except, unlike the skinheads situation, the problem does not run away.

  His mouth opens to mine. The kiss sears my lips, shocking. I stagger and grab a handful of dark hair. Supporting hands come around my waist like bands of warm steel forcing me into his unyielding body, and I melt into it, fuse with it. My insides turn to fucking mush and my toes curl in my shoes. Thick juices leak into the gusset of my panties. For those few seconds I even stop breathing!

  Then, without warning, he tears his mouth away from mine, and coiling strong hands around my forearms pushes me back against the cold wall. He stares at me with these wild, animal eyes, the pupils so huge it is as if he has been running or has come out of a dark room. Mesmerized, I gaze up at him. I have never seen anything like it. Anything so feral and beautiful. He takes a deep breath.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he bites out harshly.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say as coolly as I can manage. ‘When a man shoves a woman up against a wall he usually wants to ravish her.’

  He is breathing hard. Through short gasps of air he grates, ‘Stay the fuck away from my brother.’

  His voice is cold and menacing and a great white shark is swimming in his eyes, but I know that if I reach out and touch the front of his five thousand pound suit trousers I will find him tight and hard inside them.

  ‘So I’m good enough for you but not good enough for your brother.’

  He laughs bitterly. ‘No, you’re good enough for any man’s bed. The problem is Shane would want to marry you, and we both know you’re not the marrying kind.’

  ‘What makes you think I wouldn’t marry Shane?’

  He reacts swifter than a Tasmanian devil. His hand shoots out and pulls me so hard and fast I gasp with shock as I slam into his body. His cock juts into my belly. ‘Don’t play with me, Jewel.’

  I look up at him defiantly. Heat glitters in his pale eyes and fierce sexual heat has tightened his jaw. ‘If Shane wants me he’ll have me.’

  His eyes flash with anger, but he drawls, ‘Oh, baby. You have no clue, have you?’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’

  ‘Take it as a warning.’

  ‘What are you going to do, hmmm?’ I challenge.

  ‘For a start, this.’ And he bends his head and crushes his mouth against mine. The kiss is possessive and demanding. It is nothing like the other. This one is pure punishment. With this one he is branding me. Putting his seal of ownership on me. I twist my head and try to push away, my knees preparing to connect hard with his crotch, when suddenly the kiss changes and I am helpless to resist. It is a kiss like nothing I have ever experienced. There is no discordant note. Everything about it is hot and wet and wild.

  My mouth opens and his tongue thrusts in, boldly, the way his cock would enter my pussy. I suck on it and electric energy snaps through me, scraping the back of my neck, as if I have received a shock from an old electric appliance. His hands lift me off the floor and put me back down with my legs farther apart. I feel him pull my dress up and over my bum. I hear the small scrap of lace and satin tear and then I feel his finger slide into my heat. I moan helplessly into his mouth.

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’ a voice demands.

  His broad shoulders block my view of Shane, but I freeze with horror. My torn panties are lying on the floor, and Jake’s hard fingers are still inside my naked pussy.

  Very casually, Jake lifts his head from mine, extracts his fingers out of me, and smoothing my dress over my hips, turns around to face his brother. He keeps his hand firmly around my waist.

  ‘What do you think is going on, Shane?’ he asks coolly.

  Shane stares at me, hurt etched in his beautiful eyes.

  I try to twist out of Jake’s grip, but it is iron hard. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper.

  He smiles. A bitter twist of his lips and I know what he is thinking. He’ll just use you and discard you. No longer able to meet my eyes, he draws himself up with great dignity. And at that moment I see what a fine man he is. And how much he must have liked me before this. And I find myself wishing that the sparks between Jake and me had flown between him and me instead.

  He nods distantly and looks out of the window. ‘You will see her home safe.’

  ‘Of course,’ he replies.

  ‘Goodnight then,’ he bids and walking out of the door shuts it behind him.

  Jake takes his hand away from around my waist, but his eyes never leave mine. Feeling strangely bereft I wrap my hands around my waist. ‘You knew he was going to be here, didn’t you?’

  Green swirls in his eyes. ‘I asked him to come.’

  I nod slowly. So easily I had fallen into his trap. ‘That was a very cruel thing you did.’

  His voice is strangely soft, almost regretful. ‘I did warn you.’

  ‘To your brother.’

  ‘He’ll survive. He knows I have his best interest at heart,’ he dismisses callously, but I see the glimmer of a fierce loyalty to his brother, his family. His pack.

  ‘Why do you think I’d be so bad for your brother?’

  ‘I think I just proved my point a few minutes ago.’

  ‘You don’t know me.’

  ‘I beg to differ. I know exactly what you are.’

  ‘I’d like to go home now.’

  ‘You’re staying the night. I’ll get my driver to run you home tomorrow.’

  My mouth drops open. ‘You think I’m going to sleep with you after what you just did? I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last man on earth,’ I declare with great unoriginality.

  A slow masculine smile splits his face. If he was good looking before he is devastating now. I stare at him. Jesus! I am crazy about him.

  He reaches out a hand and touches my face with the backs of his fingers. I flinch away. He drops his hand to the side of his body. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. I have a date for tonight.’

  Of course, Andrea Mornington of the velvet gown. Fucking bastard. At that moment I think I hate him.

  ‘My housekeeper Maria will set you up in one of the guest bedrooms.’ He turns away from me and strides to the door. At the door he hesitates. ‘Enjoy the party, won’t you?’ Then he is gone.

  I touch my mouth with wonder. Fuck! I was a nightmare looking for a dream.

  Chapter 6

  Lily

  I toss and turn on the silk sheets of the king-size bed, constantly moving my body to find a cool spot. The air is balmy and still, but it is the thought of him with her that makes me sick with jealousy. I keep thinking of him pushing into her, filling her up with long, smooth strokes.

  Suddenly I hear the sound of feet in the corridor outside my room. The noise stops outside my door. I lay dead still. Only my heart crashing into my ribs. My eyes riveted on the door handle. He wouldn’t dare. He wouldn’t fucking dare come to me after he has been with her. There is another heart-wrenching moment of silence and then the sound of his footsteps passes on. I sit up, feeling hot and flushed.

  He didn’t come in!

  I had been maddened by the thought of his audacity but now I am devastated by acute disappointment. It rushes into my system like a physical ache. Fuck you, I think. Fuck you, Jake Eden. I stand up and run to the big oak door. I have my hand on the handle when I stop myself. What the fuck are you doing? I clench my hands into fists and press them against my mouth.

  What the hell is happening to me? I feel as frustrated and unsated as if I have been left unfinished by a lover. What is it about this man that makes me desperate to feel him inside me? I press my ear to the door and hear him going down the stairs.

  I remove my fist from my teeth and turn the lock on the door. The metal click is loud and final. I feel glad that I have done it. I have taken back control. I step away from the door. My hands are shaking with emotion. I am suddenly startled by a light coming on outside the window. It is him. He has tripped the security lights. I move fast. I run to the window and stand in the shadows, behind
the curtains.

  I watch him walk across the terrace toward the lip of the swimming pool, full of the restless energy and the deadly grace of a puma on the prowl. Bathed in white light, he kicks off his shoes, tugs his T-shirt over his head, peels off his jeans, and with his thumbs pulls his underwear to the floor. I should stop watching him. I should go back to bed, but I can’t. I am transfixed by the muscular buttocks lit by the neon blue of the underwater lighting.

  Backlit, he steps out of his underwear, and stands for a moment at the pool’s edge. I see the rough dusting of hair on his calves, then, gloriously and fabulously naked, he turns slightly toward my window so that his long thick dick is exposed to me. He looks up then and I feel his gaze seeking me out.

  Meeting his eyes like that is like being kicked in the guts. Wrenching. There is nothing I can do except stand in my hiding place. Guilty. Shameless. We stare at each other. Then he turns away and glides cleanly into the water. For a few moments more I watch him cut powerfully through the blue water.

  Then I stumble away from the window.

  At that moment I realize two things. One: the utter primitiveness of the man, and two: the fact that I am not in charge. I never was. Fantasies spill through my head. His hands, his tongue, his cock. Riding me until I scream. I squeeze my thighs hard.

  I sleep badly and wake up at five thirty. It is already light outside, but blessedly cool. I get out of bed and after a quick shower pad over to the clothes and shoes that Maria brought for me last night. Matching peach underwear, a blue tracksuit and white sneakers, all still with their tags on. Shockingly they all fit me perfectly. He must have random women staying over unexpectedly all the time, I reflect sourly.

  Outside my door the house is totally silent.

  I walk down the grand staircase and let myself out. Mist clings to the ground. It all looks very Sherlock Holmes and I smile to myself as I cross the lawn and head off toward the woods.