To Claim His Heir by Christmas

by Victoria Parker

  The base of her abdomen clenched; her core twisted with want.

  Oh, this was bad. Really, really bad.

  ‘Thane, let me go,’ she demanded, cursing inwardly at the feathery panting that accompanied her words. ‘I’m not joking. This is not funny. I’m not coming with you and you can’t make me.’

  His dark eyes glittered with challenge and her blood thrummed through her veins. She was scandalous—that was what she was.

  ‘You and I both know I can and I will. So, are you going to walk or will I have to carry you over my shoulder?’ he asked, his rich velvet voice doing nothing to hide the steely threat of his words.

  Problem was, her heavy breasts chose that exact moment to glory in being crushed against him, and when a fleck of snow landed on his nose she had the strangest impulse to lick it off.

  ‘Thane…’ Lord, was that her voice? That breathless, wanton plea?

  ‘Luciana…’ he drawled, in a tone that said Please be reasonable about this.

  It inched her temper into the red zone.

  ‘Don’t fight this. Don’t fight me. You don’t want to go back there.’

  ‘But I do want to go back, Thane.’

  ‘No, angel. You don’t.’

  Argh!

  ‘I’ll scream and that man over there will come running. I guarantee it.’

  His mouth tipped at the corner in a devilish smirk. ‘Go ahead and I will smother that gorgeous mouth of yours.’

  A gasp hit the back of her throat. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Want to find out?’ he growled.

  Shameful excitement made her heart thump frenetically. ‘No, I don’t,’ she said, though her voice sounded like a flagrant whimper to her. So she strove for forceful. ‘Definitely not. Now, let go of me.’

  He tutted and shook his head. ‘Try again, Luciana. And if you say it like you mean it, I just might.’

  Ooh, he’d asked for this.

  Writhing in his hold, she pushed and shoved at his chest, drew in a lungful of air for the scream building in her throat…

  And his mouth crashed over hers, taking his words from threat to carnal promise.

  Oh, hell. Don’t kiss him back. Don’t you dare.

  Within seconds he’d captured her in his invisible force field, energy swirling, flowing around them like a mini-cyclone, and her breath unwound on a blissful sigh.

  He cradled her to him with one hand cupping her nape and the other splayed at the small of her back, hauling her up against his hard groin as he tilted his head and ravished her mouth as if he owned her body and soul.

  Wicked was the flavour that flooded her mouth. So sinful and debauched he was. Bad to the bone. And when he stroked past her lips with a teasing flick and then a languorous lick of his tongue, that was it. She melted against him—all molten lava. Followed the sculpted line of his shoulders with her greedy hands up the column of his neck and slipped them beneath his ears, into his hair. Hair she fisted, making him growl long and low, the sound vibrating through her on a violent tremor.

  The earth was moving, she was sure. Then she figured out why when he lifted her high and coaxed her legs around his waist. Luciana wrapped herself around him and hooked her ankles at the small of his back until there wasn’t a sliver of air between them. He palmed the rounded swells of her bottom, squeezing her to him, and the erotic sensation of his thick hard erection nudging her lace panties made her sex throb and weep. He felt shockingly good and she whimpered, shivered.

  Though that might also have been because she was wet, soaked to her skin. But he seemed to know what she needed, and when warmth suffused her and he sat down…somewhere…she straddled his muscular legs, cuddling closer to burrow into his heat.

  Never leaving her mouth, he tore at her sodden coat, yanking it down her arms, and then his hot hands were back, sliding up her cool bare legs, pushing her dress up to ruck it around her thighs. And when those depraved fingers dug into the flesh of her bottom, pulling her panties indecently tight, the tug and rub of lace against her swollen folds made her cry out.

  Survival instincts kicking in, she tore her lips free and dragged air into her lungs. Took a mind-numbing rush of his potent scent too. And that made her woozy. Impelled her to arch her back in a promiscuous plea for him to nuzzle her throat.

  ‘Luciana…’

  His lush, moist kisses fell on her skin like rain on drought-stricken ground and she soaked up every caress, thirsting for more. It had been so long since she’d been touched, since this man had touched her. So wonderful. Such naughty, amoral bliss.

  ‘Thane…’

  Dipping her head, she searched for his mouth and he dusted his lips over hers, teasing her cruelly. He tasted of pure virile masculinity, undiluted power. Passion and heat and lust and Thane.

  Needing to touch, she ripped at the top buttons of his shirt, relishing his raspy curse and the sound of fabric tearing, and dived into the space she’d made, smoothing over his collarbone. Felt his heart beat a rapid staccato against her palm.

  ‘Hot,’ she whispered past his lips. ‘So hot.’

  His chest rumbled with a reply and yet she didn’t hear a word, because a weird whooshing noise was blowing through her brain. Before she could grasp the why and the how, he scraped his stubble up the curve of her jaw in a sensual graze, making her tremble and rock her achingly heavy pelvis against him. Wanting his hardness inside her so, so badly.

  When he let loose a feral moan from deep in his throat she did it again. And again. Her frenzied elation ratcheted up when his thumb slipped around her hip to find her sweet spot unerringly and apply just the right amount of pressure to take her to the edge of an almighty orgasm and hold her there.

  ‘Thane, please.’

  ‘Dios, Luciana… No bed in here, angel. But I want you to come for me. Hard. I want to hear you cry out my name like you used to.’

  ‘Yes. Yes…’

  Hold on.

  Here? No bed in here?

  He circled that tight knot of needy nerves and it took everything she had not to tumble into the abyss.

  Her lashes were fluttering and her surroundings came to her in flashes. Cream leather seats. Small windows. Like a…like a private jet. And…were they moving?

  Moving?

  Luciana jerked backwards, dislodging his hand, blinking frantically, prising her eyes wide, her gaze darting here there and everywhere.

  ‘What…? Where…? How…?’

  She was the only one who was confused and disorientated, she noticed. Because the man whose lap she straddled simply sat there, his chest heaving from their passionate antics, cheeks streaked with colour, watching her with an insufferable blend of satisfaction and wariness.

  Down she came, back to earth with shattering intensity. And how she didn’t raise her hand and slap his face she’d never know.

  ‘You…you bastard.’

  Wrenching free, she tumbled backwards off his knee and landed in a messy, graceless heap. Still trembling from the erotic turbulence.

  Thane lurched forward in a move to help.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’ Tears of frustration and anger pooled in her eyes.

  Cautiously, he eased back into his chair, a deep V slashing the space between his brows. The look on her face must have said it all, she realised, since this was the first time he’d backed off at her word.

  Somehow she clambered to her feet and stood tall before him, sweeping her palms down her black sheath, trying to cover as much of herself as she could before that horrid, vulnerable feeling of being exposed and raw threatened to strip her flesh from her bones.

  Fury and self-disgust roiled inside her. Didn’t diminish even when she saw a flicker of doubt and unease pass over his face. Though he soon banked it. It didn’t matter. She would make him rue this day if it was the last thing she did.

  ‘Luciana—’

  ‘No. Don’t speak to me.’

  Spine pin-straight, she walked towards the other large leather recliner,
trying to wrap her mind around her new predicament. What on earth was she going to do now? She—

  A thought slammed into her, and she whirled back on a swirling spin of dizzying dread. ‘My bag,’ she said, unable to hide the panic in her voice. ‘Where’s my handbag?’

  He was staring out of the small window, rubbing his mouth with the inside of his finger. ‘Sit down, Luciana, we are about to take off.’

  ‘No, dammit, I won’t!’

  Shucking off his wet jacket, he kept his eyes averted. ‘Did you leave it in the car?’

  Oh, God.

  Her stomach pitched as the jet lifted off the runway, and she grabbed the back of the chair to keep from crumpling to the carpet.

  ‘Go back down. Land this plane. Right now, Thane. I need my bag. My phone. I need my phone.’

  How was she going to call Natanael? Keep in touch with home? Text Nate as she did every morning, noon and night?

  Desperation made her beg the man she loathed with every ounce of her being. ‘Thane, please, I need my phone.’

  He didn’t turn, still wouldn’t look at her. Just inhaled deeply and closed his eyes for a beat. ‘Where we are going no phone of yours will even work, Luciana. Sit down and leave it.’

  She gritted her teeth, mightily glad for the return of that cool, dominant inflection because it evaporated the acidic splash behind her eyes. She would not break. Not in front of this man. Nor any other.

  ‘I hate you right now,’ she whispered vehemently. Though she suspected she hated herself even more.

  One kiss. That was all it had taken to vanquish every thought from her mind.

  Self-loathing slithered through her stomach to writhe like a nest of vipers and she curled into the deep bucket seat to ease the ache.

  No phone. No way to call Nate. No chance of escape. And she was flying straight into enemy territory.

  If she got through this in one piece and found her way home it would be a miracle.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HE FELT LIKE the big bad wolf. In more ways than one. Furious self-censure and unparalleled carnal hunger took equal pleasure in tearing at his insides with razor-sharp claws until he wanted to growl.

  The lust made his body thrum with pent-up energy, yet all he wanted to do was storm over there, pick her up and put her right back on his knee. Eradicate the pain in her eyes by wrapping her up in his arms and holding her tightly to him.

  Dios, when tears had glistened in those big, beautiful eyes he’d felt as if a bullet had ripped clean through his chest. He’d been a little boy again, looking up at his mother, unsure what to do, how to take her heartache away. A heartache that once again he didn’t truly understand. And that had made him feel lost. Racking his brains to think of some way to stem her misery. Because somehow his mother had always managed to quell his, take his pain away—back when his flesh could feel such a sensation, that was.

  Rubbing over his jaw, he recalled how touching her had often worked—holding her cold, trembling hand or trying to wrap his small, thin arms around her shoulders to hug her, wishing he was bigger, stronger. Instinctively he’d reached for Luciana, but she didn’t want his touch. While he’d always treasured hers. Touch was precious to him, he realised. Infinitely rare and beyond price, it was something he hadn’t experienced or allowed himself to feel since he’d been seven years old. Until Luciana.

  ‘I hate you…’

  How her words tormented him. How her tears made him feel barbaric. As brutal as his father.

  While he still owned what he’d had to do, he conceded his tactics might not have been the most honourable. Had he been wrong to take his chance? Hell, no. Not when the alternative was her marrying another man. A man she didn’t even wish to marry! Still, luring her onto a flight using their chemistry, when she’d exploded like some hot, sensual, sultry bomb in his hands, and then almost initiating them into the ranks of the mile-high club wasn’t exactly coaxing her towards a priest with a gentle hand, was it?

  The memory of her furiously wild, uninhibited passion made him shift in his seat with restless virile power—as if his body had lain dormant for an age of cold bleak winters and she’d awoken the deep-seated animalistic lust inside him.

  And right then the truth crashed down around him.

  For the first time in years he was feeling, and he was chasing it with the urgency and fervour of a madman. He felt hungry, starved of affection, and suddenly he despised it. Didn’t want her to have that kind of terrific power over him. He’d had more control when he’d been handed his first gun at twelve.

  Lurching from his seat, he went to stalk to his office, where he could think straight, past the chair where she sat curled up, knees bent, hugging them to her chest, in a pose that struck him as a defensive ball—and he slammed to a stop.

  Thumb-print-shaped blotches reddened her silky soft thighs, courtesy of his rough ardour, and her neck was scored pink from where he’d kissed her, dragged his unshaven jaw up her delicate throat. Ravaged. She looked ravaged.

  Dios, had he hurt her?

  He closed his eyes, his conscience riven by self-contempt.

  Maybe he didn’t deserve to have her in his life again. He could never be good inside, where it mattered. That had been twisted out of him as a boy. He was darkness and she was all golden light.

  Good versus evil. Beautiful versus beastly. Flawless versus scarred.

  Fatigue lent a beautiful fragility to her face. And when a shiver rustled over her honey-gold skin his guts twisted tight. She looked scared, miserable and attacked. So damn vulnerable.

  Idiot he was—of course she’d be worried. While they’d spent one month in each other’s arms there were years of animosity between their countries.

  Opening one of the top cupboards, he pulled down some thick fluffy blankets and lowered into a crouch before her.

  Her little bow-shaped mouth was mutinous in her heart shaped face. ‘Get away from me, Thane.’

  ‘Luciana,’ he said, his voice rich and smooth, ‘I am sorry I’ve upset you this badly.’

  ‘Upset me?’

  She flared up with spectacular force—his ferocious little lioness. He actually felt himself blanch when he saw her eyes, pools of brandy swimming in betrayal.

  ‘Oh, just go away. I’m not speaking to you.’

  ‘You just did,’ he said lazily, trying to lighten the mood, get her to come round to him.

  ‘Only because you’re forcing me to. You are such a control freak. Do you get off on being Mr Big and Powerful? Taking away people’s choices?’

  That wasn’t what he’d done. Was it…?

  ‘No, what I was doing was preventing you from making a mistake. Giving you freedom from your father. You owe him nothing, angel. Soon you’ll realise I’ve done you a great favour, and when you thank me I will not be so arrogant as to say I told you so.’

  Moaning, as if his very existence was painful to her, she squeezed her eyes shut and banged her head on the headrest. ‘You’re impossible. You really are.’

  Gingerly, he covered her in layers of dove-grey cashmere and tucked the ends underneath her.

  ‘What’s this? A peace offering?’ she jeered.

  ‘No, a blanket,’ he drawled as he slipped off her towering white glossy shoes. Unable to resist that ticklish spot, he ran his thumb over the sexy little nub of her anklebone.

  She flinched and tucked her foot under the blanket, rebuffing him.

  Thane sighed, stood tall, and shunted a hand through his hair. Back to that place where he was lost. Only knowing in that moment that making her smile at him was more important than anything else. And that thought was not only unnerving but also perilous and highly confusing.

  His office silently chanted his name.

  ‘I’ll leave you for a while, then,’ he said, stepping away.

  Naturally that was when she started ranting all over him.

  ‘How do you do this to me, Thane? How do you make me want you and hate you at the same time? I have no sense
when it comes to you. None!’

  One fat tear slipped down her cheek and his cold, stony heart cracked in two.

  ‘Now look at the mess I’m in.’

  The desolate anguish in her voice made him remember, and he couldn’t just stand there paralysed. He had to do that in his own country, almost every damn day.

  Ah, to hell with it.

  Swooping in, he scooped her up…

  ‘Hey!’

  He turned and plonked them both back down in her seat, holding her close.

  ‘I…I told you not to touch me again,’ she choked out, trying to fight him and her tears at the same time. ‘Honest to God, do you listen to one single, solitary thing I say?’

  Palm to her cheek, he pushed at the side of her face to nestle her into his neck. ‘It may not seem so, but, yes. I just… Let me hold you. Warm you up. Please? Just for a moment. You’re shivering.’

  He tucked the blanket tightly around her, from her sexy knees to the feminine slope of her nose, until she was swaddled, unable to move an inch.

  ‘There you go. You look like a cute furry Egyptian mummy, but that’s better, si?’

  If looks could kill, he’d be dead.

  ‘It may be better if you remove that damp dress from your skin,’ he suggested.

  It was shrinking by the second, he was sure. He was also sure he wanted it off her, since he could easily conjure up far more pleasurable ways to make his thoughtless arrogance up to her.

  Hiking her chin up over the cashmere, she harrumphed at him. ‘As. If. Now you’re trying to get my clothes off? Forget it, Romeo. This Juliet isn’t falling for that.’

  Thane frowned. ‘They were enemies, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yeah… Ring any bells? And there was no happy ending for them either. She killed herself, so let that be a lesson to you.’

  Spine rigid, he stiffened up…then slammed down the memory before it invaded him and the blackness tainted his soul. No, that would never happen with Luciana. She was not his mother. He and Luciana had history. He’d made her happy once and he would again. He was a man now—stronger, more powerful—he would be enough this time. Wouldn’t he?