Lessons in Seduction

by Sandra Hyatt

  They lay, chests heaving, foreheads touching. As their breathing calmed he rolled off her but kept her in his arms. She laid her head on his shoulder, sated and dreamy.

  Sanity slowly returned.

  She felt and heard Adam take a breath. “Don’t say anything.”

  “Not even, wow.”

  Danni laughed and he pulled her closer to him.

  Adam woke and watched Danni sleeping, bathed in soft morning light. He could scarcely remember seeing her still before. Completely relaxed. Even when they played chess and she took her time thinking before making a move there was a contained restlessness to her as though she was ever ready to leap from her chair. It showed itself in the subtle tapping of her fingers or her toes.

  He smiled now. She didn’t share a bed well. She lay at an angle across the big bed. One arm was flung up above her head, her fingers curling gently. The pale skin of her arm looked so soft, vulnerable almost. Her eyes, usually flashing fire, were closed. Eyelashes kissed her cheeks.

  She stirred and rolled. And the sheet he’d pulled up over her as she slept shifted. So beautiful. She took his breath away. Pale and lithe. More petite than he’d realized—again he blamed that restless energy that radiated for her, always making her seem…more. More than the sum of her parts. More alive than anyone else he knew. Brimming with vitality and humor.

  The edge of the sheet lay across her chest, dipping low but not low enough to reveal her pert perfect breasts.

  So feminine. He’d been willfully blind to that about her before. He’d focused over the years on how much of a tomboy she was, how she was his friend, at times almost a sister, to help him avoid focusing on the obvious. Danni was gorgeous. Passion personified. Nothing sultry, just an electric sensuality that called to him, like no one else.

  Called to him? Like no one else? The thought stopped him cold.

  He couldn’t entertain thoughts like that. She was Danni. He was a brief pit stop on the race that was her life. And he had a life to lead, too. Responsibilities to live up to.

  He should get out of this bed, cross back to his own room and lock the door behind him. Too late, he realized that he suddenly stood on the precipice of something unknown and dangerous.

  She opened her eyes and her lips curved into a smile. That’s where the danger lay. Those eyes. Just looking into them pleased him. Her smile broadened, she shifted again, arched just a little. He took back his earlier thought. Sultry. There was no other word for it. He rolled toward her. Precipice be damned.

  She traced a pattern across his chest with her fingertip. “You know, French is the language of love but you never spoke French to me while we were…”

  Making love? Neither of them would want to call it that. “Because I couldn’t think straight in any language. I can try now if you like?”

  She grinned and her eyes sparkled.

  He caught her lazily circling finger. “I’ll speak words to you that will light you on fire. Words you’ll understand even though you don’t speak French or Italian or German.” He brought that finger to his lips and kissed it. “Croissant, Citroen.” He found her next finger, kissed that also. “Schnitzel, Mercedes Benz.” Her fingers weren’t enough. He rolled on top of her, holding his weight from her, and loved the way she wriggled to accommodate him and the heat and anticipation in her gaze.

  “Go on.”

  He brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her forehead. “Pizza, Ferrari.”

  “Ohh, I think I like Italian best. Give me more.”

  “Demanding wench.”

  She rocked her hips.

  And he’d give her the world. “Tiramisu, Lamborghini.”

  “Take me I’m yours.”

  He touched his lips to hers, and conscious thought, in any language, evaporated.

  Nine

  Adam stood with Danni and Blake under the portico of the chalet. Satisfaction thrummed through him as smoothly as the idling of the Range Rover’s engine.

  One night and one morning of perfection, of love-making and laughter. They’d stolen that much for themselves. As he watched Danni talking easily with Blake, he realized it was the laughter that had surprised him. He’d never laughed so much with a woman before. But Danni teased and joked, taking nothing, least of all him, too seriously. She was a revelation.

  He hadn’t thought she could be right when she’d said a relationship should be fun. It was one of the many lessons he’d learned from her.

  Living in the moment was part of her nature. She had refused to talk about the future, about anything other than right now. And it turned out that very little talking at all was necessary and that there were far better ways than skiing to capitalize on snow on the ground outside.

  The sheer compulsive energy of her had drawn him in. She’d uncovered a part of himself he’d walled over and forgotten.

  He watched her now. Some of that energy had dimmed. Their time of isolated perfection was over. They were heading back. For the first time he could remember he was resisting what lay ahead.

  “I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay,” Blake said as though he was reciting lines from a script. He probably was. Several times throughout their visit, he had consulted the little red notebook that contained his instructions. Even absent, Sabrina ran a tight ship.

  “Very much,” Danni answered.

  Blake leaned a little closer. “I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want you to know.” He lowered his voice. “But you were my first ever guests. I’m relieved it was you two. I don’t know too much about this lark and I’ll admit I was worried. I didn’t know how it would go if someone important had come to stay. Sabrina would have killed me if I did anything wrong or got too familiar with guests. Or talked too much.” A sheepish smile spread across his face. He winked. “If you ever see her and she asks, tell her I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t,” Adam said.

  “Anyway, it was a good practice run for me. We’re expecting a mayor next week. I won’t say who because I’m not allowed to talk about guests, but at least I’ve got this under my belt as a warm-up. I’ll still be nervous having a local dignitary but it won’t be so bad.”

  “Rest easy. You were the perfect host.”

  Blake slapped him on the shoulder with surprising force. “Thanks, mate. That means a lot to me. Oh, hey, I forgot to get you to sign the guest book.”

  “It’s okay,” Danni said. “I signed it.” She tossed and caught the car keys. She knew he watched the movement. Challenge lit her eyes. He let the challenge pass. The driving was important to her.

  Like him, she’d been reluctant to leave their bed this morning. But once she had, she’d approached the things they’d needed to do efficiently but almost mechanically.

  They’d been on the road a few minutes when he asked, “Whose name? In the guest book.”

  “Just mine. And my signature’s almost indecipherable. Don’t worry, there’ll be nothing to link you here with me.” She didn’t sound like the Danni of the last few days. There was a new distance and formality to her voice, and a subtle tension about her shoulders. Was this how it was going to go? Had he ruined everything by giving into the overpowering need and making love with her?

  “That wasn’t what I was worried about.”

  “No? What were you worried about then?”

  “Would you believe me if I said you?”

  She sighed but there was a hint of laughter behind it and her shoulders eased. “Yes. I would.” The glance she flicked in his direction was almost sorrowful.

  The road unwound before them, a dark damp strip between blinding white snow and dark green pines. The GPS in the dash showed what lay ahead. But there was no road map for what came next for them. And as a man who lived by plans and goals and schedules, the uncertainty and the changes they would face bothered him.

  He didn’t know if she realized what they’d be up against. “You’re the one who has the most to lose if this becomes public knowledge,” he said. Hers was the life t
hat would be turned upside down, its quiet privacy obliterated. He didn’t want that to be the legacy for her of their brief time together.

  “It won’t become public knowledge. It can’t. It was just one weekend.” She sounded blithely unconcerned with her own fate. “Only you and I know, and I’m not telling anyone. And if you can curb your tendency to run off at the mouth,” she said with pure Danni sass, “we’ll be fine. Blake knows we were there together, but he doesn’t know who you are. And even if he did I don’t think he’d tell. Not deliberately.”

  “And there’s always Sabrina to keep him in line.” Blake had showed him a photo of the absent Sabrina, a tiny, sweet-looking woman.

  “Exactly,” Danni agreed with a smile. “One snow-bound weekend. We were allowed that much.”

  But the possibility of what they’d shared becoming public was only part of what was bothering him. The other part, the purely selfish part, was the prospect of losing her, and what they’d found, so soon after discovering it. He’d been closer to her this weekend than anyone else. Ever.

  “You’re saying that’s it, that this is over between us?” That was supposed to be his line, but hearing it acknowledged by her made him want to fight it. He wasn’t used to this kind of confusion. Usually the right thing to do was obvious, or at least felt right. But ending things with Danni, when they’d scarcely started, felt wrong in his heart at the same time as he knew in his mind it was right.

  She flicked a worried glance at him. “Yes. It has to be. You know that. We have no future. We go back to life as normal.”

  That was the trouble. He did know. And yet she’d turned him upside down and inside out until he couldn’t think straight. Because of her, he might never think completely straight again. But what he did know was that what he used to consider normal would no longer be enough. “I’m not sure it’s possible.”

  “We’ll manage.” She spoke fiercely.

  Did she really believe that? They’d come together so quickly there had been no slow anticipatory buildup, no courtship. None of the romance Danni herself had once informed him women wanted. Didn’t she deserve that?

  “And I’m supposed to be okay with just using you for a one-night stand? You’re okay with that?”

  “Absolutely. And you have to be okay with me using you. It was probably wrong of me but…” She shrugged.

  He shook his head. Her voice held a brittle note of falseness. “I don’t know, Danni. Things have changed so quickly and so absolutely. I need time to think it through.”

  “No, you don’t. I can see where you’re going with this. You think you haven’t done right by me. But you have. Very, very right.”

  He didn’t like the sudden stubborn lift to her chin, the narrowing of her eyes.

  “You’ll forget about the weekend and move on.” She kept her voice low and easy but he thought perhaps she had to fight for that calm. “We both will. You’re being honorable. I know you don’t like the thought of using anyone.”

  “I wasn’t using you. You know I wouldn’t.” But had he?

  “Then I guess I owe you an apology, because you wouldn’t. Not intentionally. But I was using you.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He recognized the tough kid who always came up fighting in the woman beside him.

  “Believe me. I thought it was mutual or I wouldn’t have…”

  Wouldn’t have what? There had been no forethought in what had transpired between them, no stopping to consider consequences.

  She swallowed. “So while your protest is sweet, it’s not necessary.”

  He couldn’t see beyond the bravado, couldn’t fathom what was going on in her head. And he owed it to her to find out. Despite what she said, he did need to do right by her. It was imperative.

  “Danni, we need to talk this through.”

  “No we don’t.” She looked fixedly ahead. He couldn’t see her eyes, and he needed to have some idea what she really felt. Her eyes, so expressive, always gave her away. “Let’s stop at that café. The one we stopped at on the way up.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” And still she didn’t so much as glance at him.

  “If what we have is over—”

  “It has to be.” She made his “if” an absolute.

  “Then we’ll be going to go back to how it used to be between us?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, I’ll cease being your lover and go back to being a prince to you, nothing more?”

  “It’s for the best.”

  “In that case, stop at the café. It’s an order. And if you really want to prove things can go back to how they were, you’ll follow it.”

  Danni took a deep breath and consciously relaxed her shoulders and flexed her fingers before resettling them around the wheel. Adam would come to his senses soon. All she had to do was to keep calm and carry on. It was either that or panic and freak out. When the café came into view she slowed and pulled in to the parking lot. An obedient driver. Nothing more.

  Inside, the scent of coffee filled the air and an open fire blazed in the hearth. Only a couple tables were occupied, but at first one table, and then the other, heads turned. Then each of those few people leaned in closer to their companions. And whispered.

  She could have kicked herself. Getting away without Adam being recognized the first time they’d been here had been more luck than she should have hoped for. A second time was too much to ask.

  But, she reminded herself, the first time they had nothing to hide, and this time needn’t be any different. She was his driver. Taking him home from his weekend break. Of fantastic sex, a wicked, insidious voice whispered. No. She was Adam’s driver for the weekend. Period. If she repeated it enough times she could almost believe it. He was a prince. She was returning him to the palace. To his life. She should have worn her uniform. Because although it made her stand out, it also made her invisible. People saw it and then dismissed her.

  Without her uniform she worried that people might see the woman who had spent the weekend in bed making love with a prince. She felt so different, so sexually satisfied, it didn’t seem possible that the difference wasn’t obvious.

  Adam’s nod and smile took in the occupants and the staff, earned him smiles and gasps in return. Somehow—through years of practice most likely—he’d mastered the art of looking warm and approachable while at the same time discouraging anyone from testing that approachability. He stood at the same booth they’d occupied during their first visit and waited for her to sit.

  Danni slid onto the dark leather seat. Adam sat beside her. Too close. Too intimate. She scooted around so that she sat opposite him. Like a driver might. No. Not a driver. A driver would never sit like this with a royal client. But perhaps a friend. She could live with friend.

  They ordered drinks from an effusive waitress who looked as though she might almost curtsy. When she’d turned her back, Adam leaned in. “Just a few hours ago we were making love.” He kept his voice low, so as not to be overheard but it made it even more seductive than normal.

  Danni didn’t need his reminder. It was too easy looking at him to remember all that they’d shared. But she couldn’t think about them making love. And he couldn’t be allowed to, either. Or at least he couldn’t be allowed to talk about it.

  Deep down she knew she couldn’t be just friends with him. Not after they’d been so much more. So her pending grief would be for the loss of both a lover and a friend.

  In the space of days, things had gone further and deeper than she should ever have let them. She should have run far and fast that first night she leaned into the car to wake him and met his gaze and felt that insistent tug of attraction, the kick of desire. She should have run before she realized how very much more lay behind it.

  “I just want to know that we’ve thought through our options before we consign ‘us’ to an impossibility,” he said.

  “We don’t have any options and there is no ‘us.’”

  “There are always
options.”

  “Not always. Not this time.” They couldn’t have options. It ended now. She could have no part of his life. She’d remember this always as something magical. But that was all it could ever be. A memory.

  She had to be ruthless with the naive unthinking part of her that craved options and possibilities, that wanted to dream of a future, no matter how short, that wanted to steal all the minutes and hours and days and nights they could. Regardless of right or wrong. Regardless of the consequences because in this case they wouldn’t be hers alone.

  Adam belonged to their country, he wasn’t hers and he never would be.

  She thought she saw a shadow of the sorrow besieging her in his eyes. Beneath the table his foot brushed against hers. A small point of contact, toe to toe, through leather. They weren’t allowed even that much and yet she couldn’t move her foot away.

  If they weren’t in a public place and he reached for her, she would too easily succumb. As it was, he rested one hand on the table near hers and she ached to hold it.

  “The trouble is that I can’t bear for this—” he gestured between the two of them “—to end. And I don’t think you can either.”

  “We don’t always get everything we want in life.”

  He sat back as the waitress approached with their coffees but his gaze never left her face.

  “Don’t you see,” Danni said once the waitress had gone again. “It has ended. It ended when we walked out of that chalet.”

  His frown deepened, as though he might argue. But he knew who he was and what he owed his country and his family. He was returning to a world of responsibilities. Responsibilities that included looking for a woman to stand at his side as princess.