Harlequin Presents--June 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Dani Collins

  “You have already told me you are attracted to me. Are you saying that is not true?” he asked her, like a man trying to figure out a very difficult puzzle.

  It was all she could do not to give in to sarcasm. He could not be that dense. “It’s not my attraction to you that I’m doubting.”

  “But I told you I wanted you,” he said like that should be it.

  The final word on the subject.

  “I think with some things, actions speak with more assurance than words.”

  “We are not having sex before our wedding night.” He laid down the law like the King he was. “Our first child will be conceived within the bounds of marriage. As heir to my throne it would be grossly unfair for us to risk anything else.”

  “There are such things as birth control.”

  “We can wait.”

  She sat back into the corner of her seat, her arms crossed over her chest, feeling very put out and knowing he would not understand why at all. “Of course we can. Far be it from the King of Mirrus to act with spontaneity.”

  “I had my fill of spontaneity a long time ago.” His expression said his memories in that direction were not good ones.

  When he’d been married? Before that? After? She wanted to ask. So badly but knew she wouldn’t.

  Because as much as he’d guessed about her life as a child, she had no plans to ever share the memories that still haunted her nightmares.

  With an imprecation, he grabbed his phone and sent a text, then crossed the limousine to join her on the leather upholstery on her side.

  She stared up at him. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m letting my past dictate my present and that’s as stupid as reliving it.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  But the expression in his eyes was saying plenty. His gray eyes were molten with desire, his body rigid with self-restraint. And that’s when she knew he wanted her too.

  “You want to kiss me,” she said wonderingly.

  “Yes,” he ground out.

  “So, do it!” Why did men always make things so complicated?

  She gasped in shock when he took her up on her offer. Nikolai’s tongue was right there sliding between her parted lips. This was no polite peck of lips.

  Nikolai took possession of her mouth with passionate domination and Nataliya fell into the kiss with every bit of desire coursing through her virginal body.

  He pulled her close, one hand cupping her breast through the lace of her gown and she moaned. She’d never been touched like this. She’d never even been kissed with tongue.

  And she liked it all. Every new sensation building something inside her so that unfamiliar tension coiled within her.

  She put her hands on his chest, squeezing his pecs, then feeling down his stomach, wishing his shirt were not in the way.

  He made a sexy growling sound deep in his chest and yanked her into his lap, deepening the kiss. Everything went hazy, passion burning all rational thought from Nataliya’s brain as the kiss went on and on and on.

  He carefully peeled the fabric away from her body, slid his hand into the bodice of her dress and cupped her breast, pinching her aching nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

  She let out a little cry against his lips, overwhelmed by the amazing sensation, and the pleasure in her core spiraled tighter.

  He rolled her nipple back and forth, sending pleasure zinging directly from there to between her legs and unfamiliar feelings built inside her until she felt like she would scream with them.

  It was too much and not enough and she did not know how to ask for what she needed. But then he pulled her closer and she felt his hardness against her hip, through their clothes, and something about that intimacy just sent her pleasure skyrocketing. The most amazing sensations washed over her until her body went rigid with her climax.

  She ripped her lips from his to let the pleasure out in a scream and he kissed down her neck and back up to her mouth.

  “So perfect, so passionate,” he said in a tone that only added to the pleasure floating over her.

  She collapsed against him, awash with sensation but so lethargic she could not have moved for anything.

  “Sexually compatible.” This time his tone was pure smug arrogance.

  And even that didn’t turn her off.

  “Last word again?”

  “I deserve it, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe this time.”

  He rapped his knuckles on the window and that must have been some kind of signal because minutes later, the limousine slid to a stop.

  The door did not open however and she was grateful. He helped her get herself back together and off his lap.

  “I will see you tomorrow,” he reminded her.

  They had plans to go on a tour of Central Park, because she’d said she wanted to. Later, they were going to have dinner together again.

  Another perfect date.

  Maybe it would end with another perfect kiss.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KISSING NATALIYA HAD BEEN a good decision.

  No way was she still worried that he did not desire her. As if.

  If anything, his sexual feelings for her were so strong, he had almost dismissed his idea of fulfilling the contract in his brother’s stead out of hand. Nikolai refused to be at the mercy of his libido. Again.

  Only he’d realized that wanting her was not a bad thing. Having her would be a better thing. All he had to do was keep his emotional distance and never allow her to use his desire for her to control him.

  Knowing that she wanted him, had always wanted him, even when she’d tried her best to hide it? That gave him the certainty that she would not withhold herself from him as Tiana had done. Would not use his desire as a weapon against him.

  Nataliya was too honest and forthright to play those kinds of games, regardless.

  He ignored the small voice telling him that all women were capable. He would not put himself in a position for sex to become a bargaining chip.

  Never again.

  But that did not mean he could not allay her fears on that score.

  Nikolai was proud of both his superior decision making skills in sharing that intimacy with her. When she had climaxed in his arms, he’d wanted to shout in triumph. Nataliya had proven she could not withhold her reactions from him and that was something he needed to know after the pain of his first marriage, where sex had been a bargaining chip, a battleground, but never just pleasure.

  And though her response to him had shot his libido into the stratosphere, he’d maintained the control he’d fought to hone.

  He’d wanted to take her right there in the limousine, but he hadn’t even undressed her. Nataliya’s uninhibited passionate response had been deliciously surprising and nearly obliterating to his self-control.

  But he had controlled himself and that was what mattered.

  As he’d told Nataliya, his heir would not be conceived outside the legal bonds of matrimony.

  A marriage he had no doubts would take place regardless of her posturing.

  So, she wanted a proposal. He was a king, but he was also a man with superior intellect. He would give her the proposal of her dreams and she would finally agree verbally to what they both knew was a foregone conclusion.

  Their marriage.

  * * *

  Nataliya was relieved that Jenna and her boyfriend were not back yet when she entered the hotel suite.

  She needed some time. To parse what that kiss meant.

  No way could she legitimately wonder if he wanted her. He’d been hard and she’d felt it. The fact he hadn’t taken it farther than a kiss was a tick in the plus column. Nikolai could and would control his own sexual desires when necessary.

  That boded well for the concept of fidelity.

&nb
sp; Even so, she needed time to deal with the emotional aftermath of her first orgasm with another person and how vulnerable it made her feel.

  Because as much as she respected that he hadn’t pushed for more, the fact she was the only one who had come was a little disconcerting. She’d never seen herself as very sexual. Yes, she’d always wanted him, but in a vague, undefined way.

  She’d experimented with toys, but her pleasure had taken longer to achieve and not been as devastating.

  Far from having the slow fuse she’d always thought, with him, it was short and explosive.

  Oh, man. So explosive.

  It was time to do some research.

  Research she should have done weeks ago, but she’d been putting off.

  She didn’t want to do a deep dive into Nikolai’s life, but she wasn’t marrying a man who had a long-term mistress like her uncle or a string of them like his own brother and her father.

  She needed to know just how he lived his life now and if he was currently involved with another woman.

  You could just ask, her conscience reminded her.

  But Nataliya needed cold hard facts and as much as she knew Nikolai expected every word he uttered to be taken as gospel, her past made that kind of blind trust impossible.

  She ordered a pot of coffee and pulled out the laptop that beat her desktop for speed and memory. It was a pretty cool betrothal gift. Sort of fitting she was using it to check out how smart betrothal to the King would be then.

  Several hours later, Nataliya had some answers. And they were all good ones.

  She’d hacked into his financial records, run his name and face through her personalized media and social media search engine. She’d checked out every single instance of travel for him in the past year, every expenditure in and out of country and done a less thorough but adequate search for the years since his wife’s death.

  Everything had come back empty. No apartments paid for by him but occupied by a woman. He’d had companions at some of the more prominent social functions, but he’d usually brought a cousin who was now married to one of his top aides. Nothing that would indicate he had liaisons, mistresses or even the occasional lover since his Queen’s passing.

  In short, on paper anyway, he was her dream guy.

  For a woman, who had never thought to marry for love, that was a pretty big deal.

  * * *

  Nataliya woke after about four hours’ sleep, still tired but feeling more solid about this royal courtship she was experiencing. She’d known Nikolai was not a carbon copy of his brother, but she’d needed to be sure.

  About the fidelity thing. About the fact that there were no other personal contenders for the position of his Princess.

  There would always be plenty of women with the right breeding and the desire for the role, but he had not been courting any of them.

  Which meant what?

  That he wanted her in that role? That the timing had been right, and he’d decided to remarry just when his brother was deciding to renege on the contract?

  She couldn’t dismiss the honor thing, because she’d come to accept that for Nikolai, maintaining family honor and fulfilling his house’s terms in the contract were very important to him. Like obsession-level importance.

  Whether he’d been raised with an overweening sense of integrity, or it was something innate in Nikolai. Either way, she no longer disregarded it as a very real motivation for him.

  And that gave her hope for their future if they were to have one. A man that focused on maintaining family and personal integrity would not look at his marriage vows as multiple-choice options.

  And he wanted her. He’d proven that.

  Regardless of what others in her position might think, that mattered. As his Princess, Nataliya would lose all the trappings of a normal life she’d worked so hard to attain, but she would insist on having a stable and normal marriage, or as normal as possible married to a king who was also a billionaire business mogul.

  That meant sharing a bed and a life. She was not Queen Oxana, and Nataliya would not spend her life finding satisfaction in her duty and her position.

  There had to be more.

  She’d seen that more in Maks’s and Demyan’s marriages, knew that even if her husband did not love her, he could give Nataliya more than what she’d seen between her aunt and uncle or her own parents, much less the other royals of that generation in Volyarus.

  She would have more, or she would not marry.

  No matter what she’d signed when she was eighteen.

  * * *

  Later, Nataliya was not at all surprised that they were going to have a horse-drawn carriage for their tour of Central Park.

  Nikolai had a canny knack for knowing what she might enjoy most.

  She was surprised, however, that the carriage looked so elegant and that it was drawn by two perfectly matched horses of the kind of quality she recognized as beyond the means of the average tourist company.

  “Are these your horses?” she asked him in shock.

  “They are now.” He flashed her a slashing, arrogant smile. “I bought them from stables with an excellent reputation in Upstate New York.”

  “And the carriage?”

  “Purchased for this occasion.”

  “You don’t think that’s a little over the top?”

  “I am a king, Nataliya. I do not ride in conveyances that cater to the masses.”

  But to buy a carriage? “You sound really snobby right now.”

  “Not simply intelligent about my own safety?”

  He was talking about assassination attempts. In his father’s lifetime, the former King had survived one and she had no idea if Nikolai had ever been the target of such an attempt. She had no doubt that if he had, he would have kept it very quiet.

  “I stand corrected,” she acknowledged. “But I still think you have no clue how the average person lives.”

  “And you do.” He said it with satisfaction.

  Nataliya gave him a surprised look. “You like that?”

  “Very much. Mirrusians live all over the globe in all walks of life. The royal family should understand them if we are expected to serve their needs.”

  “That’s a very progressive view.”

  “I am a progressive man.”

  A man who was getting married based on a contract his father had signed? She did not think so. “Maybe in some things.”

  “I am no throwback.”

  “No, I’d say you are the inevitable product of growing up royal in the twenty-first century in a country that is still a full monarchy.”

  “Volyarus is also a monarchy.”

  “I am aware.” She settled back into the comfortable leather squabs of the carriage. “What happens to this carriage after today?”

  “It will be sold and the proceeds donated to the charity we’ve been supporting with our courtship.”

  “Konstantin didn’t like my online auction.”

  “You hit at his pride.”

  “It was intentional,” she admitted. “But you provide gifts for the auction.”

  “It is a worthy cause.” He took her hand, in an unexpected public display of affection that should be entirely innocent.

  Only she felt that touch go right through her and had to take a deep breath and let it out slowly not to give herself away.

  His knowing look said she hadn’t been all that successful. “So, going back to our earlier words, are you a proponent of constitutional monarchy?” he asked, but didn’t sound worried or even shocked by the idea she might be.

  “Power should always be checked.”

  “And those checks, do they always work?” He brushed his thumb over her palm, sending electric sparks along that nerve-rich center and up her arm.

  She curled her fingers around h
is thumb to stop him so she could think clearly enough to focus on answering him. “No, but having them gives the people that power is supposed to protect more of a chance of actually enjoying that protection.”

  “Does your uncle know you have these prorepublic leanings?” Amusement laced Nikolai’s tone.

  “Technically, he is my second cousin.”

  “But he sees himself in a closer role. You call him uncle.”

  “Not anymore, I don’t.” It had taken her long enough, but she’d come to realize that family was more than a word. It was a relationship, and her “uncle” had removed himself from their relationship a long time ago.

  Now that seemed to startle Nikolai, when her beliefs that his power should be checked by a parliament didn’t. “Why not?”

  “Fifteen years ago, he sacrificed me and my mother to protect his good name when the whole time he has been the biggest risk to scandal in the royal family.” Mama had always known too.

  Nataliya had only learned of her King’s infidelity as an adult and quite by accident, but then she’d spoken to her mother about it, hurt and angered by the monarch’s hypocrisy. She’d learned then that Mama had known since the beginning.

  It had sparked one of their rare arguments.

  “Because of his long-term mistress.”

  “Exactly.” The woman he’d refused to marry because of her divorce but had never been willing to give up. “You know about their long-term affair. She’s not the secret he believes she is. If the media starts digging, they won’t have to go very deep to reach a royal scandal of epic proportions.”

  “You do not think King Fedir has things in place to protect the monarchy in such an event?”

  “He may think he does, but his relationship is too long-standing for him to deny it with any chance at being believed. Too many people know about it. Too many bills have been paid for her through the palace accounts.”

  “I’m sure King Fedir has taken precautions so that those bills cannot be traced back to him.”

  “I traced them. And as we both saw at the hackathon, I’m good, but I’m by no means the only good hacker out there.”

  “You hacked into your uncle’s financial records?”

  “I hacked into the palace financial records.”