by Maisey Yates
Just now.
Tonight they weren’t a prince and his PA. Tonight, they were just a man and a woman. A man and a woman who wanted each other more than they wanted their next breath.
He abandoned her lips, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to her neck, her collarbone. She shivered, shifted her hands to his chest, dragging them down to the waistband of his jeans and tugging his shirt out from his pants and pushing her hands beneath the fabric, her fingers making contact with hot, bare skin for the first time.
She let her hands roam over his stomach, his chest. And then touching wasn’t enough. She had to see him.
“Take your shirt off,” she said.
“Why don’t you do it for me?”
“Why should I?”
“I’m a prince, I’m accustomed to having my every whim served.”
“Is that how this is going to go?” she asked. She hadn’t considered that Bastian might not be a great lover. It would just be a waste of a perfectly hot man. But then, a man with looks, power and money wouldn’t have to be great in bed to get women.
“Tempting though it is,” he said, putting his hands on her waist, his thumbs skimming the undersides of her breasts, sending a shiver of need through her body, “to imagine having you, in all your very detail-oriented glory, serving my every whim in bed, it’s not what I have in mind for tonight.”
“No?” she asked, amazed she was able to speak at all.
“No. Do you want to know what I have planned?”
She nodded. She really couldn’t speak now.
“Tonight I want to serve you. You’ve always done what I’ve asked in the office, tonight it’s your turn to give the orders. And I intend to fulfill them.”
Chapter Six
“I don’t know where to begin,” she said, her words strangled.
Bastian felt like he was going to explode. His chest was too full, his heart pounding too hard. The images that were forming in his mind, of what it might mean to take orders from Karen, orders designed to fulfill her every sensual demand
It was enough to finish him off then and there.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I
I
I’m not that experienced.”
“You don’t have to be. Surely you’ve had fantasies.”
“Well, of course I have, but my fantasies are somewhat limited thanks to a
disappointing reality.”
“Your ex?”
“It wasn’t like he was terrible in bed or anything, but he was
inconsistent. And often fast.”
“I’m pushing the edge of fast, I’ll be honest. If you touched me right now
I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t come.”
She laughed. Nervous. Breathy. Aroused. A new laugh from Karen, one he’d never heard before, and he’d been so certain he’d heard them all. “You have a way of making it sound sexy rather than brief and unsatisfying.”
“I’ll cling to that hope,” he said, his tone dry.
“We could take this into the bedroom,” she said.
“You don’t sound certain.”
“I’m not. I told you
I’m not good at this.”
“You should be able to tell your lover what you want. And if you haven’t been secure enough to do that in the past, I’d say the fault lies with him, not with you.”
She cleared her throat and met his gaze, her blue eyes glittering with determination. “Take me to bed.”
“That is an order I’ll follow with great pleasure.” He bent and scooped her into his arms, not caring that it was cheesy as hell, like some old movie where the hero dragged the heroine upstairs to ravish her. That was exactly what he wanted to do.
He carried her through the antechamber and into the bedroom. He strode across the expanse of the room and deposited her on the center of the bed, standing in front of it, awaiting her next order.
“Lights,” she said. “I need to see you.”
He leaned over and flicked the lights on, bathing them both in brightness. Another command that suited him just fine.
“Now the shirt,” she said. “You dodged that order earlier, which doesn’t bode well for your performance review.” She rose up onto her knees. “In fact, disciplinary action may have to be taken.”
A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as he started to work at the buttons of his shirt. Amazing how she could make him laugh and turn him on, all in the same moment. “You’re enjoying this a bit too much.”
Her eyes dropped downward. “You seem to be enjoying it, too.” Her words were bold, but her cheeks flushed pink as soon as she said them.
“No point in denying it.” He shrugged his shirt off his shoulders and let it drop onto the floor. “You next,” he said.
“No. I’m the one giving the orders. You can’t go turning the tables on me now.”
“I can’t?”
“No. Now your pants. And your underwear. I want you naked.”
He couldn’t oblige her quickly enough. He found he liked this side of her. But then, he always had. Karen had never been the docile employee. Had never been cowed by his title, or his occasional foul moods. She’d always responded to his terse orders with a snappy one-liner, defusing the situation for them both.
She was good for him.
He pushed that idea to the side. He wasn’t going to let his mind go in that direction. There was no point. No point at all. Karen wasn’t his future, and never could be. Eva was his future.
The thought sent a sharp bolt of pain through him, and he pushed that aside, too. He had this one night and he wouldn’t spoil it by overthinking.
“I’m at your mercy,” he said, standing in front of her, all his clothes discarded. “Bare. At a total disadvantage. You owe me now.”
Karen did her best not to look totally awed by the sight of him. Her ex was certainly nowhere near as impressive as Bastian was. She’d never seen anything so incredible as this man. Arousedfor herand completely naked.
And she realized she didn’t want to deny his request. The time for games was over. Now she just needed him.
She reached behind her back and tugged on the zipper tab of her dress slowly, drawing it down. The bodice started to loosen, the straps falling away slowly. She didn’t feel embarrassed. Before, she’d always preferred the dark when making love because, while she wasn’t overly self-conscious of her body, having a man so close to her while she was so very naked had always unsettled her a little bit.
Which she supposed was, in and of itself, a succinct commentary on her previous relationship.
The fabric fell away from her body, leaving her breasts bare to him. And he stared. But rather than feeling any sort of shame or awkwardness, she just felt hotter. He looked at her like a man in the desert seeing an oasis. Like she was the answer to a craving that ran deep and intense inside of him.
She stood on the bed, the mattress dipping beneath her feet. She pulled the zipper down the rest of the way and let it fall into a pool of shimmering fabric at her feet. Then she hooked her fingers into the sides of her panties and dragged them down her legs, kicking them off and to the side.
“Come here,” he said, his voice rough. Clearly, he wasn’t the one taking orders anymore. And that suited her just fine. Her body burned with need for him, and while she had vague ideas of what she wanted, she didn’t know how to tell him. Not when desire and emotion were crowding her brain, making it impossible to form a thought. All she could do was feel, so much need, so much painful desire that was threatening to overtake her completely.
She walked forward, wobbling a little bit as the mattress dipped beneath her weight. She kept going until she stood before him. Then he gripped her hips and tugged her toward him, pressing a kiss just beneath her belly button.
Her heart stopped, her stomach tightening painfully.
Then he dipped his head and pressed his kiss to the V at the apex of her thighs. “Part your legs for me.”
/> She widened her stance and he deepened the intimate kiss, his tongue sliding over her clitoris, sending white hot sensation coursing through her entire body. He continued to pleasure her like that, with his lips and tongue and hands, until he drove her to the brink and pushed her over.
When she could no longer stand he was there to catch her, his arms strong around her as he lowered her to the mattress and covered her body with his.
She expected him to simply take her then, quick and hard. She even wanted him to.
But he didn’t. He paused, his eyes meeting hers, the depth of emotion in them so intense, so stark and raw that it echoed through her.
Then he bent forward and kissed her lips. Gentle. Sweet.
“Now,” she said, putting her hand on his backside and parting her thighs for him. She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t do tender and emotional.
It would break her.
He slid inside of her, filled her, took her to the brink again just by joining his body to hers. And when he moved, she saw the stars.
This time, when she found pleasure, he found it with her. And they clung to each other until the storm passed.
Chapter Seven
The light was far too bright when it pierced through the curtains in the morning. It revealed too much.
Bastian rolled away from Karen and lay on his back, trying to catch his breath. He felt like he’d been trying to catch his breath since the moment he’d closed the bedroom door and she’d pulled him in for a kiss.
What had he done? It wasn’t his betrayal of Evangelina that bothered him half so much as the fact that he’d dragged Karen into it all.
He’d sworn he wouldn’t do that. He’d sworn to himself that all he wanted was a date. Just a taste. A moment. Instead, he’d taken it all.
And he was afraid it was her who would pay the price. Oh, he wouldn’t escape unscathed. Not in the least. He would suffer, but then, he’d been suffering since he’d faced the fact that a marriage to Evangelina meant a life without Karen.
It was tempting to entertain the idea of keeping Karen as his mistress. But only for about half a second. Because ultimately, it wouldn’t be fair to Eva or Karen for him to do such a thing. The only person it would serve was himself, and even then he knew it would be a special kind of hell on earth.
To have Karen in his bed while still having to be a husband to Eva held no appeal to him. Because he wanted no other woman but Karen.
The realization hit him hard, made it impossible for him to breathe.
Because it couldn’t be. He had to be able to put this behind him. To move on. For the sake of his country, for the sake of his marriage.
He gritted his teeth so hard he was afraid they might crack.
“Karen,” he said, not wanting to wake her, but knowing he had to. She had to leave his room. He had no choice but to send her off before they were discovered. He had no choice but to treat her like a cheap one-night stand, and he hated that thought more than anything else.
She stirred, her breasts brushing his arm, a streak of heat coursing through him, blinding him. He wanted her still. Last night hadn’t solved anything, hadn’t put anything to rest. But he’d never truly believed it would.
She made a sleepy, kittenish noise and something stirred in his chest. Something that had nothing to do with sex or arousal. Something far more dangerous. Something tender and powerful. Something he feared had the strength to undo him completely.
“You need to wake up,” he said.
Her eyes fluttered open and her mouth dropped in shock. “Oh, that wasn’t a dream.”
“No,” he said, his throat constricting. “No, it wasn’t.”
She sat up, holding the blankets to her chest, staring straight ahead. “Oh, wow.”
“Regrets?”
She looked at him. “You?”
“I regret my whole life,” he said, the words tinged with a bitterness that he’d never given voice to before. “Why should last night be any different?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I have lived my entire life for an ideal. Making choices that would benefit the many, even if they were not what I personally wanted. And last night I did something very selfish. I made a choice based on what I wanted. And in the end, it feels no better than it felt to deny myself, and I have the added bonus of knowing I made a mistake.”
She looked stricken, and he understood why. He was angry, not at her, but at himself, at the world, at his fate. And so he was saying the wrong thing. It was better that way, though. Better to blow it all up now.
“A mistake? I’m a mistake?”
“Did you think this was a good idea?”
“No! But we made the choice, realizing it wasn’t a good one. A mistake implies that it was accidental and we both know it wasn’t, so don’t you pretend for one second that you didn’t understand what you were doing. We both knew.”
“That’s what makes it worse,” he said. “Working together is going to be difficult.”
She scrambled out of bed, not making any move to cover her nudity. “You think I’m going to continue working for you?”
“Of course you are.”
“What? I can’t believe you think that. I can’t believe you think I would sleep with you, then watch you marry another woman and keep working for you. For the love of
Did you think I would keep sleeping with you after you were married?”
“No. I will be faithful to my wife.”
“Oh, that’s even better. You just figured sleeping with me was so not a big deal that you could do it, and then go on like it never happened.”
“No,” he bit out. “No. I never thought that. But I did think it would be better to go through the hell of having you once, only once, knowing I could never have you again, than dealing with the hell I was already in. The hell where you were only a fantasy.”
“I can’t work for you now. Not after this. “
“I can’t lose you.”
“So, what? You just want to keep me in limbo? Sitting behind your desk like you
collected me or something? So I just sit there and do your schedule so you don’t have to lose me? How does that even work?”
“The alternative is not to see you, and I never made an allowance for that.”
“I can’t see you, Bastian, not after this. Not while I feel the way that I do.”
Bastian’s heart stopped beating. “How do you feel?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters, Karen.” It mattered so much. More than he had allowed himself to believe until that moment.
“Why? If I make some big declaration, if I put my heart out there for you, will it make any difference? Or do you just want me to tear myself open and show you everything inside of me for your entertainment?”
“Nothing about this is entertaining, Karen. Nothing.”
“No, it isn’t. Because no matter how I feel, it doesn’t change the outcome.”
“I told you, this was a mistake.”
A tear streaked down her cheek and his heart cracked. “It was.”
“I love you,” he said. It was the first time he’d even thought the words, but they’d just poured out of his mouth.
And they were true. God help him, they were true.
“And?” she asked, her voice a choked whisper.
“And I’m going to marry Princess Evangelina in a month.”
Karen nodded slowly. “I thought so.”
“I have to, Karen. It’s for my country. My people.”
“I know.”
She turned away from him silently, bending down to collect her clothing from the bedroom floor. And he just stood there, feeling like the world was falling to pieces around him.
She straightened, her clothes clutched tightly to her chest. “I quit.”
Chapter Eight
She was pathetic. There was no other word for a woman sitting on the floor of her bedroom, snot crying over a paperweight.
&
nbsp; Not just any paperweight, the paperweight that Bastian had given her after she’d been working for him for a year. It was even shaped like a cat, her pet of choice. And he’d known it, because he knew her.
Apparently not enough, however, to realize that she wouldn’t have sex with him and then continue to work for him while he shackled himself to another woman.
And she still loved him. And he loved her, it turned out. But he didn’t love her enough, obviously.
She’d sulked the whole night. During the day, she’d had to act as if nothing had happened. As if her life hadn’t been run over by a truck and utterly destroyed. Because there had been things to schedule, events to coordinate. And she was too big of a pansy to just leave Bastian with no assistant on no notice. He’d been busy all day, presumably with the princess, so it hadn’t mattered anyway. She hadn’t seen him at all.
Until she closed her eyes. Then he was all she saw.
She picked up her phone and dialed Bastian’s transportation coordinator. “Hi, Franz, it’s Karen. I need to get a helicopter, or a plane or a dinghy off Kyonos and to the mainland as quickly as possible.” There were no flights off the island for more than twenty-four hours and she needed immediate escape. And after she got off Kyonos, she was done taking any of Bastian’s personal vehicles.
“Where are you going, Karen?”
She turned to find Bastian standing in the doorway, his shirt collar open, his tie draped over his shoulders. He was still wearing the suit he’d worn the night before. She knew because she’d chosen it for him.
Yep, she was really pathetic.
“Hang on,” she said into the phone. She directed her next words at Bastian. “I’m going away from here. I’m going back to the mainland, and then home to California. You can post me my things. I don’t want to go back to Komenia and get in the way of all the wedding prep.”
“Don’t leave.”
“Why not? Why should I stay? So I can watch you marry someone else?”
“I love you?”
“So what?” she exploded, dropping her phone and jumping to her feet, not caring that Franz was probably still on the other end, not caring about anything but the pain and anger coursing through her. “So you love me. Big deal, Bastian. Do you really think those words mean anything without actions to back them up?”