Redemption (Red Dragon Book 1)

by Bradley, H. J.

  Valto blushed but he nodded his head, and moving to rest on an elbow over her he started to move his hand back on forth over her slippery flesh. It didn’t take long before Cat’s breathing quickened and her hips rose to meet his questing fingers every time they brushed over the small bead that made her cry out. Soon her right hand came up to grip the back of his head and she dragged him into a deep kiss, as her left hand covered his and urged him to quicken the speed.

  That’s all it took before her hips lifted from the mattress, wetness spilled over his fingers, and she yelled her release into his mouth. Valto found himself easing her through the aftershocks before she gently ended the kiss and pulled away from him. Despite his half hard dick and the tackiness that now coated his fingers, Valto felt exhaustion creeping back to edge of his vision and before he knew what was happening Cat was pressing a kiss to his temple and climbing off the bed. “Where are you going?” He rolled over to watch as she stood with her back to him, and he let his eyes follow every curve of her body. “Stay here tonight.”

  Cat shook her head at his request before retrieving her dressing gown from the floor and shrugging it back on. “I can’t.” She quickly tied up the sash and then kissed him again. “As much as I don’t mind breaking protocol this might just be enough to give Lowri the heart attack she’s been threatening me with for years.” Cat shrugged her shoulders. “Plus this doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you, it just means I wanted to give you a spin to see if I wanted to buy you.”

  Though he knew that he should be offended by those words, Valto couldn’t help the sensual shiver that went through him at the sound of them. With a soft chuckle he reached up to stroke the back of his hand over the subtle curve over her breast, feeling the nipple harden at his touch beneath the soft silk. “And?”

  She raised an eyebrow at his cockiness. “You’ll do …for now.” At that Cat moved to kiss him again, a violent clash of mouth and teeth that had Valto’s cock standing at attention after only a few seconds of the onslaught. Yet it was as he started to pull eagerly on the sash keeping her skin from his touch that she gave a soft chuckle and pulled again. “Now don’t go thinking I’m that easy.” Her words were harsh but her breathing had quickened again and there was a flush to her face that betrayed her.

  “I wouldn’t dare,” he said, settling back on the mattress to watch as she walked towards the door with a sensual swing to her hips.

  Just as she pulled open the door she turned back to look at him, and there was something about the softness that had come to her face and the satisfaction in her eyes that told him that something more important than just sex had happened here tonight. “Thank you.” Her tone was so low that he nearly missed her words, and Valto found that all he could do was nod like an idiot in response. Cat smiled at him then and left the room, the door shutting with a snap behind her.

  Chapter Seven.

  "You'll need to do a tour." Cat slowly lowered her teacup and stared at Lowri who was nonchalantly nibbling on a sandwich. "And as soon as possible as well."

  "A tour?" Cat placed the cup on the small rosewood table that stood pride of place in the receiving room. "What kind of a tour?"

  With a smile on her face Lowri leaned back against the cushions of her armchair. "A coronation tour of course, and it wouldn't hurt for us to use this for the people to get to know Valto."

  That hadn't been in Cat's plans. The very idea of traveling around Wales with Valto and probably a swarm of chaperones wasn't what she had wanted to spend her last few months of freedom doing. Then again with her newfound peace and slowly repairing friendship with her soon to be husband, it might be interesting to go on a holiday.

  "Very well.” She picked her cup back up and taking a sip of the lukewarm tea. "But no chaperones."

  Lowri's gaze hardened then. "I didn't think you liked him?"

  Cat shrugged her shoulders and turned her gaze to the huge bay window on the other side of the room, looking out over the city before finally answering. "We're attempting to reconcile, and we can't do that if we have someone meddling in our business all the time."

  "Your sister is managing just fine with a chaperone," said Lowri. "And you can't get more meddlesome than Kaija."

  "My sister and Johannes aren’t attempting to rebuild a broken relationship, Nanny." Cat got to her feet then and strode to the window, her heels sinking into the thick rug as she did so. "They are only just getting to know each other."

  "So you think that there is hope for you and Valto?" Lowri's words made something inside her squirm.

  "I believe we have the ability to become friends once more.” With a deep sigh she pressed one hand against the cool glass of the window "I shall never love him again."

  "Oh Cat." Lowri let out a deep sigh. "Why have you closed your heart off?"

  "Because he ripped it out of my chest and stomped on it." Cat turned violently back around to look at her step-mother. "How can you possibly ask me to risk myself again like that?"

  Lowri let out another deep sigh and stood up to join her at the window. "Valto was just a boy when he said those things. He was young, and naive, and insecure. He thought that you would have fallen victim to temptation."

  "Johann was never a temptation.” The very idea that Cat would have even considered sleeping with her sister's fiancé was ludicrous.

  "Oh I know that," said Lowri. "But Valto had thought he was being thrown over for his much more confident and, I believe in his opinion, better looking cousin."

  "Johann isn't better looking than Valto." Cat shook her head, maybe Myf thought that her soon to be husband was the best thing since sliced bread, but Cat had never been interested in his vanity or his boyish ways.

  "Hmmmm." Lowri squeezed her shoulder. "Did you ever tell Valto that?"

  "I would have done if he had let me." Valto's rant that fateful night hadn't allowed her to get a word in edgewise. "By that stage he didn't care what I had to say."

  Lowri slowly nodded her head. "No chaperones. You will be staying with family who will keep an eye on you, but you will be allowed your privacy." That was at least something, and for the most part she loved their extended family and knew them to be less formal and traditional in their mindset than her father had been and Lowri pretended to be. It would be nice to at least have the ability to get to know Valto again, since she was certain that he had changed as much in their time apart as she had done. There may also be an opportunity to squash the romantic relationship that he seemed determined to rekindle.

  Cat understood that he had been misled as to her actions all those years ago; however, that didn't take away from the fact that he hadn't even thought to ask her first. That he didn't trust her enough to think that she would have been able to keep her legs closed until he felt ready to start a physical relationship with her. Nor did it negate the fact that clearly he had had no interest in sleeping with her, though she was pleased that he appeared to have gotten over that.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "Whatever you're thinking, stop it." Lowri forced her to turn around so that they were facing each other. "That boy worshipped the ground you walked on, in fact with the way he's been acting since he got here it seems like he still does."

  Valto's desire to reconcile was quite clear to anyone, and Cat couldn't understand why he was so insistent on it. Then again, he had always been very family orientated, and she couldn't imagine him accepting anything less than some sort of happy families with the traditional loving parents and happy children. Unfortunately she wouldn't be able to give him that.

  "I can't love him." She shrugged her shoulders.

  "You mean you won't love him," said Lowri.

  "Either way it has the same outcome." Cat ran her fingers through her hair. "So what difference does it make?"

  "A very lonely life." Lowri removed her hand from Cat's shoulder, and folded her arms across her chest. "You told me that you love him, so why don't you let yourself feel that?"

  What did Lowri know about i
t? She had lived a happy single life until she had married Cat's father well into her fifties. She had no idea what it was like to marry a man who was bound to wreck her, to break her heart over and over again until she was nothing more than a shell. Until she was nothing more than her own father.

  "Because there is no future there." She couldn't keep the frustration and anger from her voice, knowing that she shouldn't take it out on Lowri. But yelling at Valto had already proved fruitless. "Better to just remain friends than to risk everything I've gained in the last five years."

  ***

  Valto wasn't difficult to find in Caerdydd castle; it was clear that he didn't exactly feel comfortable in its empty halls and rooms. He was from a much larger family, and a palace that was always bustling with activity and guests. Caerdydd was a different world to the one that he had grown up in.

  As per usual he was in the gardens, in one of the small walled ones surrounded by Lowri's beloved vegetables and herbs. He was sat on the small patch of grass in the centre, flipping through one of the thousands of novels in the library. She couldn't help but stand in the open gateway, leaning against the rough cut limestone and smiling at the sight that he made.

  He had always been a bookworm. When Johann and Kai had been running around getting dirty and making mischief, Valto had always just been seen as 'Kai's brother'. Sweet, quiet and charming he had never really left much of an impression on anyone, until on his twelfth birthday he had started coming with Johann to Caerdydd. It was during those summers that she had fallen for him, liking that he was happy to sit by the lake and talk about Shakespeare and poetry.

  "What are you reading?" She pushed away from the wall and walked into the patch of sunshine that was bathing the grass, and shining off of Valto's tousled blonde hair.

  He looked up at her and smiled. "Pride and Prejudice."

  She laughed and shook her head, settling beside him on the grass and stretching her legs out in front of her. "Hoping that Mr. Darcy will run away with you?"

  Bumping her with his shoulder, he placed the book on the grass beside him. "Who doesn't want Mr. Darcy to run away with them?"

  They both shared a soft chuckle at that, and she couldn't help the smile that came to her lips when he suddenly leaned over and kissed her cheek.

  "So Lowri has decided that we need to show you off to the Welsh public," she said, folding her hands in her lap. "Which means we will be embarking on a pre-coronation tour."

  He didn't look surprised in the slightest, and she was glad that he had the common sense to know that his life as Prince Consort was going to be nothing more than a string of these kind of events. It was an overwhelming fact about Royal life, especially those within the monarchy, and even though she had been groomed for this role there were times when she felt like the walls were closing in. She couldn't even imagine what it must be like for someone as far away from succession as Valto; who, for the most part, had been granted his freedom up until now.

  "When do we leave?" He leaned back on his elbows, tipping his face up into the sunlight.

  "In four days’ time," she said. "We need to be in Scotland for Braemar."

  Braemar was on the first Saturday in September, yet between now and then not only were they going to need to do a complete tour of Wales but also their engagement party was booked. All of this meant that Cat was going to have to leave the majority of her wedding preparations in Lowri's hands. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing. Myf seemed to be leaving a large amount of her wedding in Lowri and Kasen's hands and it was undoubtedly going to be an amazing event.

  "Scotland?" he said, pulling her from her thoughts. "I haven’t been there since I used to go hiking with Eilidh.”

  A flash of jealousy flared up in her then, and she had to swallow it down. Eilidh had been the girl that Valto had dated on and off, from within a couple of weeks of breaking it off with her to when he had gone to Iraq. There had obviously been a large amount of affection between the two of them if he had been willing to take her back several times, yet hadn't even wanted to look at Cat again.

  Valto must have sensed that her mood had changed, because he placed a hand on her arm. "Hey are you alright?"

  "Yeah," she said, moving to stand up and brush the grass from her skirt. "I'm fine."

  "Cat." He climbed to his feet as well. "Has something happened?”

  She couldn't help but laugh at that, shaking her head as she did so. "No it's more what's happened between you and Eilidh."

  She immediately regretted voicing those words. She didn't want Valto to know that she was jealous of anyone, didn't want it to appear that she was more emotionally invested in this than she pretended to be.

  "Eilidh and I have been over for ages," he said. "Like years, Cat."

  It was so typical that he wouldn't understand what her concerns were, that he had been seduced by her not a month after he had decided that he didn't want Cat anymore. There was the fear, as irrational as it may be, that once they got back to Scotland and he was within the other woman's presence again that he might decide to throw Cat away again.

  "You went straight to her from me." She shrugged again and turned away from him. "Made me realize just how much our seven years together had actually meant to you."

  "Woah." He grabbed her by the shoulders and physically turned her around to look at him. "What are you saying?"

  It felt like her chest was caving in on itself, the pain of all those years ago suddenly feeling like it was being heaped up on her again.

  "I'm saying that you and Eilidh were friends for a while before we broke up." She pulled away from his hands. "I have always wondered whether Johann was just a convenient excuse for you to leave me and go to her. I suppose that's how it feels to be second best."

  His face fell and he reached for her again. "No Cat, you've never been second best. I was hurt and angry, and I wanted to make you see that I didn't need you and I was happy."

  Those words made her gasp and draw even further away from him, her eyes focused on the ground so that she didn't have to see the pity in his.

  "I see." Taking several calming breaths she squared her shoulders and looked straight ahead. "Very well."

  "No." Valto moved to stand in front of her, a determined look on his face as he ducked his head to meet her eyes. "I'm not saying any of this properly."

  "I think you've made yourself perfectly clear," she said.

  "I wasn't happy with her." He stepped closer to her then, one hand hovering over her cheek as if he was afraid to touch her. "I don't think I could be happy with anyone except you."

  "Don't be silly."

  His other hand came up then so he could cup her face, tilting it up so that she looked him in the eye. "I'm serious Cat, I've loved you forever."

  That love hadn't been enough though, and she knew that it wouldn't be enough now. "I'm sorry Valto, but I don't believe that."

  His grey eyes searched her face as though looking for something there, before his mouth came down on hers in a soft but insistent kiss. She had never been able to deny the effect that his kisses had on her, and her arms seemed to wind around his neck on their own free will. There was the feel of his hands sliding around her waist, one coming to rest on the small of her back and the other between her shoulder blades. With his gentle urging she stood on her tiptoes, their mouths fusing together pleasurably with her movement, and there was the deep rumble of his moan where her breasts were pressed against his chest.

  They pulled apart for air, lips brushing against each other as they breathed, before he slowly reclaimed her mouth again. She found herself getting lost in him, her breathing coming faster and her fingers tangling into his hair as the kiss became more passionate.

  With a groan he ripped him mouth from hers, nudging her chin up with his nose as he nuzzled into the long column of her throat and pressed his lips to the sensitive skin there.

  "Valto." Her voice was nothing more than a breathy moan, and she found herself pulling his head closer to
her flesh as she tipped her head back wantonly.

  He made a desperate noise against her throat, and then all but lifted her from the ground and into his arms as his kisses started ravaging her mouth once more.

  "I thought you two were being chaperoned?"

  Cat pulled away from Valto quickly, ignoring his protesting whimper as she did so, and stared at the entrance to the garden through wide eyes. The image that greeted her was not one that she had expected, and certainly not one often seen in Caerdydd these days.

  "Tristyn!" She wiggled out of Valto's arms and all but threw herself at her older brother, feeling close to tears that he had come home. "What are you doing here?"

  "What, I'm not allowed to see my sister before she gets married?" said Tristyn, and Cat pulled away from him to throw him a wide grin.

  "You didn't come to Myf's graduation." She hit him on the arm. "She was really upset."

  His face fell at that and he kissed her on the forehead. "I know and I'm so sorry. I couldn't just leave mid-way through the season."

  Tristyn's Formula 1 career had come before his family since he had been a teenager, and now that he had find made it to the big time it was like he didn't even remember they existed sometimes. Cat had always understood, he had had needed to run away and put his past behind him more than any of them. For years and years he had been the sole focus of their father's attention, and he had gained many beatings and much abuse for that. He had tried to protect her and Myf from their father's attention, and when the old man had died Tristyn had simply abdicated and disappeared. Cat was surprised that he ever bothered to contact them at all. Myf however wasn't of the same opinion; she wanted a normal family, with normal siblings and whenever Tristyn glossed over important events in their life for something else it hurt her greatly.

  "Valto," said Tristyn, nodding in the direction of the other man.

  Turning around she saw Valto return the gesture and smile, before he walked over to them.

  "I'll see you at dinner?" he said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder and she nodded in response.