The Prince's Convenient Bride

by Robyn Donald

  Dimly, Jacoba realised he hadn’t mentioned anything about any connection she might have had with Illyria , so he couldn’t have read Border’s attempt at revenge. She swallowed to clear her throat before she could say, ‘I lost my temper with you too.’

  ‘But you didn’t hurl insults you knew were untrue and unfair. I have no right to ask for forgiveness, but I can promise you it will never happen again.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, her voice small and husky, her mind whirling. ‘I shouldn’t have let things go so far.’

  Abruptly he said, ‘You have a perfect right to refuse whenever you want to.’ then his voice changed. ‘I won’t harass you any more.’

  He held out his hand. Don’t touch! some instinctual warning shrieked inside her, but it was too late; she’d already automatically put her hand in his. ‘You didn’t harass me,’ said before she had time to think.

  His fingers closed gently around hers. Her skin tightened and she almost flinched at the electric charge of power through her. Without volition she lifted her eyes. What she saw in his made her heart jump.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said roughly.

  ‘I’ve missed you too,’ she whispered.

  She had no idea who moved first, but before she could take another breath she was in his arms.

  Her resistance stayed in her brain, betrayed by her treacherous body, alive and hot and eager and revived by his touch. Instinctively seeking the solace of his kiss, she lifted her face.

  When his mouth took hers she gave a noiseless sigh and abandoned herself to the glory of his presence and his touch. Incandescent arousal revived every cell in her body so that it clamoured for the fulfilment only he could give her.

  Still kissing her, he carried her into the sitting room. Afire with the security of his strength, the heat of his big, lithe body, the barely discernible scent that was his personal signature, she surrendered.

  Ever since he left she’d been starving for him, she realised exultantly, and now he was here, and suddenly everything was so simple…

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EVERY reason Jacoba had for not wanting this was lost in the haze of delicious, reckless desire that swamped her.

  Dimly she realised she had her arms around Marco’s neck, was pressed against his lean, very aroused body. Mouth still possessing hers, he set her on her feet. Starved, eager, they kissed until both needed to breathe again. He lifted his head and looked at her with eyes of fire and ice, the magnificent bone structure of his face stark and forceful.

  ‘And I want you,’ he said.

  The stripped, potent statement was claim, challenge and a statement of intent all at the same time. It fed her desire like tinder on a flame.

  Helplessly Jacoba slid her hands up his throat, one palm covering the pulse beating at its base. Grey eyes stormy and intent, she let her fingers slip into his crisp, fine hair.

  Every muscle in his big body tightened. He stared at her as though refusing to cede some sort of power. His mouth compressed, and she thought for a moment that he was going to break her hold, but although she could feel the tension radiating from his big body, he still didn’t move. Frozen as a predator watching prey, he let her caress him without giving her any reaction.

  Responding ardently to the driving thud of his heart beneath her touch, she tempered her unspoken surrender with her own claim. ‘I want you.’

  His gaze narrowed, lancing into her with the precision of a scalpel. ‘Good,’ he said, and as though the mere act of talking snapped his ferocious self-discipline, he kissed her again, and this time there was no hesitation from her, no holding back from either of them.

  After his searing scrutiny Jacoba expected a wild possession—eagerly anticipated it, in fact, because then she wouldn’t have to consider the implications of this total surrender.

  But he reimposed control, although the dark blood that emphasised his cheekbones showed how difficult it was. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said feverishly. She’d never felt like this before—his previous caresses had been a dream of sensuality, but like a dream they’d whetted rather than appeased her hunger for him.

  His eyes gleamed. ‘I do like a woman who knows her own mind,’ he said gravely, before scooping her up in his arms again. ‘Direct me.’

  Once in her room, Jacoba shivered again, and he said instantly, ‘Tell me how to turn up the heat.’

  ‘I’m not cold.’ voice sounded husky and intimate, and she didn’t care what her tone and her words told him.

  After another hooded, searching scrutiny he gave the hard, triumphant smile of a lover. ‘If you were, I’d warm you,’ he promised. ‘Raise your arms.’

  Obediently, pulses thundering an uneven tattoo through her singing body, she obeyed. Marco slid her jersey over her head, dropping it to run his hands back down her arms in a slow, lingering caress, his eyes darkening as he took in her wide gaze and trembling mouth.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ he said harshly, stroking the curve of one high breast.

  Sensation, pure and brilliant as a golden arrow, shot to the smouldering core of her body. Beneath his caressing hands, the centres of both breasts peaked, fiercely expectant.

  Marco’s smile became fixed; his chest lifted as he dragged in a harsh breath and the crystalline clarity of his gaze intensified into the blue flame at the heart of a diamond. A harsh sound in his throat sent a savage thrill through her.

  While he undid the fastening of her bra she unbuttoned his shirt, spreading it so that she could gaze her fill on the broad expanse of bronze chest. Shuddering when his warm hands cupped her supple breasts, she traced the scrolls of hair from one powerful shoulder to the other, then down over the taut sheath of muscle towards his waistline.

  The friction against her fingertips was exquisite; emboldened by her freedom to explore, she bent and kissed one hard little nipple, then delicately licked it.

  He swore an oath in Illyrian, the words rapid and broken.

  The muscles in his shoulders and arms bulged and he lifted her so that her breasts were on a level with his face and took the centre of one in his mouth. Gently at first, then more strongly when soft moans of pleasure burst from her lips, he tasted her.

  Tormented by violent need, she pressed herself against his lean strength. He broke off the embrace and lowered her to the bed, standing beside it like some dark conqueror as his eyes feasted on her slender, creamy nakedness.

  ‘You look like some goddess from the sea,’ he said, and tore off his trousers and came down beside her. ‘When I saw you at the beach, I thought of Venus, rising from the ocean…’

  She made a startled movement as he shackled both her hands in one of his and stretched them above her head, anchoring them on the pillows.

  ‘I need to—I want to get undressed,’ protested desperately, wriggling to free herself.

  ‘If you do, it will be all over,’ he said roughly. He rested his forehead against hers and went on, ‘I used to think that making love with the light off was like making love in a raincoat, but I can see the point of it now. Just looking at you makes me so close to coming I can barely control myself.’

  She said between her teeth, ‘I’m not going to make love to you like this!’

  ‘Ah, but I can satisfy you,’ he said, and slid his free hand beneath her jeans, pushing down the zip.

  ‘Let me go!’

  ‘If you promise not to touch me.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot!’ she ground out.

  He flung back his head and laughed. ‘Very well then, so be it!’ he said, and let her go.

  Jacoba grabbed both his arms just below the shoulder, her fingers digging into the flexed muscles. He was hot—so hot his skin burned against her palms.

  ‘Marco, if I don’t get there with you in me, you can pleasure me afterwards,’ she panted.

  Like opponents staking out ground, they stared into each other’s eyes.

  In the end he smiled—a tight, brief movement of his
beautiful mouth. ‘I think that’s only the fourth time you’ve actually said my name. I like to hear it on your lips. I want to hear it often…’

  As he spoke the last word he found her hidden source of pleasure. Overwhelmed, she arched into his hand, still clinging when he brought her to such rapture that she groaned into his mouth and convulsed, hips churning until the final wave of glittering sensation ebbed, leaving her dreamy and replete.

  ‘Now see how long I last,’ he said, flicking her jeans from her lax body.

  In one strong thrust he entered her. Energised by a resurgence of need, Jacoba gasped and welcomed him in.

  She expected him to push further, but for long seconds he lay still, every muscle bunched and taut, as though accustoming himself to her. Opening her eyes, she met his, and that fierce raptor’s gaze summoned a response that matched his.

  She whispered his name on a slow, yearning note, and muscles she hadn’t even known she possessed clamped tightly to hold him inside her, demanding more, claiming his complete surrender.

  Marco frowned, as though he read the snatches of thought racing through her brain, then deliberately, he withdrew. Before she had time to protest, he thrust again, the muscles in his powerful shoulders bunching beneath his sleek bronze skin.

  This time she called out, a broken little sound ripped from her heart, and he smiled and repeated the slow, tantalising withdrawal, the controlled entry, setting up a rhythm as tormenting as it was addictive.

  More adrenalin rushed through Jacoba, sharpening her senses to almost painful stimulation. Her lashes drifted down; intoxicated by reckless desire, she surrendered to the heady, exhilarating tension that slowly built in every cell of her body, forcing her further and further towards another release.

  It came violently, like lightning, like thunder—wave after wave of passionate striving that lifted her high into another plane of existence. Their bodies were so in tune that as she reached her greatest ecstasy he came with her, his thick, impeded groan echoing in the charged silence of the room.

  Every muscle in the big body flexed and his arms around her tightened; together they climbed one final peak and soared into mind-shattering fulfilment.

  And came down lazily, sweetly, locked in each other’s arms, the only sound in the room their harsh breathing and the mingled thudding of their two hearts.

  Eventually his arms loosened. When she clung for a desperate moment, he kissed her temple and said tenderly, ‘Dear heart, I’ll turn over—I’m too heavy.’

  Jacoba whispered, ‘No, you’re not,’ but he turned on his side anyway, manoeuvring her to lie half on top of him. Drained and at peace, she felt her body purr at the contact. In a way, she thought dimly, sleep shadowing the fringes of her mind, this was even sweeter than making love.

  Like this, cherished and surrounded by the scent and feel of him, she could fool herself for a few seconds into thinking that Marco felt more for her than simple lust…

  Much later, when they’d loved again, and again, one strong hand pushed her hair back from her face, the damp strands clinging to his fingers. He said, ‘You have hair like fire.’

  ‘It was the scourge of my childhood,’ murmured, pressing her face into the hollow between his throat and the arrogant jut of his jaw so that the words were kisses against his skin.

  They lay in silence and eventually her eyes closed and she let unconsciousness take over.

  When she woke it was high morning, and she was alone in her big bed. She lay still, listening, but she could feel the emptiness in the apartment.

  Marco had gone. Oh, he’d told her while they lay in each other’s arms that he was due at a meeting in Dubai the next day, but his absence stung—no, it hurt, a raw, painful ache in some secret part of her that had never been touched before.

  Blinking back hot, stupid tears, she forced herself to relax. After all, he’d made no promises, and neither had she; probably all he wanted was a quick, short-lived affair to get her out of his system, then a farewell with no bones broken, no hearts shattered. He’d certainly made sure there would be no chance of pregnancy.

  That was what she wanted too. Anything else was too dangerous.

  She should steel herself to get up, but memories drifted into her mind, seducing her with their sweetness, their passion…

  They’d made love like enemies, and then like lovers, and when it was over she’d lain in his arms and known herself to be safe…

  He’d called her ‘Dear heart,’ an old Illyrian endearment…

  She could still hear the syllables, his voice deep and quiet, as though it was the first time he’d ever used the love-words.

  Jacoba stiffened and her eyes opened wide. He’d spoken in Illyrian. And she’d answered. Feverishly she searched through her memory, replaying the conversation again in her mind.

  Yes, he’d spoken in Illyrian—and although some unregenerate part of her rejoiced that he’d been so blown away by the experience that he’d used his native language, she shivered.

  ‘Dear heart, I’ll turn over—I’m too heavy.’

  And then, much later, ‘You have hair like fire.’

  Had she answered in the same language? Try as she would, she couldn’t pull her words from the recesses of her brain.

  She thought she might have used English for her first answer, but she had a horrifying suspicion that her second had been in Illyrian.

  Not that it mattered what she’d spoken—her answer had betrayed her, because it made it plain that she understood his native language.

  Oh, you idiot! she castigated herself, panic hitting hard and fast like a kick in the stomach. Like so many foolish people down the centuries, she’d allowed sated passion to loosen her control so that she’d succumbed to the perils of pillow talk.

  Because although Marco’s cold, incisive mind might have been hazed by the aftermath of passion, it wouldn’t stay that way. Even if he hadn’t noticed last night, he’d remember sooner or later that she understood Illyrian.

  And then he’d wonder why she hadn’t told him about it.

  Wondering would lead to action and, with all the power and resources at his command, that would inevitably bring to light Gregory Border’s comments in his column about connections to Illyria.

  Adrenalin rode her hard. Once more she tried to convince herself that with the dreaded cadres of Illyrian secret police disbanded years previously, neither she nor Lexie had anything to fear.

  But she’d have to warn her sister that the safe haven their mother had struggled to create had been breached.

  Jacoba glanced at her watch. It would be evening in Australia ; if Lexie had her mobile phone turned on—and if there was coverage in the Outback, which she doubted—she might be able to contact her.

  After dialling she waited impatiently, her tension increasing until she was forced to accept that Lexie wasn’t going to answer. Biting her lip, she fired up her laptop and dashed off an email, hoping that somewhere in the red deserts of central Australia her sister might be able to access a computer.

  If only she hadn’t succumbed to the urge to tell Marco that she and Hawke weren’t lovers! Now she’d have to convince him that last night was a one-off, an experience that would never be repeated.

  He’d despise her. The knowledge hurt, keen as a dagger to her heart.

  It was all over the most energetic of the tabloids the next evening. ‘Prince Marco’s New Lover,’ the headlines, accompanied by grainy photographs.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she moaned, pushing a trembling hand through her hair. This was all she needed!

  Feeling as though everyone’s eyes were on her, she bought a copy and raced home to read the piece with outrage that turned rapidly to fear.

  The columnist in Auckland had sold his information to London, and the connection to Illyria was hinted at again. She tried to feel grateful that Lexie wasn’t mentioned.

  Some malicious creature had selected a picture of her in the most outrageous outfit she’d ever modelled, an avant-garde
evening dress on the catwalk at the Paris collections years before. It had made great play with her long legs and her breasts; she hadn’t enjoyed wearing it, and it made her cringe now.

  ‘The prince and the tart,’ she muttered, looking at the one of Marco, lean and powerful in ski clothes, snapped at the bottom of a piste in Switzerland.

  Fortunately she was booked for three days in the Cayman Islands; she was ambushed by photographers when she left, but she smiled and ignored them. And while posing in the tropical sun she was free of the Press, but the mental freedom she so longed for was harder to achieve.

  Because Prince Marco Considine seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her life. Three of the four magazines in her airy hotel room had articles about him—all with photographs.

  Of course, those chiselled Mediterranean features, all angles and aristocratic bones, photographed brilliantly.

  ‘You should have been a model,’ she said sourly to one snapshot. ‘You’d have made a fortune!’

  The night before she was due back in London, she finally got an email from Lexie. It began with a bombshell.

  Mama was terrified of the secret police because she was the dictator’s wife. He was my father.

  Stunned, her heart jumping wildly in her chest, Jacoba stared at the bleak words. ‘No!’ she muttered.

  With incredulous eyes, she read the rest of her sister’s letter.

  Blood feuds are a way of life in Illyria, especially in the mountains, which is where Mama and the Considines come from. Prince Alex is trying to stamp them out, but they still happen. If anyone can prove who you are, you’ll be in real danger. I’ll be OK—very few people know I’m your sister.

  It finished with her signature, but beneath she’d written,

  I’ll understand if you don’t want anything to do with me. Mama said that PC had your father killed so he could marry her. She was forced to because he threatened to kill you.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Jacoba breathed, gripped by appalled nausea.

  She wasn’t the one in danger. If blood feuds were still a factor in Illyrian society Lexie would be the target once anyone found out that she was Paulo Considine ’s daughter.