Кристина Холлис – His to Command: the Housekeeper: The Prince's Chambermaid / The Billionaire's Housekeeper Mistress / The Tuscan Tycoon's Pregnant Housekeeper (страница 11)

Cathy stared at him. In a way, she had thought the worst thing that could happen was the Prince taking over the hotel—but now she saw that there was a far worse scenario. That soon there would be no hotel at all—it would revert to being a private home and not just she but all the other people who worked there would be out of a job. Dismissed as if they were of no consequence by a spoilt and selfish prince who thought of nobody but himself!

‘No, now I come to think of it, I can’t—it was a riridiculous thing to say,’ she agreed, her voice shaking with rage and hurt. ‘I don’t think you’ve got the people skills to run a hotel.’

There was a stunned silence, while he stared at her in a slow-burning disbelief. ‘What did you just say?’

Don’t let him intimidate you, thought Cathy fiercely—because now indignation was taking over from the terrible hurt which seemed to have turned her body into a block of ice. Had she done something awful in a past life which meant that men felt they had a right to trample over her feelings like a herd of cows in a meadow? He had just taken her virginity and then turned on her as if she were nothing more than a cheap con-artist.

‘I think you heard me.’

‘How dare you?’ he bit out dangerously.

‘Why?’ She didn’t flinch under his accusing stare. ‘Does the truth make you angry, Your Highness?’

Xaviero’s eyes narrowed as her impudence almost took his breath away. ‘This is completely unacceptable!’ he hissed.

Didn’t what they had just been doing give her at least some rights? Clearly not. Clutching the silken coverlet even tighter, Cathy thought that if someone had spoken to him like that more often in the past, then he might not be so overbearingly arrogant. ‘Well, if you’ll let me leave—then I won’t need to bother you any more, will I?’

Still reeling from her insubordination, he paused to study her flushed face and the aquamarine eyes which were unexpectedly sparking blue fire at him. And even while her sudden defiance began to turn him on he remembered something else, too. Something which might account for her spiky rebelliousness.

‘I’m not stopping you from leaving,’ he said softly.

She stared at him—as a hungry mouse might stare at a piece of cheese while wondering what the glint of metal behind it could possibly be. ‘You…you aren’t?’

‘Of course not.’ He smiled, feeling himself grow exquisitely hard beneath his robe. ‘Go. Go on, if that’s what you want.’

Cathy swallowed, knowing that she could not move an inch while those eyes were melting into her like molten gold. ‘Then…then would you mind turning your back?’

His lips curved into a mocking smile. ‘Yes, I would, actually.’ He reached out and hooked his finger inside the silk-satin rim of the coverlet which concealed the trembling rise and fall of her breasts. ‘Isn’t it a little late in the day for modesty?’

Her breathing was coming in short little bursts. ‘N-no. I don’t th-think it is.’

The finger slipped a little further down and sank into the cushioned flesh. ‘Sure?’

‘Q-quite sure,’ she breathed, wanting—no, praying that he wouldn’t stop touching her even while part of her despised herself for letting him. Push him away, she told herself. Push him away and he will let you go. Because despite the dark look of predatory intent which had made his features grow tense, some deep-rooted instinct told her that he would stop immediately if she wanted him to.

‘You see, what just happened was not the best initiation into sex you could have had, mia cara,’ he murmured as his finger dipped down and began to tease at one tightly aroused nipple.

Cathy’s grip on the coverlet loosened. ‘It…wasn’t?’

‘No.’ His palm now captured the entire heavy mound of her breast and he felt the coverlet slither down uselessly to her waist. Leaning over, he bent his lips to one rosy tip, feeling a convulsive shudder rack her tiny frame as he flicked his tongue against it. ‘If I had known…’ If he had known, he would have run a million miles away from her blue-eyed enchantment. But perhaps this wasn’t the best time in the world to say so. ‘Then I should have taken things more…slowly.’

Cathy’s eyes fluttered to a close as she felt his tongue now slide its way down towards her belly, and an unbearable flame of desire shot through her. ‘Oh,’ she breathed as he slid a slow, moist trail over her skin and her fingers drifted automatically to tangle themselves in the dark silk of his hair. Sweet sensation sucked her towards an unknown vortex as she struggled to hold onto reality. She wanted to ask him what he thought he was doing—but it felt so good that she didn’t want to risk him stopping by answering.

‘Is that good?’ he murmured as his mouth lingered against her navel—his tongue circling the neat little hollow.

Good? ‘Yes,’ she breathed.

Parting her legs with gentle fingers, he put his face between her thighs, his first slow lick producing a squirm of pleasure and a disbelieving intake of breath.

‘Oh!’ she gasped as his tongue began to move against her heated flesh. Cathy was on fire—as the growing hunger of her body demanded to be fed. And in a way, this felt even more intimate than what had happened before. The Prince kissing her there…there…how was that possible? But then she forgot that he was a prince, forgot the angry words and the accusations which had preceded this, forgot everything except the sensations which began to build and build, promising her some tantalising conclusion so perfect that she didn’t dare dream that it might really exist.

But it did. It really did. She choked back a cry of disbelief, her back arched like a bow as it began to happen and she was hurtled, unprepared—into an entirely new stratosphere. It was like slowly falling off a cliff and into a warm and soaring sea—as waves and waves of warm pleasure began to wash over her.

Moving away from her, Xaviero watched her climax, unbearably turned on himself as he watched one hand stray to her neck, as if heating itself on the rose-bloom flush which had begun to flower there. For a moment he saw her naked body shift in lazy and uninhibited contentment, but when eventually her eyes fluttered open they fixed on him, suddenly becoming veiled, as if she was remembering exactly where she was, and with whom—and uncertain of what to do next.

There was a moment’s silence.

‘You liked that,’ he observed eventually, swallowing down the sudden lump in his throat.

Still dazed and confused by the intense experience, Cathy shook her head.

‘You didn’t?’ he murmured mockingly.

‘Oh, yes, I did—of course I did.’ She wanted to fling her arms around his neck. She wanted to cover him with a million little kisses of gratitude for making her feel that way, but she didn’t dare. ‘It was…oh, it was the most incredible experience of my entire life.’

He smiled. Her unqualified praise was rather touching, because all women thought it—even if few were gauche enough to express it so fulsomely. ‘That is what was making you so…argumentative,’he observed reflectively. ‘You should have an orgasm every time you have sex.’

Cathy cringed, the baldness of his statement shocking her—though not quite enough to pull away from his embrace—telling herself that at least nobody could accuse him of being a hypocrite. And then her attention was caught by the unmistakably hard outline which was apparent beneath the rich fabric of his satin robe and as their eyes met in silent acknowledgement she found herself blushing.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, as if responding to an unspoken question. ‘I want you very much indeed—but I have to be at a meeting in…’ he flicked an impatient glance up at the clock which hung over the beautiful marble fireplace ‘…just under an hour…’ his voice lowered ‘…which means there won’t be enough time.’

He thought that if she had been more experienced there would have been plenty of time. By now she would have taken the initiative and he would have loved nothing more than to see her on her knees in front of him. Pleasuring him with her lips while he tangled his fingers in the pale silk of her hair and fulfilled the very first fantasy he’d ever had about her.

And that was when a solution presented itself to him—a solution so perfectly simple he was amazed he had taken so long to getting around to it. One which would please and satisfy them both—but would also wipe the slate clean.

Because in a crazy way, he felt responsible for what had just happened. He would never have taken her so swiftly and perfunctorily if he had known she was an innocent. To be truthful, he would not have taken her at all. But he had and—while he had just shown her how pleasurable certain aspects of sex could be—she still had a lot to learn. And shouldn’t he be the one to teach her? Might that not more than compensate for the fact that he had unwittingly taken her virginity?

Abruptly, he turned his back on her—went to look out over the sweeping grounds. He noticed that the lawns which swept down to the lake were ragged at the edges, and that the lake itself looked clogged with debris. Encroaching weeds had made a mockery of the flowerbeds and some had even disappeared completely.