CHAPTER 14
Eve felt like a teenager sneaking off to the beach to drink with her boyfriend as Luis seized another bottle of champagne from the bar and called out that they were going to the beach.
Except the champagne was vintage Dom Perignon, and Luis was a king.
She snuck a glance at the man beside her with his shirt open at the neck, his sleeves rolled up to show muscled forearms, and a glinting smile in his ice-blue eyes.
“This way,” he said, waving her toward one side of the terrace where the cliff dropped away to the surf.
“How on earth do we get down there?”
“There’s an elevator,” he said, tipping the champagne bottle toward a stone-paved walkway she hadn’t noticed.
She followed the path around an angle of the house to find a glass-and-metal structure rising from the edge of the cliff.
Luis pressed his thumb against the pad by the glass door, which slid open. “And here is our ride down.”
She stepped into the glass-sided elevator car and turned to see the same view as the terrace offered. “This is…insane.”
Luis laughed as the elevator glided downward. “The man who built this house was a cryptocurrency billionaire…until he wasn’t. I was happy to buy it from him at less than what it cost to build, and Mikel has made it even more secure than its somewhat paranoid first owner did. It offers me a place of rest.” The laughter was gone. “I can go barefoot and drink champagne out of the bottle if I choose to.”
“We’ll leave our glasses in the elevator, then,” Eve said, understanding more about the constraints of Luis’s life than she wanted to.
Heat flickered in his eyes as she took his glass and set it on the floor with hers. “Your lips will touch the same bottle as mine,” he said.
Was he flirting with her? That sounded like flirting. But it couldn’t be. Just because she thought he was sexy as hell didn’t mean that he reciprocated the feeling.
“I figure you have a clean bill of health,” Eve said.
“And you?” he asked.
“I’m up to date on my shots,” she said.
His smile flashed for a moment, and the elevator eased to a stop, the door sliding open to let in the roar of surf and wind. She stepped onto the black volcanic sand, finding it slightly cool against her bare feet. She inhaled deeply to savor the exotic scent of the sea.
“Would you mind if I got my feet wet?” she asked. “Before today, I had only been to the ocean once before, so this is a treat.”
“In that case, we should roll up our trousers.” He put the champagne on the floor of the elevator car before bending to turn up the cuffs of his suit pants. For a moment, she just watched the play of muscles in his back under the tightly stretched cotton of his shirt.
“What do you do for exercise?” she blurted, then felt a flush rise in her cheeks.
He looked up from his bent position with a flicker of something hot in his eyes. “I fence.”
“Oh, of course.” She knelt to work on her own pants, a vision of him costumed as a dashing musketeer wielding a rapier dancing through her mind. “Swords are appropriate. Do you wear armor too?”
“No, I reserve that for joint sessions of the legislature.”
She gave a snort of laughter and rose.
“Let’s go feel the Atlantic Ocean on our toes.” He put his hand against the small of her back to urge her forward, and pleasure radiated outward from where he touched her to flare through her body.
He walked so close to her side that occasionally her shoulder grazed his arm, sending more flickers of sensation tingling across her skin. Even the wind blowing her clothes against her body stoked her heightened awareness of the man beside her.
“I don’t know how to thank you for the Vin de Lys cream,” she said. “I didn’t mean for you to give it to me.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked. “It is from my country.”
“Well, because it’s very expensive. Unless you get samples for free?” she asked in the hope that she could assuage her guilt.
He laughed. “I don’t know how much it cost. My private assistant procured it for me.”
“Trust me, it cost a lot,” Eve said. “Thank you for your generous gift.”
“You sound more upset than grateful,” Luis said as they reached the wet sand flattened by the ebb and flow of the surf, and he dropped his hand from her back. “I hope you were not offended. I was not implying that you need it, but you mentioned you wanted to test its powers.”
“I’m not offended, just overwhelmed. Honestly, I would give it back to you, except I tried it before I realized how expensive it was.”
He touched her shoulder so she looked up at him, almost gasping at the blaze of intensity in his eyes. “Eve, you raised my…our daughter. A jar of face cream does not begin to balance my debt to you.”
“I raised our daughter because I love her. There is no debt.” Eve was fierce in her claim.
Luis waved his hand in a graceful gesture of acceptance. “I have also…disturbed your life. Consider it a compensation for that.”
It would take a lot more than expensive cosmetics to fix that, but there was no putting that cork back in the bottle. She dropped the subject as a wave sent a rush of salt water lapping around her ankles. “Whoa, it’s colder than the water at the other beach,” she said.
“The one drawback of having a house on this coast is that no warm currents wash around this shore, as they do where you were earlier,” Luis said. “Now, if we went out to the Pirates’ Surprise”—he pointed to the island with the bottle—“we would be wading in warm water because of the geothermal activity beneath the caldera’s floor.”
“Annamaria said you liked to tell the story of how it got its name.” Eve needed something to distract her from the sight of the sea breeze pressing his shirt flat over his well-defined abdominal muscles.
“I will tell you after we drink more champagne. That will improve the story.” He peeled away the foil and unwound the wire cage before gently twisting the cork from the neck with a pop. The champagne frothed up to the bottle’s lip, but not a drop spilled.
“You’re an expert at that,” Eve said.
“It is a satisfying skill. Simple and with pleasurable results.” He held up the bottle so the sunlight could shine through it. “I think the foam has settled.” He handed it to her.
In fact, she had never drunk champagne out of the bottle. She tried to be ladylike and just touch the opening to her lips, tilting the bottle so it would run into her mouth. She miscalculated, and it overflowed to run down her neck as she took a mouthful.
She swallowed the sparkling wine and started to brush off the runaway champagne with her fingers. “Darn! I wasted good champagne.”
“Allow me,” Luis said, his gaze locked on her throat. He pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped the champagne from her neck, stroking the fine cotton fabric slowly and gently against her skin, sending a sensual vibration over her breasts that tightened her nipples. He dabbed at one of the wet spots on her blouse, just at her clavicle, without success. “I’m afraid your blouse will have to dry on its own.”
He stepped back, and a hot smile curled the corners of his mouth. Probably because he could see her hard nipples through the thin silk. Eve took another swig of champagne, closing her mouth over the entire rim this time. The cool, effervescent liquid did nothing to quench the flare of desire she felt, but it tasted fantastic.
She passed the bottle back to Luis. He kept his eyes on her face as he put the bottle to his lips. Tilting it upward, he took two swallows, the muscles in his throat working. “And now the story,” he said.
The roar of an engine startled Eve, pulling her attention to the ocean. In the distance, a powerboat painted with the royal seal of Caleva cut through the waves toward another small craft, broadcasting an announcement in Spanish.
“What’s all the ruckus about?” she asked.
Luis waved a dismissive hand. “Some tourists got too close, so the guards are moving them away. For security reasons, no boats are allowed within a certain perimeter around this point. The professional captains know about it, but the amateurs have to be warned.”
“Has anyone ever landed on this beach?”
“Not to my knowledge, but Mikel wouldn’t necessarily inform me if they had.” Luis shrugged. “I have to trust my people to do their jobs, or I would never sleep soundly.”
There it was, the reality of being a king. Grace would be only a princess, and not even next in line for the throne, but Gabriel was only a royal duke, and that hadn’t kept him from being kidnapped and mutilated. Fear clogged Eve’s throat. She reached for the bottle, taking a gulp to wash down her worries. For now.
“Come,” Luis said, as if sensing her anxiety. “We’ll go over to those rocks where no interlopers can see us.”
He gestured to a wall of tall, jagged black boulders jutting up from the sand. As she took a step toward them, he once again brought his hand to rest on the small of her back. This time, she felt his touch like a brand, the heat of it burning into her skin and going deeper.
As the engine noise receded, Luis began his story. “Back in the days of Ricardo el Rojo, the first King of Caleva, an angry Spanish nobleman, a duque, came in search of the pirate who had attacked his ship carrying gold from the New World.”
She had to force herself to ignore the sear of his hand and focus on his voice. But every step made his palm shift against the silk of her shirt, yanking her attention to the mad attraction racing through her body.
“The duque brought three heavily armed galleons to take back his gold. But Caleva protects its own. One of the ships foundered on the rocks off the harbor of San Ignacio. As the other two sailed toward the harbor, they spied El Rojo’s sloop slipping away along the coastline. They gave chase, but the pirate sloop was quick, and it sailed into a fogbank when it got near this point.”
They reached an alcove created by the rocks, and Luis guided her into it before lowering his hand. She wanted to grab it and return it to her back. Instead, she asked, “Is there usually fog here? Is that why it’s called the House in the Clouds?”
“An excellent deduction,” Luis said, taking another swig of champagne. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “It depends on the wind and the amount of geothermal activity. The fog comes suddenly and leaves just as suddenly. Of course, Ricardo knew the coast like the back of his hand, so he did not fear sailing into the fog. The Spanish blundered after him.”
He passed her the bottle with a nod to drink more. She was developing a noticeable buzz, but she didn’t hesitate to enjoy another swallow.
“Ricardo could have easily gotten away. His sloop was faster than the galleons. But he wished to send a message. He kept just far enough in front of the galleons so they could catch glimpses of his ship in the shifting fog and follow him blindly.”
Luis looked out at the volcanic island. “He sailed his sloop with its shallow draft through the entrance to the caldera. The duque thought his enemy was trapped and didn’t stop to consider that his galleons had much deeper keels than Ricardo’s. The first ship grounded on the rocks that Ricardo’s ship had cleared by mere inches. The second ship collided with the first. Both had their hulls ripped open by the volcano’s underwater edge. La sorpresa de los piratas.”
“Ouch. What happened to all the sailors on the Spanish ships?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“Most of them swam to shore on the island. My ancestor was always looking for new recruits, so he offered them jobs if they would swear allegiance to him. He even extended the offer to the duque, who turned out to be a practical man. He accepted the invitation and became one of Ricardo’s councillors when the pirate declared himself king.”
“I like that story. No one died,” Eve said. “Well, I guess the sailors on the first ship might have.” She felt guilty for forgetting about them.
“Then we will assume they also swam to shore in the harbor and received the same invitation to join the pirates.” An undercurrent of amusement ran through his voice. “Do not think that Ricardo el Rojo was a benevolent man. He simply needed more people to crew his ships and settle Caleva. Had anyone refused to swear the oath to him, he would have fed them to the sharks.”
“Or thrown them off the cliffs,” Eve said.
“It was a queen who instituted that custom.” His eyes held a wicked smile. “Ricardo’s granddaughter Isabella executed several of her half siblings who tried to take the throne away from her by having them hurled off Acantilado Alto.”
“I guess she was sending a message like Ricardo.” Eve held out the almost empty bottle to Luis.
He took a step closer to her, so close that a lock of her wind-tossed hair snagged on his shirt. He caught the errant strands and twisted them around his fingers. “It feels as smooth and silky as it looks,” he said. “I have wanted to touch it every time I have seen you.”
Eve would swear her heart stuttered, but it wasn’t the compliment that sent excitement and nerves skittering through her. It was the low, sultry vibration of his deep voice, the unmistakable note of seduction pulsing beneath his words.
“Thank you,” she said, unable to muster anything more. The gentle tug of his grip on her hair sent sparkles of delight tingling over her scalp and down her neck to tighten her nipples even more.
In a moment of insanity, Eve lifted her hand to brush her fingertips against the silver-gray of his beard. “And I’ve wanted to touch this. It’s softer than I expected.”
Luis’s eyes ignited in flames of blistering blue, standing utterly still as she ventured to feather her fingers through the gleaming curve of hair at his temple. He turned his head to press a kiss against the skin of her wrist, his lips firm and smooth.
She gasped as desire surged through her, detonated by that small touch.
“Ay, Eve!” His voice was a rasp of surrender to what they both knew they shouldn’t do.
She rose on her tiptoes to meet him as he bent. Their mouths touched, first with a careful exploration that allowed her to savor the warmth of his lips and the slight tickle of his beard. And then he changed angles so his tongue could trace the contours of her mouth as he banded his arms around her and pulled her against him. Her sensitized breasts pressed against the hard muscles of his chest, and she gasped in pleasure. He touched the tip of his tongue to hers in a question that made her open to him so they could taste each other.
He broke the kiss to nip at her earlobe before skimming his mouth down the side of her neck. She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt as she arched back to offer him her throat. “Yes, Luis, yes!” she whispered as he licked the hollow between her collarbones before he gave her just the edge of his teeth on her neck.
She hissed in a breath at the play of pleasure against the nip of pain. And then she pulled open two of his shirt buttons so she could press her palms against the sculpture of muscles under the warm skin dusted with silver hair as springy as his beard’s.
He groaned and threw his head back. “Yes, your skin against mine.”
And then she realized what she had done. Her face flushed with a different kind of heat, and she pulled her hands away. “That was…unexpected,” she said, trying to pretend her world hadn’t just shifted on its axis.
But he was watching her with a panther’s predatory gaze. “That was muy erótico.” He cupped her cheek with one hand and kissed her in a way that was so carnal, she shivered with renewed longing.
He broke the kiss and shifted both hands to her shoulders, while the desire that had burned in his eyes lessened. “Eve, I want you very much, but it must be your decision. If you choose, you must come to my room tonight.”
“I don’t know where your room is,” Eve said, not understanding why that mattered. Was he worried about her suite being next to Grace’s?
He made a dismissive gesture. “I will show you.” He gripped her shoulders again, making sure she was looking at him before he continued. “No matter how badly I wish to, I will not come to your room. Do you understand?”
Realization dawned.
“Because you’re the king,” she said. “You want to make sure I don’t feel pressured.”
“Yes.” There was a strange plea in that one word.
“You forget that Americans aren’t subject to command by royalty.” Eve smiled before she pulled down his head to give him a kiss. “Besides, not even a king can command someone to have an orgasm.”
“Perhaps not, but I’m sure many orgasms have been faked in a palace bed.”
“If it happens, I will not be faking, I promise,” Eve said, her voice low and sultry.
“Ay, we must return to the young people to see how they are getting along.” He let go of her shoulders and stepped back.
Guilt poked at Eve because she had forgotten about Grace and Raul. “Right.” She winced inwardly as she thought about how much more complicated this thing between her and Luis could make the situation.
It would have to be a one-night stand. And that was only if she had the nerve to go to his room at all.
As she turned to walk beside Luis, she was surprised when he took her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers and sending a thrill up her arm.
He must have sensed her hesitation, because he said, “I can’t have you in the way I want right now, but I still wish to touch you.”
They waded in the surf, hand in hand, as though they were just two regular people and not a Calevan king and a vet tech from Iowa.