Chapter Nine #3
‘Shh,’ she whispered. ‘Let me speak,’ she insisted.
Then, taking her risk with the heart pounding its way to exposure on her very sleeve, she leaned in and pressed her mouth against his.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered against his mouth.
‘Thank you.’ A kiss to the corner of his mouth made him stiffen. ‘Takk fyrir.’
‘Lotte.’ A gravel sighing of her name, right before his hands tightened on her waist. On her next pass over his lips, he captured her in a firm lunge.
A frantic swipe of his tongue, and upon granting entry, a feverish kiss that set her whole body alight.
But just as quickly, he pulled back, silver eyes searching hers.
‘You shouldn’t be thanking me,’ he rejected roughly.
‘You should be condemning me for the most grievous failing—’
She stopped him with the simple act of sealing her lips to his once more, only stopping when a layer of tension left his body. ‘You’ve done enough self-condemning, I think.’
His lips thinned and he remained silent, but the hard, implacable look in his eyes said her words had made little, perhaps no, impact at all. He held firm to the conviction that he could’ve saved Helga.
Lotte’s heart sank a little, but she took solace in him not pushing her away as he would’ve a handful of days ago. Took solace in reminding herself that even drip-fed water could crack stone…eventually.
She would…could be that balm…
And that perhaps like her sister, she would be better off seizing her chance, instead of waiting around for it to fall in her lap.
That empowering thought in her mind, she kissed him once more.
Bold. Open-mouthed. Relentless. And when they needed to come up for air, she strung kisses from his mouth to his hard jaw, then to his ear.
And like he’d done with her before, she paused and said what she needed to.
‘Until now, this place is associated with a deeply harrowing experience. Let me give you different reasons to remember it by?’
He stiffened for a moment, but she kept on peppering kisses, his warm skin as addictive as the need to offer reprieve from the weight he carried.
‘I do not need—’
‘I beg to differ,’ she interjected. ‘I’d go as far as to say it’s essential.’
Searingly aware of the hard bulge pressed between her thighs, Lotte rolled her hips, gloried in the hiss that shot from his lips. Then she went one better. She reached up with one hand, tugged the strings of her bikini free and felt it fall away from her breasts.
His hands clamped hard on her hips, holding her in place against his thickening erection. ‘Dios mío, me vuelves loco, preciosa.’
Those were the last words they exchanged for a long time. Long after they’d driven each other to soul-shaking climax once, then again, they were gifted with the most sublime aurora. Purples, blues and greens curtained the sky above their heads, drawing a curiously tearful lump to her throat.
Lotte, aware that she was letting the moments get far too close to her heart, attempted to pull herself together, only to gasp again when she looked down to find Valenti’s intense gaze unabashedly fixed on her, his nostrils flaring wide.
‘You’re beautiful.’
Simple words she’d heard many times.
Yet she experienced the greatest fracture in her armour.
And long after he’d wrapped her in a blanket and carried her all the way back to the cabin, his face set in new lines of sombre contemplation, Lotte was beginning to think Prince Valenti Domene had, with those two words, breached her defences permanently.
‘Is there something you want to tell me?’
Lotte hinged upright in the armchair and frowned at the deep, quietly furious and perhaps even disappointed voice.
Blinking she glanced across the room, forcing her brain to track.
But after a long night of lovemaking with Valenti, she’d fallen into heavy sleep upstairs, only to wake when she missed his presence beside her.
She’d come down, wolfed down the large breakfast he’d made, then promptly fallen asleep again in the armchair in his office.
Moving now, she flushed at her deliciously protesting muscles, a little dismayed that she’d displayed just how inexperienced she was by falling asleep while he looked so vibrant and rampantly male.
Even if highly vexed. ‘Like what?’ she drawled, nonchalant even as her heart began thumping for the reason she suspected he’d uncovered.
He held up his sleek tablet. ‘I have your latest security report.’
She played for time. ‘And?’
His baleful stare said he knew what she was doing.
‘After drawing my attention to it I’ve had a deeper look.
You claim to be independently wealthy, which is true enough.
But more than half of your earnings is immediately parcelled out to secret accounts in two dozen different countries.
What the hell is going on? And before you think to evade or challenge me, know that I can have that information too within the day.
You think I don’t respect your privacy? Evidently that wasn’t the case since your safety was my priority over the contents of your bank account.
But that can all change,’ he finished with implacable warning.
Perhaps it was some newfound confidence from this precarious circumstance and connection they’d formed.
Perhaps it was as basic as sharing her body with him and seeing her effect on him that strengthened the core that seemed so shaky before.
He’d accepted compromises whereas as recently as her nineteenth birthday, he’d coldly dismissed her from his presence—a memory that still stung if she was honest.
Whatever it was steeled her spine and lifted her chin, pride pulsing through her.
Being overwrought at how Valenti would perceive her deeper goals didn’t hold such sway over her anymore.
She was proud of herself and the work she was doing.
‘I started a secret network that helps victims, mostly women in…precarious, often abusive positions.’
He stiffened, several emotions streaming through his eyes before they went ablaze as he leaned forward to rest his palms flat on his desk. ‘You what?’ he breathed.
‘You heard me perfectly well. You can growl and rage at me—’
‘I’m not raging.’ He paused, jaw clenched, and exhaled audibly. ‘You must know that kind of help, however well-meant, brings risk, especially from those abusers?’ His voice was low, deep. Curiously shaken.
‘I know. That’s why I use an encryption system.’
‘How did you come by this system?’ he asked, his brow a giant thundercloud. ‘And how many people know about it?’
She told him about the college roommate who’d written the software for her. ‘I trust her. She’s the reason I started it in the first place. Her home life wasn’t ideal. There was abuse and neglect and fear and…’ She shook her head. ‘I know what I’m doing and I’m very careful, Valenti.’
He dragged his fingers through his hair, but a layer of tension left his shoulders. ‘My people will vet the system thoroughly. And you’ll give me the list of everyone you’ve helped, past and present.’
‘If you’re about to suggest I stop, the answer is a hard no,’ she warned.
His nostrils flared but the look in his eyes was no longer the curious mix of fury and concern. It had morphed into surprise and…respect. Her heart lurched, a lump rising thick and fast to block her throat.
‘Come here,’ he rasped, still in that peculiar voice.
Chin angled in irritation, she shook her head. ‘No. You come here.’
Mouth twitching, he rounded his desk and approached.
When he reached her, she pushed him into her armchair, making room for herself between his muscled thighs, a place she was discovering she liked a little too much.
His hands braced her lower thighs, then with his gaze pinned on hers, slowly worked their way up her hips to cage her waist.
Electricity zapped between them, hot and powerful. But as always, it was overlaid with intense watchfulness. As if he saw into her very soul.
‘I’m not mad, litla. Far from it. I’m proud of you,’ he stated with thick gravity. ‘You will have no opposition from me, once I’ve established what you’re doing is safe,’ he added with unyielding firmness.
Shock and surprise dragged a sound from her throat, a hybrid sob-laugh that made his mouth twitch before the sombre expression resumed.
‘I thought I’d have to pull out my bigger guns to win this battle,’ she teased, then her smile slowly dissolved as his face grew increasingly taut and bleak.
‘But if there’s no problem, why do you look like your worst dream has come true? ’