Chapter Three #2
Feelings, emotions, the supercharge of sensation, were all things Astrid had willingly, knowingly, denied herself.
She had trained herself not to experience anything, because she knew the flipside was pain.
She had devoted herself to a life of duty and service, to the role she had to play.
But this was a purely instinctual reaction, a submission to her body’s will. It was madness of the best kind.
At first, his kiss was gentle, a slow exploration, but then it wasn’t.
Whether it was her moan, or the way her hands had both moved to his hips and were digging into him there, showing her desperate hunger, he reacted in the same way.
His mouth going from light pressure to urgent dominance.
His hands on her body no longer just holding, but moving, pushing, so her back was then against the heavy oak door.
His leg wedged between hers so unfamiliar feelings and sensations overtook her completely and she could hardly think straight, much less stand.
Her body was his to command. Everything was flooded with heat and awareness. Everything was different. Lights were too bright, her body was too sensitive, need was consuming her.
‘Javier,’ she groaned his name. He broke the kiss, but only so he could move his mouth to her decolletage and kiss her there, before dragging his lips to the skin beneath her earlobe and suckling until she was almost whimpering.
She tried to grab hold of her control. To rebuild the ice.
To remember that she wasn’t someone who gave into spontaneous feelings, who never listened to what she needed above what was good for the kingdom.
But his touch was too incendiary. Her need too raw and real.
‘Come home with me, Your Majesty,’ he invited, the words darkly determined.
His knee between her legs lifting higher, so she whimpered again at the sensations he was so easily invoking, the promise inherent to his touch.
For the first time in her life, she felt more like a woman than a queen, more like a woman than anything else, and it was as addictive as it was necessary.
‘To Spain?’ she queried groggily.
‘I have a place here.’
She couldn’t think straight. Sanity felt so very far away, yet she knew what he was suggesting was impossible.
‘I can’t.’
‘Of course you can.’
‘We just discussed my life, the way I’m watched—’
He pulled away then, his eyes piercing her with their intensity. ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way, Astrid. And I think you want this every bit as much as I do.’
Astrid.
Hearing her name on his lips was her undoing. The last unravelling of her determination to do what was right. ‘It’s dangerous,’ she said, after a beat.
‘Do you carry cyanide in your purse?’
‘That’s not what I mean. To come to your home risks me being seen…’
‘I have an underground carpark.’
‘But my car—’
‘I’ll send one of my cars.’
She chewed down on her lip, trying to think this through. ‘It would be best if no one ever found out about this.’
‘I have no issues with that.’
Unlike so many of the men she knew, Javier didn’t want, or need, the publicity from being seen with Astrid. It was another point in his favour.
‘This would be a one-time thing,’ she said, proud that she could at least suggest some boundaries around what he was proposing. Some rules to protect them both from the potential fallout of what they were suggesting.
He didn’t respond to that but she was too swept up to notice.
‘I need to think,’ she groaned. This was such delicious madness, such an out of character abandoning of who she was, that she needed time and space to prepare, and to be sure she wouldn’t regret what they were about to do.
‘What is there to think about?’
‘I just don’t go around doing things like this,’ she pointed out, her voice cool and familiar now.
Then he moved his hands to hers, laced their fingers together and pulled both hands behind her back, holding her a sort of prisoner.
A physical representation of the way his kiss had made her feel wholly submitted to him.
‘I will send a car,’ he said, then dropped his mouth and kissed hers, hard, sharp and loaded with promise. ‘At five o’clock. Make whatever excuses you need. Once you are inside, I can assure you of the driver’s discretion, and my home’s privacy.’
Her mind was racing. Was it possible? She supposed so.
Astrid had never attempted to run away before, so she couldn’t say for sure.
She’d never once stepped out of the line that had been drawn for her.
Had never experimented with a phase of rebellion, of naughtiness.
Always, she’d been good. Always, she’d done what was required of her.
Always, she’d been ice-like, rather than feel anything.
But Javier stirred her back to life, thawing that ice, making her feel.
It was only physical, but perhaps that was the point?
Perhaps that was what she wanted? Astrid wasn’t interested in a real relationship.
She didn’t want the kind of risk that came from caring about someone so much you couldn’t bear to lose them.
Sleeping with someone as a one-off was simply an experience. She could enjoy this and walk away. She could call all the shots.
‘I’m in charge,’ she said, breathily, as acceptance began to spread through her with the most delightful sense of euphoria.
‘Are you?’ he teased in a gruff voice, lifting his head so he could look into her eyes. A frown flickered on her expression and, for a moment, certainty wavered. Would anyone ever truly be in charge when Javier Diamandi was their opposition?
‘I have to be,’ she added.
‘We want the same thing, Your Majesty. You can relax.’
‘I don’t think I know how to relax.’
His eyes narrowed imperceptibly. ‘You’ll learn.
’ He released one hand then, moving it to her hip, his touch hypnotic as he dropped his mouth and began to kiss her, slowly again.
His tongue probing her, his other hand keeping her captive, so she was, physically at least, the very opposite of being ‘in charge’.
It was the hand at her hip, though, that was her undoing. For it did not stay at her hip long. Instead, he moved it down her leg, just far enough to grab the fabric of her dress and lift it, to push beneath it and find the lace trim of her briefs.
‘Javier,’ she tried to say, but he was kissing her. She didn’t care anyway. She didn’t want him to stop. She only needed to process the intimacy of his touch. Not once had a man attempted this. Not once had there been the opportunity.
Her skin flushed with heat and her heart raced with adrenaline and excitement, but that was nothing compared to the sensations that flooded her when his fingers pushed beneath the fabric of her underwear and began to brush her sex.
Her cry would have torn through the palace had it not been for his kiss swallowing it.