CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
One week later
‘H OLD ON , B ELLE , don’t go over yet. I want you with me this time...’
Travis’s harsh demand brushed against Isabelle’s ear as his strong arms held her upright, and his driving thrusts impaled her.
‘I can’t... It’s too much.’ She panted, clinging to his shoulders, and tried to prevent the wall of pleasure from barrelling towards her at breakneck speed.
‘Yes, you can,’ he demanded, still thrusting heavily inside her, working all the places he had discovered over the past week that would trigger her release.
Her back thudded softly against the stone of the power shower. She threw her head back, stared up through the room’s glass ceiling, and the sprinkle of snow in the night sky, and tried to focus on holding back, holding on. But the coil drew tighter as the heavy thrusts became faster and more frantic.
Her skin sparkled and glowed, still alive from the steam room, and the cold plunge before they had ended up in the shower... And things had heated up even more.
But she couldn’t focus on anything but the power of him, stretching her, pushing her, remaking her, caressing that spot inside her that ached for him, always.
Her sex tightened and pulsed, clamping down on his as the unstoppable pleasure crested, bright, beautiful and never-ending, bursting through her body.
She sobbed as the brutal release overwhelmed her.
‘Yes!’ he shouted out, climaxing too, as they flew over together.
The storm of sensation sent her tumbling into the abyss she had become addicted to in the last week and the only thing tethering her to the earth was him.
‘Water off.’ He barked out the command.
She flinched, as she released the still firm erection with difficulty.
‘You good?’ he murmured, as he so often did, while holding her.
Her heart swelled in her chest as she nodded, but she kept her eyes closed, the emotions still swirling inside her—incandescent joy followed by crippling fear.
A reaction she knew she needed to contain—if she didn’t want to lose even more of herself.
Just sex, just endorphins, no biggie.
She tightened her arms around his neck, too wobbly and needy to stand as he carried her out of the shower. She buried her head against his shoulder, waiting to regain her equilibrium, and the sense of self she always seemed to lose in his arms. But as she breathed in the delicious scent of cedar and soap and he held her so securely, so tenderly, her heart grew so big it began to push against her throat.
He put her on her feet beside the vanity to grab them both a towel.
She stumbled and he grasped her arm. ‘You okay?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She braced her knees and wrapped a warm towel around her aching body, still too tender. And exposed.
He hooked a towel around his waist as she crossed to the door, needing the safety and security of her own bedroom—the bedroom she’d abandoned a week ago. But before she could make her escape, he grasped her arm.
‘Hey, where are you off to so fast?’ he asked, calmly.
Too calmly, while her heartbeat continued to rabbit in her chest. And scour her throat.
How could he be so collected, so casual, she wondered, when she was always in bits after they made love? And how could their physical connection have become even more intense—for her at least—when she had been trying to wean herself off the endorphin fix for days?
‘I should sleep in my own room tonight,’ she said, taking the coward’s way out, even as the pain in her chest refused to subside. ‘We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow and I need to pack.’ The thought of which suddenly seemed overwhelming, too.
‘Don’t go,’ he said, tugging her around, his rough palm warm on her cheek. ‘It’s our last night here before we have to return to the circus,’ he murmured, with the sting of bitterness that had begun to disturb her, too.
They’d spoken a few times over the past week about the duties he would need to perform as her consort once they returned to Androvia. But there had been so little time for the practical—in between their hastily prepared meals, the days spent out on the slopes messing about in the snow like carefree children, and the increasingly intense bouts of lovemaking.
She understood his reluctance, of course, because she had been guilty of avoiding those conversations, too—to indulge in all the ways he could make her feel so good.
The sex had been a revelation for her. She had never imagined she would find it so energising and exhausting and yet also so utterly addictive. Every time he looked at her now with that hooded gaze, the desire in his eyes unmistakable, she could feel her body softening as it prepared itself for him...
But as the riot of sensations rippled over her skin again, her body no longer felt like her own.
Why couldn’t she resist him, or the things he could do to her? Or control the increasingly confusing emotions making her ache for so much more than just sex?
Ever since their conversation on Christmas Day, when he had given her an insight into his close relationship with his mother—and made her realise she had never been to blame for her distant relationship with her own parents—the insatiable need to know more about him had grown and grown. Until she had become desperate to know everything.
But when she’d probed, however gently, in the days since, he’d studiously resisted any more personal conversations—making her feel alone even as she lay in his arms, listening to his heart thud against her ear, steeped in afterglow.
Somehow, he had rediscovered that needy little girl, and reawakened the foolish yearning for the closeness her parents had always denied her. But she couldn’t risk threatening their friendship—and the working relationship they would need to establish going forward—so she needed to start resurrecting her boundaries.
‘I thought I’d sling a couple of steaks on the grill and we could watch a movie in the cinema suite tonight. Your pick. And celebrate the New Year together...’
His smile was warm and so inviting, but the distance remained in his eyes, which she had noticed more and more over the last few days, every time they made love...
The distance she should be establishing, too.
Why then did she still feel the vicious dart of disappointment and regret at the thought of saying no to him now? And the dull ache of sadness—because she couldn’t help reading far too much into the casual suggestion.
Is this what love feels like?
The question that had been lurking in her subconscious for days popped out without warning.
Surely, she could not be so foolish? So na?ve? This was just the endorphin overload talking too, it had to be.
‘I’m really not hungry,’ she managed, backing away from him. ‘And I think it’s probably best we sleep apart from now on. Plus, I need to contact Mel and thank her,’ she began to babble, the familiar anxiety rising up to tangle with her panic as she headed to the door. ‘I had to ask her to host tonight’s New Year’s Eve ball with Rene, who is not one of her favourite people.’
Rene and she always hosted the Saltzaland New Year’s Eve event together, in a symbolic celebration of the close union between their two countries. Mel never attended because she usually took the opportunity to spend some vacation time away from Androvia over Christmas and New Year —either in London with her mother who was now retired, or elsewhere. It was just one of the many favours Isabelle had been forced to ask of the people close to her, the palace staff and her privy council, to accommodate this honeymoon.
The honeymoon that now felt far too real.
Guilt pushed at her throat—because she hadn’t thought of Mel, or Rene or even of Androvia since Christmas Day, jettisoning all her responsibilities far too easily too.
A call to Mel—to get a debriefing on the event which would be finished now given the time difference and catch up with her closest friend—would surely help to ground her again. Get this past week back in perspective. And prepare her for a return to her real life.
She couldn’t be in love with Travis Lord. She was just tired and struggling to cope with a host of new emotions in the past week that were way outside her realm of experience. Travis had mentioned how sheltered she was, and in many ways he was right. Her life had always been studiously planned and managed. She simply wasn’t accustomed to having to deal with anyone this exclusively on a daily basis, for this length of time, with no schedule or other distractions to focus on—while also discovering she had an insatiable sex drive.
She had to start getting these volatile yearnings under control—and build a working relationship with her fake husband for after their honeymoon that wouldn’t distract her from her priorities.
She’d binged on the strong sexual connection they shared, they both had, but how could she continue to be a slave to her newly discovered libido without losing sight of what their marriage was supposed to achieve? Her role as Queen had always been exceptionally demanding, and now she was legally able to take full control of her inheritance, it would only become more so.
But as she tried to make a speedy exit, Travis strode across the room behind her and slapped his palm on the door, slamming it shut.
‘Wait up, Belle,’ he murmured, his breath hot against her nape, the easy manner gone.
She turned in his arms, to find him leaning over her, his hand still braced on the door above her head, the dark frown on his face wary and intense.
She breathed in a lungful of his scent and turned away from the sight of his bare chest glistening with moisture from their shower—and the tattoo of his mother’s name, which she had discovered he had had etched on his skin a few days after her death.
He’s a man who feels so much, but not for you.
She swallowed down the pathetic thought—which reminded her of the child who had once begged her parents to stay, and watched them leave regardless.
Surely this reaction was exactly why she needed to get a grip.
‘What did you mean by us sleeping apart from now on?’ he asked, his tone strained. He grasped her chin and raised her face to his. ‘Explain.’
She tugged her chin free, hideously aware of her body clenching and releasing at his nearness, even though he had given her several orgasms not five minutes ago. And the tremble of vulnerability, the wayward emotions she couldn’t control.
‘I think it is probably best we don’t continue our sexual relationship when we return to Androvia...’ She forced the words out past the aching pain in her throat and the deep feeling of loss in her chest. ‘It will only complicate the working relationship we need to establish.’
His eyes flashed with something searing. But before she could gauge his reaction, he had dropped his arm and stepped back, his gaze becoming flat and emotionless.
‘Yeah... I guess you’re right.’ His gaze roamed over her body, which felt naked now even under the thick towel. ‘Too much sex is kind of distracting.’
Her heart shattered, the brittle tone, the assessing gaze as insulting as they were hurtful. And suddenly she was that little girl again... Rejected and alone.
She gave a stiff nod, blinking furiously—as she struggled to shore up the turmoil of emotions.
This was what she had wanted from him. To stop the yearning, to stop believing in the vain hope that more could be possible between them. He had simply told her what she already knew. Why on earth was she so devastated?
‘I’m glad you understand,’ she managed at last, before she shot out of the door.
But as she returned to her own room, and lay shivering, curled up under the covers, she couldn’t seem to reconcile her duty to her throne with the empty space that had always been inside her, and had only ever been filled in his arms, but was now emptier than ever.