CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘W HAT ARE YOU DOING ?’
Rene turned from the stove—and the two ribeye steaks he was busy trying not to incinerate—to find Melody standing behind him, wearing a shocked expression. It was the first time he’d seen her since their shared meal the night before, so he guessed the shot of adrenaline at the sight of her in an outsize sweatshirt and the familiar yoga pants was to be expected. He’d never been a guy who preferred his own company, and he’d been stuck with himself for over twenty-four hours.
He’d slept like the dead again last night, after his shower. But when he’d woken this morning he’d found a plate of food left for him in the kitchen and a note on the counter which had been curt and to the point:
I’ll be in my room. Don’t disturb me unless rescuers arrive.
‘I’m making us a meal—what does it look like?’ he muttered, trying to ignore his frustration at her attitude, and the fierce joy at seeing her again, which seemed somewhat disproportionate, given the scowl on her face.
Apparently, she was not nearly as pleased to see him.
‘Seriously? You know how to cook?’ The blank shock was starting to get on his nerves.
‘Don’t look so surprised. I’m perfectly capable of cooking steak and potatoes.’ He hoped. ‘And I figured it was my turn.’
The truth was he’d been bored out of his skull. He had managed to use up some time since he’d woken that morning trying to figure out how to use a washing machine. Why did they make the controls so unnecessarily complicated? And after shrinking his sweater to a size no ten-year-old would be able to fit into, he’d managed to waste another couple of hours hooking the back door onto its hinge and cleaning up the broken glass.
But since then he’d had nothing to do.
The storm still hadn’t broken, so he had eventually had to abandon his plan to venture out and locate their stranded vehicle so he could retrieve a phone charger.
Bored and far too aware of Melody, upstairs, in the master bedroom, ignoring him, he’d spent the afternoon lying on his empty bed being tortured by a ton of erotic images he couldn’t seem to shake… Not unlike the dreams which had plagued him for years, which seemed to have morphed into brand-new phantom memories he couldn’t shake either, not since their first night here.
All of which meant he was a lot more on edge than usual.
‘ Really ?’ she said. ‘Now, I’m actually speechless,’ she added, her astonishment joined by the glitter of derision in her gaze.
He switched off the gas, propped his butt against the counter and folded his arms over his chest, while trying to look less pissed off than he felt.
He knew she enjoyed mocking him, but frankly he’d had enough of her bad opinion and her snarky attitude to last him a lifetime already. And now they seemed to have an endless amount of time together—and she had made it clear she wasn’t interested in entertaining themselves with mindless sex—he was more than ready to call out her attitude problem.
‘What exactly is so damn surprising about me being able to cook a simple meal?’ he snapped, aching for a fight. Because sparring with Melody was considerably more satisfying than spending hours alone with only phantom erotic dreams of her.
Go figure.
‘It’s not that,’ she shot back, because they had always known how to antagonise each other. ‘It’s that you’d deign to cook one for me … Or be prepared to take turns here. After all, you’re a prince, right, and I’m just staff—something you have always made abundantly clear to me.’
‘ W-What? ’ He was so surprised by the accusation, and the shadow of hurt in her eyes before she masked it, that he was actually speechless.
Okay, they’d always managed to touch each other’s rawest nerves, but he had never been that much of an arse, had he? He was always courteous to his staff. He made a point of not expecting more than he was entitled to demand for the very generous salaries he paid them…because he had never wanted anyone to confuse him with the previous ruler of Saltzaland, a cruel and capricious despot who had a reputation for bullying his employees.
‘When have I ever given you the impression I did not consider you—or anyone who works for myself or Isabelle, for that matter—my equal?’ he finally managed.
Her eyebrows lifted as if she was surprised he was defending himself, which only aggravated him more.
‘And surely the fact I have slept with you makes it blindingly obvious I never thought of you as an employee of mine …’ he added. ‘Because FYI, that is a line I would never cross. Ever . I do have some standards and one of them is not to be as much of a total bastard as my…’ He stopped abruptly, realising he had said too much when her eyes widened and he saw the curiosity he remembered from the previous day, when she had mentioned the nightmares he’d had in her presence.
He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘This is a pointless argument,’ he offered, feeling brutally exposed. Why had he defended himself when what she thought of him didn’t matter?
He’d done some crummy things in his time: thoughtless, reckless, impulsive, arrogant and even entitled things. He would certainly never pretend to be a saint, and the way their one night together had ended proved that. But sleeping with women who might find it hard to say no to him was not one of those things.
He tensed as the phantom memory returned, which had come back to haunt him again last night—dreams of her, under him, on the rug in the living room, the tight clasp of her body massaging him to climax with staggering speed.
He shook his head to shake it loose, once and for all.
A dream, not a memory, dammit.
‘Sit, so we can eat before this becomes a burnt offering.’ He returned to the stove to dump the blackened steaks on the plates he’d laid out. He added the baked potatoes and split them open. Steam oozed out. The flesh looked too solid, but at least it wasn’t raw.
He placed the plates on the breakfast counter, glad to see she had seated herself. Then he collected the butter and dumped it in front of her.
‘Help yourself,’ he said, hating the sharp note which he couldn’t disguise.
Why exactly did he care about her low opinion of him when it was totally unfounded—on this score at least—and he had never cared about the low opinion of other women?
Then again, no other woman had ever been the thorn in his side that Melody Taylor had turned out to be.
To his surprise, she ate the meal he had cooked without making any more sarcastic remarks and didn’t complain about the charred steak or the undercooked potato.
When he went to pick up their empty plates though, she touched his wrist. He glanced up and looked at her for the first time since they had sat down.
‘Wait, I… I have something to say,’ she said. She didn’t exactly look contrite, but when she trapped her teeth beneath her bottom lip, the swift shot of lust felt less problematic than usual.
‘Once, when we were kids…’ she hesitated, her indecision strangely endearing because it was so unlike her ‘…you called me Isabelle’s little beg-friend. And it upset me, a lot. Because I knew she was a queen, and I was essentially just the cook’s daughter.’
He swore softly and sat back down. Damn, he’d forgotten about that insult. Probably because it was just one of the many he’d thrown at them both when he’d been left to his own devices in the White Palace while his father was visiting to speak to Androvia’s Privy Councillors. He’d had so much anger back then, because of the fear he lived with daily. And taking it out on Isabelle and her feisty friend had been easier, and safer, than letting his father see how afraid he was.
He had assumed they would be easy targets because they had been smaller than he was, and girls, and they obviously adored each other. The truth was, he realised now in some twisted part of his brain, he had wanted to hurt them, to make himself hurt less.
In the years since, he’d absolved himself of those sins because he had believed, at least as far as Mel was concerned, he’d never hit his target. She had always been such a tough little cookie, had always given back as good as she got. Unlike Isabelle, who had often started crying, which had made her a lot less satisfying to provoke.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, wondering why it had taken him so long to apologise when her head rose and he could see how astonished she was. ‘I was a nasty bully back then and I’m not proud of the way I behaved towards both of you.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose I should have apologised for that a lot sooner.’
The smile which edged her lips did strange things to his insides.
‘Yes, you really should have,’ she murmured, not willing to give an inch. But oddly, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
‘In my defence, I had no idea you’d taken that insult to heart. You always seemed so annoyingly bulletproof to all my attempts to patronise and belittle you.’
The slight curve widened into a genuine—and rather smug—smile. ‘Of course you didn’t. I would have died rather than let you know you’d scored a hit. And let’s face it, you would have been even more insufferable if I had.’
‘True.’ He let out a rough chuckle. ‘Damn, I think you’ve bested me again. This is getting to be an extremely annoying habit.’
She laughed, the smile brightening her face even more. And he wondered why on earth he had been so determined to upset her as a kid, when she had always looked so stunning when she smiled.
But then her expression sobered abruptly. ‘Why were you so mean to us, when we never did anything to you?’
He tensed at the forthright question. How could he answer without exposing himself again?
She tilted her head, still watching him, the curious expression becoming far too astute.
‘You know, I thought that you were just a naturally mean person back then. But I can’t help thinking now, you were desperately unhappy for some reason.’
He let out a strained laugh—and forced himself to shrug—determined to cover the fact she had just scored another direct hit. Luckily, he was an expert at avoiding talking—or even thinking—about that sullen, insecure and messed-up boy.
‘Back then ?’ he asked. ‘And there I was thinking you have considered me a bastard ever since.’ He let his gaze rake over her, determined to push this conversation onto another topic, one he was much more interested in. ‘You’ve certainly given a very good impression of it… Except for one particular evening when we were too busy tearing each other’s clothes off for you to remember how much you hated me.’
But instead of sparking the usual animosity, her gaze remained direct—and warm with compassion—which only disturbed him more.
* * *
‘Honestly, I don’t think I ever hated you, Rene,’ Mel murmured, astonished not just to realise it was true, but that she’d said it out loud.
After all, she’d spent the whole day in her room, staring at the walls—and the terrible weather outside—simply to avoid having to talk to him about anything, let alone admit something so potentially explosive.
But somehow, she couldn’t make herself regret it when his expression changed from cynical to guarded again.
‘You kept that opinion well-hidden all these years,’ he quipped, but he didn’t sound so self-assured any more, which felt like another important win.
Maybe it was dangerous to want to see behind the wall he had always kept around his emotions. But she had always been curious about Rene, the boy as well as the man. If she hadn’t, he never would have had the power to hurt her as a girl with those carelessly cruel barbs. Nor would she have fallen into bed with him so enthusiastically four years ago, as soon as he had shown an interest.
He’d been her first lover, was still her only lover, but she needed to stop beating herself up about that.
She’d tried to persuade herself for four years that he had never been that compelling, never that captivating and certainly not as complex as she’d wanted to make him. But she knew now that was always a lie she had told herself to stop herself from falling down that rabbit hole again.
Even when they were kids, he had fascinated her. How many afternoons had she spent bitching to Issy or to her mum about how awful he was, what a bully, what a meanie? When on some level she had enjoyed their sparring matches, even then. And had loved nothing more than to talk about him endlessly. Of course, at the time it had been on a kid-to-kid level, and a result of the fact that her father had paid her so little attention she’d had a self-destructive desire to get attention from anyone, however negative. But when she’d been eighteen and she’d spotted him in that nightclub, standing by the bar, and blurted out to her friends that she had grown up with the playboy prince, it really hadn’t taken much persuasion from them for her to approach him and say hi.
Their sparring that night had quickly become flirting, and she had basked in the same approval he was showing her now. No wonder she had been intoxicated. Because while she felt a lot older and wiser now, and a lot less reckless, he intoxicated her still.
And then there were all the contradictions, which she saw so clearly now. He’d teased them mercilessly as a teenager, yes, but he’d also been dumbstruck when Isabelle had burst into tears. He’d treated her with care and attention in London too, making her first time memorable, even though he’d been gone the next day. And while he’d been a dictatorial jerk after the New Year’s Eve Ball, he’d also nearly killed himself to get her to safety during the snowstorm. And then shown her heaven again in the early hours of the morning, however ill-advised it had been to succumb to their chemistry.
Her judgements of him and his behaviour towards her had never been objective. Because he excited and captivated her as much as he infuriated her… And he was right. As a boy, despite those hurtful nicknames, he had never treated her as the cook’s daughter—but as a worthy opponent. And ever since, despite the huge difference in their status, she had always been able to be herself with him.
The revelation felt sobering but also strangely liberating.
She’d always considered him the villain and herself a fool for feeling anything for him at all, sure that the way she gravitated towards him had been down to nothing more than animal attraction—and some pathetic, unacknowledged desire to get approval from men. And, like so many women, she had confused sex with intimacy. But it was suddenly so clear there had always been more between them than just chemistry. A sort of prickly affection which saw each other’s faults and enjoyed exploiting them. After all, fighting with him had always been as exhilarating as it was frustrating.
As he stared back at her, the expression on his face so wary, she found herself saying something she realised she wished she’d had the guts to say that night. And every time since when she’d used anger to cover her hurt.
‘I wanted to hate you, Rene, after that night, because you were my first lover and I thought we’d made a connection, and then you ghosted me. And less than a month later you proposed to Isabelle. It hurt, knowing you could discard me so easily, but what hurt more was knowing I’d been stupid enough to invest so much emotionally in something so fleeting.’
His eyebrows launched up his forehead and he straightened. ‘What do you mean, I was your first lover? Are you saying you were a virgin after all?’ He swore under his breath. The shock on his face felt good—a vindication for that broken-hearted drama queen who had fallen asleep with dreams of spending the rest of her life in Rene’s arms, only to wake up the next day and find the bed cold and empty beside her.
When Isabelle had told her of his proposal a few weeks later, it had devastated her… In her head, of course, she had understood his decision to ask the Queen of Androvia for her hand in marriage had been a political choice not an emotional one, but the hurt had still festered for years afterwards.
‘You told me you’d had a ton of lovers when I asked,’ he said, his expression fierce with outrage and regret. ‘Why the hell did you lie?’
She smiled, she couldn’t help it, his volatile reaction to her virginity not just surprising but oddly flattering. Maybe that night had meant something to him, too.
She shrugged. ‘Honestly, I think I was embarrassed about my inexperience.’ Although if she had known his reaction would be this satisfying, she definitely would not have kept it a secret. ‘And I was scared if you knew I was a virgin you might freak out and stop,’ she added. ‘And I definitely didn’t want you to do that!’
He leapt up from the stool, then paced across the kitchen. He grasped his neck, massaged muscles which looked tight with tension. When he paced back again, his glare was full of accusation and more emotion than he had ever shown her before.
Another hit goes to Mel’s virginity.
‘You should have told me, dammit. I would have been more careful,’ he said.
It was the last thing she had expected him to say, and it was her turn to feel the direct hit. Raw affection swelled against her ribs because he’d been more than careful enough. He’d made her first time spectacular, which she knew from the experiences she’d heard about from other girls at college was not the norm.
‘You wouldn’t have stopped then?’ she asked, not ashamed any more to search for validation. She’d spent the last four years regretting that night bitterly, so it felt stupidly empowering to know he had been as blown away as she had—at least on a physical level.
His gaze jerked to hers. ‘Not unless you had asked me to,’ he said, sounding pained. ‘But even that would have required a titanic effort as I was close to being past the point of no return as soon as I got you naked.’ He slumped back down on the stool, tension bristling across those broad shoulders. That would be the same shoulders she’d clung to two nights ago.
Perhaps now would be a good time to admit what had happened the night of their arrival. Because her knee-jerk decision to lie again when he had asked her a direct question was beginning to look like a throwback to that misguided, insecure girl who had spent so much of her life hiding her needs and desires because she was scared they would never be reciprocated.
But then he lifted his hand to cup her cheek, and the naked emotion in his gaze derailed her train of thought completely.
‘I’m sorry, Melody. I exploited our chemistry that night. And then I behaved like an insensitive arse. I wish I could go back and undo it all, but I can’t. My only defence, and it’s a pathetic one, is that I was in a bad place at the time.’
His hand slipped away but she caught his fingers and held on.
‘I don’t…’ she swallowed, his surprised expression forcing her to say it all ‘… I don’t wish you could undo it. Well, not all of it, anyway.’
A part of her would always be hurt by his decision to propose to Isabelle so soon after, even though she very much doubted the two things had been related. After all, he’d probably slept with a ton of women since that proposal had been rejected, and it wasn’t as if he had loved Isabelle. ‘You made my first time memorable, that’s for sure,’ she finished, which was the understatement of the century, but she didn’t need to stroke his ego too much.
At least she could finally see that night for what it was—a livewire chemical connection—instead of what she had wanted it to be and it never could have been—a romantic one.
He rubbed his thumb across her lips, his gaze sharpening. ‘You need to be careful, Melody. Because, in the interests of full disclosure, I still want you. A lot.’
Heat surged as the memories from that night—and two nights ago, when he had satisfied her again—pulsed along her nerve-endings.
‘Do you really?’ she said, unable to resist the urge to flirt.
He let out a gruff laugh, acknowledging the hit, then captured her wrist to tug her closer.
‘I should also warn you,’ he said, the husky words part threat, part promise, ‘I have been bored out of my brain for the whole day.’ He glanced out of the kitchen window. ‘And it seems we may be trapped here…together…for at least another night. And now that we’ve declared a truce, and I’m not exhausted, I can think of all sorts of interesting ways to entertain ourselves.’
She took her time studying the weather, too. Adrenaline surged, because the vicious swirling snow outside no longer felt like a trap but an opportunity. The storm had cocooned them here in a place out of time. So why not take the chance to rewrite the mistakes of their past and enjoy this connection once more, before moving on? After all, they’d proved quite comprehensively a few nights ago they still had an exciting physical connection. And while she couldn’t take back her white lie now without looking like a fool, a selfish part of her wanted him to acknowledge that when their time together here was over.
‘Hmm, yes, you could be right about the weather,’ she said, being deliberately coy, despite the fact that her pulse was battering all her erogenous zones now with even more fervour than the icy wind battering the glass.
His fingers gripped her chin and redirected her gaze to his. ‘I have the perfect distraction to help us pass the time, Mel,’ he murmured, his voice so husky she could feel it vibrating in her sex.
‘Oh, do you, now?’ she whispered back, although her own voice was so hoarse she wasn’t fooling anyone any more, least of all him. ‘And what distraction would that be?’
He stood up so suddenly his stool crashed to the floor. His gaze darkened with the intensity she had always found so intoxicating. ‘You know damn well, you minx,’ he said in the bossy tone she had found so aggravating on New Year’s Eve.
She wasn’t finding it aggravating any more. Quite the opposite, in fact.
He grasped her wrist and tugged her off her own stool, then banded his arm around her hips to drag her against him and cradle the growing ridge in his pants against her belly.
‘Do you have any idea how much I want you right now?’ he asked, the rough tone no longer amused. No longer smug.
‘Actually, yes.’ She ground herself against the delicious hardness, the feral urge to make him suffer almost as exciting as his lust-blown pupils.
Rene would always be a complex, fascinating and exciting man. But she didn’t need or want him to be her man. Not any more. The pleasure he could give her, though—when he set his mind to it—had always been intoxicating and undeniable.
Giving in to that combustible chemistry wasn’t dangerous any more. Because they were equals now. She wasn’t a virgin, and she wasn’t as na?ve or as gullible as she had been four years ago. Nor was she as insecure. Because she had a job she adored and was good at, and she understood exactly now what sleeping with him meant… And what it never could.
Rene Gaultiere would never marry for love, or propose to a nobody like her. Nor did she want him to. Because she knew now what men like him—men who were closed-off emotionally and who would discard her, the way her father had once discarded her—could do to her confidence and self-respect if she became emotionally invested.
But Rene Gaultiere, the playboy prince, a man she knew could deliver when it came to no-holds-barred, dirty, sweaty sex was another matter.
He groaned, the loser again, then grasped her hips to hold her steady. ‘Okay, I surrender. Don’t do that unless you are going to let me ravish you, or I may actually explode.’
She laughed, the joyous laugh of a woman who knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it.
She draped her arms over his broad shoulders, inhaling the intoxicating scent of soap and man and musk, and ran her fingernails across his nape, determined to be the hunter this time, as well as the willing prey. His vicious shiver emboldened her. She skimmed her thumb down the side of his face, the beard growth rasping against the pad, and imagined all the ways she wanted to ravish him, too.
‘In the interests of full disclosure…’ she teased, more than ready to exercise her newfound power, ‘…it just so happens I found an unopened box of condoms in my dresser drawer.’
His eyes flared with a feral passion which matched her own. ‘I’m going to take that as a yes,’ he said, then bent to scoop her over his shoulder.
She kicked and struggled, but it was all for show this time.
So when he slapped her backside and demanded, ‘Keep still or I’ll drop you,’ as he marched out of the kitchen and headed upstairs to the master bedroom, she only laughed.
The adrenaline she had never been able to control charged through her system as he dropped her on the huge double bed. The snowstorm obscured the view of the forest through the glass wall at the far end of the room. But it didn’t matter because all she could see was him.
‘Get undressed,’ he demanded as he tore his clothes off. ‘The first time is going to have to be fast—to take the edge off,’ he warned.
The thrill became turbo-charged as she struggled out of her own clothes, feeling truly alive, and empowered for the first time in her life.
She gulped down the wadge of desire as she gorged herself on the glorious sight of his body, gilded by the twilight which had managed to penetrate the storm. The dim light cast the planes and angles of his face into sharp relief, and highlighted the bulge of muscle and sinew. She found herself cataloguing all the scars and imperfections she had noticed once before, joined now by the healing scar on his arm.
She swallowed the burst of emotion, the memory of him carrying her through the storm suddenly a little too vivid.
Why was Rene the only man who had ever made her feel so bold, so seen, and yet also cherished?
The only thing you both cherish now is the sex.
Excitement built, obliterating the sentimental thought, as he grasped her ankle and dragged her to the end of the bed. Already naked, the thick jut of his erection made her sex soften and swell as she watched him scramble to find the box of condoms. He sheathed himself, his urgency as flattering as it was exciting.
But when he climbed over her and captured her lips at last in a mind-numbing kiss, she had to force the emotion back again.
Tonight was about sex, and pheromones, and indulging the spectacular chemistry they had denied for too long, and which they could indulge now without any messy emotional repercussions.
It has to be.
She grasped his head, sucked on his invading tongue and spread her knees to cradle his hips. The huge erection nudged her sex, but when he drew his fingers through the damp folds, to test her readiness and circle the swollen nub, she choked out a sob, her release already devastatingly close.
‘Bad girl, Melody. You’ve been holding out on me,’ he murmured, raw need belied by the mocking tone.
‘Stop messing about and get on with it,’ she demanded, desperate to feel that thick length inside her again. Determined to make it last longer this time than the last.
He chuckled, the sound rough. ‘Your wish is my command,’ he said, but just as her heart registered the echo from their first night, he grasped her hips and buried himself deep.
She cried out as the huge erection impaled her.
He stopped, giving her a moment to adjust, and swore against her neck, all trace of the mocking amusement gone when he murmured, ‘You feel so good. So tight, just like that first time.’
Because you’re the only man who has ever been inside me…
She pushed the revealing thought to one side and tugged his head back to gasp in his ear, ‘Stop talking, you lummox, and move.’
His raw chuckle pushed at a place deep inside her, joining them, uniting them in their shared pursuit of desperate pleasure for pleasure’s sake.
‘Patience, Melody,’ he mocked, but then established a punishing, undulating rhythm, touching every part of her, and stroking the spot deep inside which only he had ever found.
She rose to meet him, frantically reaching for the glorious oblivion, so close and yet still too far—which he was deliberately denying her.
The rat.
Slowly and surely, though, the pleasure built like a wave. Gathering and rising inside her, it became a tsunami, his grunts of effort matching her sobs of need.
‘Yes, yes !’ she cried. ‘Don’t stop.’
‘No way,’ he grunted, his fingers digging into her hips, forcing her to take more, to take all, to take everything.
The wave blasted through her, thrusting her into that beautiful, terrifying abyss, before she heard him shout out—from a million miles away, through the storm—and crash over behind her.