A Princess in Waiting (Rothman Royals Book 3) Read online

  “The same way it works for me. You apply for jobs, go to interviews, and hopefully get hired.”

  “You’re not a princess, Alex. It’s a little different for you.”

  He smiled at me fondly and reached an arm out to give me a half hug. “I know. But you’re more than a princess, Lisette. You know that, right?”

  I didn’t answer since it seemed like a rhetorical question, but I thought about his words for a long time.

  I wondered what else I could do in this world other than being a princess.

  I didn’t even know.

  We started walking again, both of us lost in our own thoughts.

  “It’s not much farther to the priory,” Alex said, breaking the silence after a few minutes. “It was built in the seventeenth century. It’s not in use now, but some people still come up here to pray in the chapel. I’d like to check it out if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course I don’t mind. I’d love to see it.”

  When we reached the cluster of buildings, we waited for a small group of tourists to clear out. Then we walked around and investigated. We ended up on the south side, where the sheer drop provided an excellent view.

  We stood side by side silently as we gazed out. I reveled in the sprawling landscape. It was clear enough that I could see the Mediterranean as a blur just at the horizon.

  I turned to look at Alex. Our eyes met. I read in his expression a mirror of my own feelings of awe.

  The shared experience was so powerful that my body and heart reacted. I’d known Alex all my life, but it felt like we were sharing something different now, something unique, something completely our own.

  He must have felt it too, because he reached out and pulled me against him. Without hesitating, he bent his head down into a deep kiss.

  Desire surged through me as my body softened against his, immediately surrendering to his embrace. I felt drowned in his heat and in his strength, in the way his body was tensing, hardening. I heard him make a hoarse, hungry sound in his throat, muffled by my mouth.

  I responded with a breathless whimper that I couldn’t possibly hold back.

  He slid his hand from my ribs to my bare thigh and the other to the curve of my bottom.

  I pressed into him eagerly, fisting my hands in his hair, completely uninhibited, needing him so much I couldn’t possibly hold back.

  I have no idea how far we would have gone had we not heard a coarse laugh break into our embrace.

  We broke apart, and I glanced behind us.

  Three young men were standing by the priory, watching us with raunchy amusement.

  With a sigh, Alex took my hand and rounded the other side of the building, finding our trail again. We kept climbing the zigzagging trail as it led up to the summit.

  Despite my physical frustration and my disappointment at the embrace ending so abruptly, I couldn’t help but giggle a little at being caught kissing that way. And also with a giddy recognition that he’d kissed me again—and this time he hadn’t apologized afterward.

  Alex kept slanting glances at me, and eventually he chuckled too.

  ***

  We reached the cross on the top of the mountain and looked at it for a few minutes, but it was the popular goal for tourists, so there were a lot of other people around. Instead of resting there, we found a secluded spot in the shade beyond the cross, where we spread out a blanket and ate the picnic I’d packed that morning—bread, cheese, prosciutto, grapes, and water.

  We chatted casually until we faded into comfortable silence. I felt so good after we’d eaten, with the breeze cooling my skin, that I stretched out on the blanket and closed my eyes.

  To my surprise, I actually dozed off. I just slept fifteen minutes or so, and when I woke up, Alex was lying beside me, his hands crossed beneath his head.

  He wasn’t asleep though. His head was turned in my direction, and he was watching me.

  “Hi,” I said, taken aback by the soft warmth in his eyes. Except for the kiss, there had been nothing but easy companionship between us today. I certainly hadn’t expected the hot tenderness I saw in his face now.

  “Hi.”

  “Why are you looking at me that way?”

  “You really don’t know?” He shifted to his side and propped his head on one hand.

  “I know you kissed me earlier, and we don’t normally do that.” I wasn’t sure why I was approaching the topic so directly—just that it felt like the right thing to do.

  “I know.” His voice was low and husky. “I shouldn’t have done that, Lisette.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was going to be good this weekend. I promised myself.”

  I blinked. “I thought you were good.”

  He chuckled. “Kissing you is definitely not what I do when I’m being good.”

  That giddy excitement was flooding through me again—fluttering frantically in my chest. “Then maybe you shouldn’t be good right now.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes. I think so.” My voice was barely a whisper.

  “I’m not in the habit of being bad,” Alex said, scooting so close to me that I could feel the heat from his body flooding my own. He still hadn’t touched me.

  “Me either. But maybe we should try it. Just for now, I mean.”

  Finally he leaned down to kiss me, very softly on the corner of my mouth. “Just for now,” he murmured thickly.

  He used his palm to stroke me lightly, starting with my hair and moving to my neck, my breasts, my belly, and my hips. “I love your hair,” he murmured, caressing the bare skin of my thighs in a way that gave me goose bumps. “And your body. It’s like you’re made of this hidden fire that no one but me ever gets to see.”

  I gasped in pleasure—at his touch and at his words.

  “And I love the way you gasp like that,” he continued, kissing me with his eyes. “Like you’ve never felt this way before. I can’t get enough of it.”

  I hadn’t felt this way before. No one but him had ever been able to make me feel this way.

  I was so moved by his look and his words that I had to close my eyes. I had to verify that this was actually happening and it wasn’t just in my secret fantasies.

  Trying desperately to sound natural and not like I was going to melt into spineless mush, I managed to say with a somewhat dry voice. “What makes you think I’ve never felt this way before?”

  He smiled, and his eyes were unexpectedly possessive—making me feel both desirable and safe at the same time. It was a new feeling. And one I could grow to enjoy far too much.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I like to think I’m the only one to make you feel this way.”

  “What makes you think you know what I’m feeling?”

  He laughed softly and stroked my hot cheek with his knuckle. “Your cheeks are flushed. And you’re panting.”

  “Well, I just climbed a mountain.”

  Shaking his head, he said, “You’d already cooled down from that. Your flush and your breathing are from something else entirely.”

  It was true. The heat coursing through my body had little to do with exercise. But I managed to say wryly, “Hmm. Debatable evidence.”

  He gave a twitch of an appreciative smile, but then he lowered his head to the crook of my neck. His lips found the pulse in my throat. He mouthed it gently, stroking the sensitive spot with his tongue.

  I gasped and arched up slightly at the unbearable pleasure from the touch.

  “Your pulse is throbbing,” he murmured against my skin. “I can feel it.”

  “Well,” I began, trying desperately to make my mind work enough to make a witty comment. “That’s because…”

  I lost track of my thoughts completely when Alex’s fingers traced the swell of my breasts through my shirt. “Here,” he said, brushing over my sensitive nipples, which had tightened with arousal. “How do you explain these?”

  The stimulation deepened my desire, but I managed to grasp at the last remnants of
my wit. “Uh, it’s cold up here?”

  This must have surprised him. A sudden burst of his laughter rang out on the quiet mountain. I shivered at the rich sound of it and at the feel of his body shaking beside me.

  Without warning, he moved over me completely, and my legs automatically fell open to make room for him. He was so hot, so strong, so hard on top of me. I rocked beneath him with some sort of primal instinct I didn’t understand.

  “Lisette,” he said hoarsely, his eyes intense, devouring me. “You have no idea how much I want you.”

  “I, uh, might have a small idea.” With my pelvis, I nudged up against the hard evidence of his arousal I could feel through his trousers.

  He sucked in a harsh breath. Then flashed a wry grin. “Small, is it?”

  I choked on a laugh, amusement hopelessly mingled with desperate desire. There was nothing small about him. Everything was big and hard and hot. “Not so as I’d notice.”

  He leaned down to kiss me as we both laughed, and I lost my breath completely in a flood of carnal need.

  I was about to surrender to the thrilling, terrifying thought of making love to him at the top of the mountain, underneath the sky, when a familiar coarse laugh broke through our sensual haze.

  I jerked my head to the side and saw a leering grin in the distance. Those same guys who’d seen us kissing by the priory.

  We weren’t alone here. Weren’t private enough for something so intimate. Hopefully, those men were just passing strangers and wouldn’t recognize me as a princess, but I really shouldn’t take that risk. Plus I hadn’t brought any protection.

  No matter how desperately I wanted him, this just didn’t seem like the right time.

  Alex cursed under his breath as he straightened his arms, pulling his weight off my body. “Yeah,” he said as if I’d spoken out loud. “You’re probably right.”

  ***

  We hiked down the mountain and then went into Aix for the afternoon. We had a good time. I loved the town, and I enjoyed Alex’s company.

  But something was unfinished between us. Both of us knew it.

  And I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen this evening when we were alone in the cottage.

  We had an early dinner in town before we went back, and the sun was low in the sky when we finally returned. It was still warm, and I wanted to use the pool, so I went to my room to shower and change into the two-piece swimsuit I’d brought with me.

  I assumed Alex would come out to join me, and then maybe that unfinished thing would finally happen.

  I waited.

  He’d gone into his room too—I assumed to clean up and change like I had. But he never came out.

  Minutes passed and then an hour. And he still didn’t appear.

  My excitement gradually transformed into something crushed and aching.

  He’d changed his mind.

  He didn’t want me after all—or he did want me but not enough to actually act on the feeling.

  I swam in the pool by myself, trying to work out my disappointment and grief and embarrassment—that I’d given in to my feelings, let him see how much I wanted him, but he’d decided against me after all.

  This was it.

  I wasn’t going to keep hoping for him—not after this.

  I’d had my chance. He’d had his chance. If he didn’t want me after this, then it was never going to happen.

  When I returned to Villemont tomorrow afternoon, all my dreams of Alex were going to have to be put away for good.

  I’d given myself a long lecture about this fact as I swam, and I was feeling resolute and a little numb when I finally climbed out of the pool.

  Alex hadn’t come out of his room.

  He obviously wasn’t going to.

  I’d grabbed my towel and was heading inside when I remembered the lovely outdoor shower in the garden, surrounded by a trellis of climbing roses.

  The moon was bright—almost as bright as day—and I might as well enjoy all the features of this cottage since tonight was my last night here.

  Instead of going inside, I walked around the hedge to the shower and turned it on.

  It was absolutely lovely, the fall of water on my body and the scent of flowers all around me.

  I could enjoy this.

  Alex didn’t have to want me.

  There were still joys and pleasures in life. This was one of them.

  I rubbed water out of my face and opened my eyes, and I gasped when I saw Alex standing next to the hedge, staring at me fixedly.

  I could only imagine how I must look, soaking wet, in my swimsuit, with the water streaming down around me. I tried to remember if I’d done anything embarrassing in the shower just now.

  Alex kept staring speechlessly, and I could see the way his eyes raked up and down over my body.

  I suddenly realized he wasn’t thinking I looked silly.

  He liked how I looked.

  He really liked how I looked.

  His cheeks were slightly flushed, his body was stiff, and I could see beneath the fabric of his shorts that his body had responded to the sight of mine.

  That flutter of excitement sprang to life again in my chest.

  “Where were you?” I asked when I could finally make my voice work.

  His mouth twisted slightly. “I was… trying to be good.”

  “Then why didn’t you stay in your room?”

  “I’m tired of being good,” he admitted hoarsely. “I’m tired of always doing what I’m supposed to do. I wanted, for one night, to take what I want.”

  My whole body was throbbing now. “Then take it, Alex. Take it.”

  He made a low sound—almost a groan—and strode toward me, pulling his shirt off over his head as he walked.

  When he reached me, he stepped under the water of the spray.

  “Alex,” I gasped, thrilled and throbbing and strangely disoriented.

  He kissed me.

  I responded immediately, winding my arms around his neck and pressing my wet body against his. Desire—hot, sweet, and strong—slammed into me even more powerfully as he sank more deeply into the kiss, his tongue stroking the inside of my mouth and his hands running along the curves and dips of my body.

  Our skin slid together easily from the water streaming over us, and the floral scent invaded my senses.

  After a minute, I pulled away from him, searching his face urgently. “You’re not going to run away from me again, are you?”

  “No. Not this time.”

  He reached to turn off the shower, and he picked up his own towel and dried off a little. Then he spread out the towel on the soft grass like a blanket.

  I worked on wringing water out of my hair. I felt naked in just my swimsuit and even more so with the way he was staring at me. He seemed to like every small way in which I moved.

  I glanced down again to his groin to verify the state of his body. He was definitely aroused.

  By me.

  This gave me courage enough to reach around and unclasp my top. I pulled the wet fabric away from my skin and dropped it on the grass.

  Alex’s eyes crawled over my bare breasts, and I felt utterly beautiful, utterly sensual for the first time in my life.

  This was really going to happen. I knew it now.

  I was finally going to be with Alex the way I really wanted.

  So I didn’t hesitate or draw away when Alex stepped forward and gently leaned down into another kiss. This one was soft, achingly sweet. His lips trailed down to my throat, and my head fell back as a shameless moan of pleasure escaped my lips.

  “Everything about you is beautiful,” he murmured against my skin.

  Then he picked me up and carried me to the towel he’d strewn on the grass and laid me down on it.

  My pulse raced, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I wanted him too much to be very nervous, but I felt like I was shuddering inside.

  His eyes ignited—smoldering with passion, melting me with his gaze. I flushed hot as h
e trailed kisses down my face, my neck, my breasts, my belly, and lower to my hips.

  I tangled my fingers into his wet hair and tried to breathe through my desire and anticipation.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured between his kisses. “So sweet, so beautiful.”

  His head lifted and hovered for a moment above my groin, and I shifted restlessly with anticipation and self-consciousness. But instead of remaining there, he pitched upward toward my breasts again.

  I made a mew of surprise when he took one breast in his mouth. “Tease,” I complained.

  He just laughed, the vibrations intensifying the sensations of his caress, and moved down to pull off the bottom of my swimsuit. He stroked me intimately and mouthed my breasts until my body was on the edge of shattering.

  Finally I tugged him up and eagerly claimed his mouth, pulling him onto me wholly. I loved the weight and heat and strength of him, and I couldn’t stand any more foreplay.

  He laughed softly against my lips. “Impatient, aren’t you?”

  I made a growling sound and wriggled beneath him until he’d pulled off the rest of his clothes and was positioned between my legs. It wasn’t until I felt him nudging at me that I grew suddenly afraid.

  I wanted him. My body was more than ready for him. But the truth was I’d never done this before.

  “Alex,” I began.

  “I have a condom,” he said, reaching over to where he’d dropped his shorts.

  “I know. That’s not it.”

  His eyes returned to my face. “You’re a virgin?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought maybe you were. Are you sure you want to do this with me?”

  I nodded, trusting him more than I’d ever trusted another man.

  He rolled on a condom and then repositioned himself. He kissed me very gently before he used his hand to line himself up.

  The pressure was harder and more intense than I’d expected, and I made an involuntary, breathless cry at the discomfort and pang of pain as he carefully eased himself in.

  Alex made a choked sound, his eyes briefly closing. He straightened his arms, pulling his chest up from mine. His skin was damp in the moonlight, and his face flushed with desire, but he scanned my features with careful scrutiny. “I’m hurting you.”

  I shifted uncomfortable. “No. Well, a little. But it’s fine. Just give me a minute to adjust.”