Lessons in Seduction (9 page)

“Can you give us fifteen minutes, please?” Danni asked, stepping away from Adam's side.

“That's even better. Of course you'll be wanting a bit of private time. And I'll be able to make sure it's all properly ready and hot. Sing out if you need anything. Just come down when you're ready.”

As soon as Blake left, Danni turned to Adam, her gaze earnest. He missed the feel of her close to him.

“We're swapping rooms,” she said as she started for her suitcase.

Adam blocked her way. “No. We're not.”

“Yes. We are.” She sidestepped.

He matched her, again blocking her way with his body. “No. We're not. And that
is
an order.”

“Ha. Remember what you said about me not being likely to follow your orders. You were right. My room's
twice the size of yours. I wouldn't be able to sleep in it. You're the one who's a prince.”

“You're only here because of me. It's very right. All it is is a bed to sleep in anyway.” And no matter which bed he was in he wouldn't be getting much sleep. Not with her so close. “I'll bet you've always wanted to sleep in a four-poster bed.”

Her irrepressible grin lifted one side of her mouth. “Actually, when I was younger my fantasies ran more to a racing car bed.”

“But what about now? Where do your fantasies run to now?” His fantasies suddenly included her laughing lips.

They were standing close. He could see flecks of gold in her eyes. He could see the tips of her teeth revealed by her parted lips. He took a step back. “I'm sorry. That was inappropriate and not something I need to know.” Her mouth closed and she bit her lip, drawing attention to its soft fullness.

He should turn and go, but he stood there staring at her, wanting her. And he could see the mirror of his wanting in her eyes.

Hope twined with desire inside him.
Hope
that she felt something of what he did, and
desire
for her, here and now. He didn't want either. He
shouldn't
want either. And together they were a fearsome combination.

Where was her outrage over his earlier kiss? The overstepping of bounds, the abuse of power? He'd settle for sympathy and a gentle admonishment that she didn't think of him that way, or even for her to laugh in his face. He could deal with any of those. Anything to remind him that the sudden attraction laying siege to him was one-sided and had to be vanquished, that kiss
ing her could never be allowed to happen again. Because that was what was right and safe.

But it wasn't one-sided. He could see that now. It hadn't been just him in that kiss. The attraction simmered between them.

He should step away, not want to pull her closer. Her lips had a newfound power over him. He wanted, so much that it was a need, to kiss her again.

He looked away from her—her eyes, her lips, her hair, her feminine curves, everything that tempted him—so that he could think clearly. But instead he saw that big four-poster bed and pictured Danni in it. With him.

It was insanity. Lust—that's all it was—was gaining the upper hand.

He was alone here with Danni, when he'd planned a weekend with no work, no distractions, so now he was fixating on her. If his date, Claudia—he struggled to remember her name—was here that wouldn't be happening. Although he could scarcely remember what Claudia looked like. She was ostensibly a beauty but she had none of Danni's spirit and sass. And everything going on in his head was just plain wrong and he couldn't, wouldn't allow it.

Even if he'd correctly interpreted the way she'd melted into him. Even if she hadn't wanted him to stop that kiss.

His thoughts refused to be suppressed.

Danni's expression as she watched him turned thoughtful. She knew he was battling with himself. And as that realization registered, the light in her eyes changed, desire shone through. The desire that had sprung to life between them, more powerful for being
mutual and forbidden. The hunger for her gnawing at him almost undid him. He could pull her to him now…?.

He might not have control over his thoughts or his desires but he still had control over his actions and he removed his hand from her shoulder and turned away from her.

It felt like the hardest thing he'd ever done.

He crossed the room, putting necessary distance between them. “We need to talk about what's happening here. We're alone together for the first time and I don't know how or why, but somehow it's changing things. But not everything. And what remains constant is the fact that anything between us would be wrong. It's not that I don't want…it's just all kinds of wrong.”

“You think I don't know that? That you're stuck here without your duties to occupy you, or the woman who should have been here, so you're focusing on me. A convenient substitute.”

She waited for him to disagree. “Yes,” he said. Though it wasn't that. Not by a long shot. This attraction to her was anything but convenient. Danni was all the things that were missing in his life, things she'd pointed out, spontaneity, honesty, and this felt like his last chance to grab them. But, and it kept coming back to this, it would be wrong. Unfair to her when she deserved so much more. “So let's just go to dinner. And we are not swapping rooms.” He spoke as coldly as he could. “Tomorrow we're going home. Things will be back to normal.”

He crossed to the door, each step away from her heavy and determined, as though he was fighting gravity.

“Adam?”

He shouldn't respond, but he turned. And she was right there. Her hands went to his head and pulled him down and she rose up on her toes and kissed him. A kiss of contradictions. Sweet and hard. A kiss that challenged and dared, and the press of her lips to his, of her body against his, the taste of her, filled him with fire.

The kiss undid all of his resolutions, weakened him. She took and she gave and left him mindless of anything other than her.

Then she broke the kiss and strode away.

Relief and regret tore through him as he sagged against the wall.

D
anni woke to a soft tapping on the door. She had no idea what time it was other than early. So she rolled over and ignored it. The tapping grew louder. “I'm fine. I don't need anything.” Except maybe a glass of water but she could get that for herself.

Blake had knocked just like that last night as she was about to get into bed because he'd forgotten to check that her bathroom had everything it ought to. And although those few minutes of Blake's garrulous company after the strained torture of dinner with Adam had been a blessing, she didn't want to see him, or anybody, right now.

Adam had been polite during their meal. Too polite. And charming. Too charming. There had been nothing real or honest about their conversation. The manners and the charm masked a remoteness that seemed impossible to bridge.

She'd all but told him that she wanted him. And he'd turned her down. Supposedly hell had no fury like a woman scorned, but she wasn't feeling scorn so much as mortification.

A chasm had opened up between them and it was of her making. She'd kissed him and he'd let her walk away. He hadn't mentioned the kiss during dinner. Not once.

She'd hoped that his gentle but undeniable rebuff would quell the insane one-sided lust that had sprung from nothing and nowhere in the space of a few days. But apparently insane lust didn't work that way. And she was still hankering, twisted up on the inside with wanting him.

She'd had wine with dinner in her desperation to forget. Not much, but usually she drank nothing. The wine had given no consolation and no reprieve from her embarrassment.

He was Adam Marconi. Heir to the throne of San Philippe. She was the daughter of one of the palace drivers. He'd known her since she was five. He didn't even think of her as a woman. If only there was a way to get through this day without seeing him.

“Danni?”

Her breath caught in her chest and every muscle tensed. It wasn't Blake at the door. It was Adam. And the tapping hadn't been at the main door to her room but at the adjoining door.

“Danni? I'm coming in.”

Danni burrowed farther beneath the covers. “What do you want?” She knew there was no way of completely avoiding seeing him today but surely it didn't have to start now.

He opened the door enough that he could look into the room, his gaze somewhere on the wall above her head. He didn't so much as put a toe past the threshold. “We're going skiing. Did you bring gear?”

“Yes. I'm always prepared for anything, and I wasn't going to twiddle my thumbs while you were off skiing. But I thought we were going back to the palace today?”

He opened the door a little wider. “We're going skiing first. It snowed heavily overnight again and although it's stopped now, it'll be several hours before the roads have all been cleared. So we're stuck here for a while.” He was clean shaven, his dark hair slightly damp. “Blake tells me there's a small ski field a five-minute walk from here. I thought we'd try it. It's got to be better than…being cooped up in here.” He didn't add,
with her.
She didn't need the reminder of what she'd done last night. “Breakfast will be ready in fifteen minutes. Can you be ready?” His gaze lowered and tracked over her rumpled bed. Rumpled because she'd tossed and turned most of the night.

“Of course I can.” He was sounding a degree or two warmer than he had last night, a little more like his usual self, as though he had put yesterday and last night behind him, as though he could pretend it had never happened. Relief washed through her. She couldn't forget what she had done, her madness. But perhaps they could get back to a place of…comfort between them. A place where they both pretended. She just had to show him that she could be normal. And if normal meant spending the morning on the slopes with him to prove herself, she could do it. Skiing would be the perfect distraction and a much better alternative to staying indoors alone and stewing.

 

The only sound in the still morning was the quiet crunch of their boots on the snow. Danni focused on the trail lightly trampled by the few people who'd come this way already this morning. Ahead, she could make out the next three orange-tipped trail markers before their path disappeared in a gap between the pines.

The chalet had a snowmobile but she'd only been half listening to Blake's convoluted explanation as to why it wasn't available this morning. But the walk, Blake had assured them though he hadn't done it himself, was short.

“It's beautiful,” Danni said. The beauty, the serenity, helped give her perspective. Her turmoil was just that, hers. And not important. Or at least she knew that one day it would seem unimportant even if that day wasn't quite here yet.

“It is,” Adam agreed easily, his step keeping pace with hers.

Breakfast with him had been marginally better than dinner. They were both valiantly pretending the kisses had never happened, both trying to act normally with each other. They were managing. Just. Like bad actors in a play. She could believe it if she forced herself to.

Through a gap between some pines, Danni glimpsed the rustic buildings of the ski field farther up the hill and guessed that Blake's five-minute estimation of the trip was optimistic. “I'll bet you don't usually have to walk to your ski fields lugging your own gear,” she said. She tried for a teasing tone but guilt over the fact that it was her decisions that had put him in this predicament gnawed at her. If she hadn't ignored his wishes yesterday, none of this would have happened.

“Not usually, no.” He glanced at her. “But I'll bet you don't, either.”

“Good point. I guess not.” She looked at the markers ahead. “You know, if we skip that next marker and head straight for the one beyond it, it'll be quicker. Some of the footprints already go this way.” She headed in the direction she'd suggested, not waiting for Adam to agree. Because he wouldn't. He played by the book. He didn't take shortcuts.

“Why is it you have such a poor opinion of me?” He spoke across the few feet of snow that separated them.

She glanced at him, but with his hat and glasses in the way, too little of his face was visible to gauge how serious his question had been. “I don't.”

“You do. You think I'm soft and spoiled and arrogant. Not to mention boring and uptight.”

“I never said those things, especially not soft.” She tried to remember what she might have ever said about him.

He laughed. Loud and deep. “But that's how you think of me.”

His laughter was a relief and a balm. “You're a prince Adam. You've had a life of utter privilege. Apart from a few years in the military.”

“You grew up on the palace grounds. You had a lot of those same privileges and, might I add, none of the responsibilities.”

Danni said nothing. She couldn't totally agree with him but she also couldn't totally disagree with him.

“It helps you, doesn't it?” he said.

“It helps me what?”

“You prefer not to see me as a normal man. It wasn't
always like that. But I am normal and that's why I have to keep my distance.”

She laughed but hers was a little forced. “You're not normal. Nothing about you is normal.” She didn't want to hear whatever explanation he'd come up with for rejecting her. “You wouldn't know normal if it jumped up and bit you on the—”

He waited for her to finish but she held her tongue. Too late, but she held it anyway. “You see,” he said. “You won't even use words you'd usually use because you're with me. And you used to not be like that. I know that's my fault and I need to fix it. I just don't know how.”

If she'd changed it was because she did see him as a normal man now. One who might have needs, one who could fill needs she didn't want to own. She deviated a little farther off the visible path, wanting to put more space between them.

“Bit me where, Danni? Go on, finish your sentence.”

There was too much of a challenge in his voice for her to refuse, too much of an assumption that she wouldn't. “Bit you on your fine royal ass.”

He smiled. “Thank you. For that openness and for calling my ass fine.”

The way those ski pants fit him, there was no doubt about that whatsoever. Not that she was going to admit it to him. “You can also be a royal pain in the ass.”

“Again, thank you.”

She laughed. “You were like this when Rafe used to tease you, too. Imperturbable, unfathomable. It was totally exasperating. We jumped off the groundsman's shed roof that time just to see how you'd react. You barely batted an eyelid.”

“It used to drive him nuts.”

“He has my sympathy.”

“He always did.”

There was something she couldn't quite grasp in his tone. “Meaning?”

“Nothing. But you two were quite the team when you were younger.”

“United in tormenting you.”

He nodded.

“We were doing you a favor.” She looked across the few feet that separated them, trying to see how he'd take that assertion.

“I don't think I ever thanked you for it.”

“There's no need for sarcasm.” She hid her smile. “We kept you real, and grounded. Stopped your head from getting too full with all that rubbish you insisted on cramming into it.”

“By rubbish you mean…?”

Danni paused. “Maybe it doesn't seem so much like rubbish now.”

“So you mean my studies? Languages?”

She nodded. “Like Latin.”

“You made me teach you some of it.”

“I was young and impressionable.”

“It may be a dead language but it lives on in other languages it forms the basis for—”

He caught her smiling and grinned back before he looked away, shaking his head.

“See, you just can't help yours—” She squawked as she stepped into a snow drift and sank down to her thighs. She tossed her skis and boots ahead of her and tried to work her way out. Adam stopped to watch her floundering. Finally she held out a hand to him.

He set his things down beside hers, took a few steps closer and looked at her outstretched hand. “Ah, so now I can be of service to you. Now I'm not so boring for preferring to follow the trail markers. And perhaps not quite so useless, hmm?” The light teasing in his voice was invigorating.

“I'm hoping not. But it's not anything you learned in Latin that I need from you now.”

“Adsisto.”
Testing the snow he eased forward and reached for her hand.

“Gratia,”
she said as she accepted his clasp. He pulled her up and toward him. In two steps she stood pressed fully against him, and he steadied her with an arm around her back. And all the sensations, all the memories, came flooding back. Time stood still. His gaze dipped and flicked up again, then he blinked, long and slow, and stepped back. Away from her.

“Do you ski much?” he asked as the field came into view a couple silent minutes later. “I should have asked earlier. I just assumed.”

“You assumed right.” Her heartbeat had settled back to somewhere around normal. “I go whenever I get the chance.” Even her voice sounded normal, revealing nothing of the breathless, and as it turned out pointless, anticipation she'd felt pressed against him. “I love skiing. The freedom, the speed, the exhilaration.” She'd wanted his kiss, had almost been able to taste it. She'd learned nothing from last night.

“I guess that's why I assumed you did. Anything that involves speed and exhilaration and the risk of breaking your neck.”

“You like it, too,” she reminded him.

“Yes. I do,” he agreed.

“I never thought we'd have anything in common. We're so different. Or at least you pretend you are.”

“It's not me pretending I'm not like you. I freely admit who I am. It's you who's in denial. You're more like me than you want to admit.”

“I'm nothing like you. You're royalty, you're a scholar, multilingual and let's face it, a bit of a geek.”

“A geek? As in I like things like…chess?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, seeing immediately where he was going with this, “but I only ever learned because we were both laid up that time, you with your leg and me with chicken pox. I was bored and had gone through all the other games and you'd gotten banned from everything electronic for crashing the palace network.”

“The excuses won't work, Danni. Admit it, you enjoy chess.”

“Yes,” she admitted. “But that doesn't mean anything.”

“The Lord of the Rings.”
Adam had given her the books and insisted she read them prior to the first of the movie adaptations coming out. He'd re-read them at the same time and they'd had many lengthy discussion about them.

“Face it, Danni. Underneath the Action Woman exterior you're part geek, too. And it's not geeky but we have skiing in common.”

She focused on the buildings ahead and the chairlifts stretching up the hill before them. “Yes, but—”

“And don't forget cars. You may not like who I am and what I do, but that doesn't mean you're not like me, that we don't have things in common.”

She swallowed her shock. “I never said I don't like
who you are and what you do.” He couldn't possibly think that. Could he?

“No?”

They reached the periphery of the clusters of skiers waiting for tickets or chairs. “No. I totally admire who you are and what you do. I always have. I can't imagine anyone better suited to it.”

“I'm not sure that's a compliment.”

“It is,” she said quietly.

He stopped walking but because of his glasses she couldn't read what was in his eyes. He'd opened his mouth to say something when the sound of a sob caught their attention. Danni looked down to see a girl of about five or six looking woefully around, her eyes wide and panicked. She dropped to her knees in front of the child. “What are you looking for? Have you lost someone?”