Princess Annie (26 page)

She nodded, still leaning heavily against the door, hands at her sides, fingers outspread. “You told me, before we made love, that we would have to forget afterward and go on as if nothing had happened. I accepted your terms, and yet tonight …” Annie paused miserably, averting her eyes briefly before meeting his gaze again. “Tonight I asked you to let me love you, and I said I was born to be at your side, and I shouldn’t have spoken of those things. Even though I know they’re true.”

Rafael was silent for the longest time, but then he uttered a hoarse sound, like a groan of pain or despair. “Oh, God, Annie, you have no conception of what you’re doing to me and to yourself. You can’t have, or you wouldn’t be so foolish, or so cruel!”

Annie’s eyes widened at his words, but she didn’t move or speak. Not even when he set his glass on the mantel and crossed the room to stand so near that she could see the torment etched plainly in his face.

“What I told you last night was true, Annie,” he said, in a fierce whisper, taking a firm grip on her chin. “I can’t give you anything—
anything
but grief!”

She knew it wasn’t wise, but Annie couldn’t stop herself from raising her hands to his shoulders and resting them there. “That’s not true,” she said gently. “You’ve already shown me so much joy.” He released her chin, and she stood on tiptoe to press a light kiss against his mouth. “You’re so worried about what you can’t give me, Rafael. But what about the things
I
can give
you?”

He closed his eyes and let his forehead rest against hers. “Oh, Annie,” he rasped, “don’t. Please don’t. For both our sakes—”

“‘For both our sakes’?” Annie mocked tenderly, holding his face in her hands now, caressing his cheekbones with her thumbs, memorizing the feel of them. “For all we know, we might both die tomorrow, or next week. And then all this nobility, all this self-denial, will have been for nothing. Rafael, happiness can be like a wisp of smoke or a firefly on a summer night, there one moment, and gone the next. If we’ve found joy, however fleeting it might be, shouldn’t we embrace it? Shouldn’t we hold it in our hands and in our hearts, as long as we can?”

“Annie,” he said again, in anguish.

She kissed him once more. “Good night, my love,” she whispered, just before she turned to go.

Rafael’s hand closed over hers when she grasped the door handle. “Stay,” he said.

CHAPTER 13
 

S
tay
.

Annie turned to look into Rafael’s eyes, which had darkened from their normal silvery shade to a deep, smoky gray. “Is that what you truly want?” she asked.

Rafael’s throat was dry. He was standing so close to Annie now that she could feel the heat, the hardness and the restrained power of his body. “God help me,” he answered, his voice as rough as dry, porous stone, “but it is.”

“What about your honor—”

“Damn
my bloody honor!” he rasped. “I’ve gone beyond that now, don’t you see? My need for you is greater than anything else.”

“But you don’t love me,” she said.

“To win my love is to be cursed,” Rafael muttered, frowning, his mouth so close to Annie’s then that her lips tingled in anticipation of his kiss. He braced his hands against the door, on either side of her head. “Far better—and safer—to be counted as my enemy …”

Annie sagged against the ancient wood with a deep sigh as he took her mouth in that preliminary conquest. She had not come to Rafael’s bedchamber to seduce him, and yet she was shamelessly glad to know she’d broken through his resolve.

The kiss lasted a long time, during which Annie’s very bones seemed to melt. Her breasts swelled, their tips straining against her cotton shirt, and something coiled, tight and sweet and warm, deep in her abdomen.

At last, Rafael raised his head and looked into her eyes. She was still trapped between his strong arms, and she had no desire to be rescued.

“Leave now, if you’re feeling timid, for if you stay, I shall ravish you. And I’ll take my time at it, like before.”

A tremor went through Annie, for the things she’d felt in Rafael’s arms before had been ferociously, sometimes frighteningly, pleasurable. Time and again, the passion had been so great that it seemed to part soul from body, and even in her ecstasy, Annie had feared she would not find her way back to herself. Rafael would arouse terrible needs in her and she knew he’d meant what he said moments before; she’d suffer sweet agonies of wanting before he appeased her.

She began unbuttoning her shirt. “When have I ever been timid?” she asked.

Rafael made a low, strangled sound, and then, while Annie still leaned against the door of his bedchamber, he finished undressing her. When her boots and breeches and shirt had all been tossed aside—she’d worn nothing beneath them—he spent a long time just looking at her.

Finally, fumbling just a little, he unbraided her hair and combed it with his fingers. Although Annie was naked and completely at Rafael’s mercy, both physically and emotionally, she felt like a goddess. She knew that even at the height of her yearning, when she would plead for the release only Rafael could give, when his power over her would seem absolute, he would worship her with his body.

He kissed her again, falling to her with a groan the way a starving man might fall to food, and she opened his robe and embraced him, spreading her fingers against the muscles girding his back. She felt hard sinew flex beneath her palms, and Rafael groaned again, thrusting his tongue deep into her mouth, where it met and battled her own.

Presently, Rafael scooped Annie into his arms and carried her across the floor to his bed. It stood on a dais, but he mounted the steps with ease and flung her onto the mattress.

Annie knew that a part of Rafael was furious because she’d made him want her so desperately, and that there was an element of punishment in making her wait for her deliverance. She didn’t care as long as she could hold Rafael, caress him, and finally woo him deep inside her.

She raised her arms to him and he shed his robe and stretched out beside her on the vast bed.

Once again, they kissed, deeply, their tongues and limbs entangled. There were interludes of tenderness, of almost unbearable beauty, followed by fierce, fevered battles that set them rolling from side to side. Annie heard a clock strike in the distance, and then heard it again later through a pounding delirium of desire, but Rafael was still stoking the flames within her, even then. Much more time would pass, she knew, before he allowed her the fulfillment she craved; he meant to make her fight, and finally plead, for that.

The small rituals he put her through, over and over, nearly drove her mad. First, he kissed and caressed the arches of her feet, then the insteps, progressing with exquisite slowness to her calves, the backs of her knees, her inner thighs, her belly and breasts, the insides of her elbows, her neck and earlobes. Then, because she was whimpering, he would make his way back down her body until he’d reached the moist, aching delta between her legs.

He toyed with her, not once but many times, and finally burrowed through to kiss her there, tease her with his tongue, and finally suckle. Always, always, he knew when she was about to explode with gratification, however. He invariably withdrew just short of that moment, and left Annie trembling and frantic.

They had been engaged in this methodical battle for more than two hours, by the chimes of the clock, when Rafael finally mounted Annie. Her entire body was slick with perspiration, tendrils of her hair clinging to her cheeks and her temples and her nape, but at least she had the comfort of knowing that he was no better off.

She felt Rafael’s damp flesh quiver against her own as he struggled to control his desire. “Annie,” he whispered. With this final word, he entered her but, although the thrust was powerful, and made Annie’s nerves scream with expectation, he stopped just halfway and held himself there.

Annie was about to lose her mind; she clutched at Rafael, planning to force him into her to the hilt, as she had done the night before. But he was ready for her, muscles clenched, and she could not move him.

She arched slightly, raising glistening breasts to him, silently begging him to reach into her depths and assuage her primitive, violent need.

Rafael remained where he was, and incredibly his member seemed to grow even larger and harder, pressing against the walls of her femininity as if to burst them. Promising ecstasy and giving only torment.

Annie made an incoherent sound, and without plunging deeper or withdrawing, Rafael bent his head and took suckle at one of her reaching nipples. Presently, the muscles in his arms and chest visibly corded as he struggled to retain control, he treated her other breast to the same delicious plundering.

Annie’s mind reeled and her body buckled and writhed, but still Rafael did not take her.

Finally, in desperation, she began to gasp out words, senseless ones at first. She painted a mental picture in which their positions were reversed, and Rafael was at her mercy, and told him all the scandalous things she wanted to do to him.

At long last, his control snapped. He delved into her, with a raspy warrior’s cry, and she rose to meet and receive him. Annie matched every sleek, powerful surge of Rafael’s body with a graceful arch of her own and their pace increased until that final moment when all the walls came down and they met as one soul. The result was an endless, shattering, cataclysmic firestorm, unchaining emotions and sensations that had never been named.

When it was over, they clung to each other, and finally slept.

At dawn, Rafael awakened to find Annie curled in his arms. As always, with this woman, his emotions were mixed. He would be damned for the worst kind of liar if he pretended, even for a moment, that he hadn’t reveled in taking her. He knew, too, that to speak of honor again would make him a hypocrite—he could no more resist Annie than his next breath. For all of that, however, Rafael wished, for her sake, that she had never heard or uttered his name, let alone come to Bavia and offered up both her heart and her body as a sacrifice.

It was hopeless, and such a damnable waste.

She awakened as he was thinking these thoughts, and raised herself on one elbow to look into his face. She touched his lower lip with the tip of her index finger and as easily as that set his blood blazing.

He was hard and heavy in an instant, and with a muffled groan, he poised himself above her. She made a crooning sound, and shifted beneath him, opening her legs to receive him.

Rafael set his teeth and thrust himself inside her—just far enough to entice them both in the direction of madness. A long time later, when Annie’s nails had raked his back, when she’d cursed and threatened and finally begged, he took her completely. In that one frantic motion of his hips, Rafael became both conqueror and captive.

Appeased again, Annie slept when it was over, but Rafael could not afford the luxury. He rose, used a copious amount of tepid water, and donned his clothes. When he came out of the small dressing room reserved for that purpose, he was startled and then furious to find Lucian standing just inside the door, watching Annie sleep.

Lucian met Rafael’s gaze and smiled. “As much as you’d like to kill me right now,” he said, in a quiet voice, “you won’t lay a hand on me. You won’t even raise your voice, will you, because that might frighten your luscious little bedmate.”

“Get out,” Rafael said, very softly.

Lucian uttered a long-suffering sigh, and Annie made a murmuring sound and shifted in her sleep. “I suppose I should be grateful to you for teaching Annie the pleasures of the flesh,” he confided. “She’ll want a lover when you’re gone. Still, just thinking of her thrashing in your bed makes me feel as though I’ve just been gutted.”

Rafael maintained his temper; Lucian could have had only one purpose in entering the chamber uninvited—to goad his elder brother into some rash and foolish action. “You have stepped over the line,” the prince said, folding his arms, “and I will not play your games. Do not delude yourself, Lucian: while it is true that I am reluctant to box your ears in Annie’s presence, I can be pushed only so far. And while you are relatively safe, here in this room, at this moment, there are many other rooms in St. James Keep and there will be many more moments when I might have my revenge.”

Lucian cast a sorrowful look in the direction of the bed, where Annie still slept, and spoke with less bravado than before. “I must speak with you, Rafael. It has nothing to do with Annie or my aversion to soldiering.”

Rafael saw something in Lucian’s bearing that wasn’t typical of him. Sincerity. He gestured toward the door, and when Lucian went out, Rafael followed him into the empty passageway.

“What is it?” Rafael demanded, keeping his voice low.

Lucian looked in both directions. “There is a plot underway,” he replied. “The rebels plan to infiltrate the castle and take Covington and his men back to Morovia. They mean to execute them, one by one, in the courtyard, next to the market.” He paused and sighed. “Do not ask me how I know this, Rafael, for I won’t tell you.”