Reckless With Their Hearts (5 page)

She kissed him back, innocently but nonetheless passionately. He could feel the heat of her through her panties and it was driving him insane. He broke the kiss to trail a path down her neck, his hands eased from her hair to skim across her breasts.

“Ah!” She gasped when he touched her nipples. Her back arched, silently begging for more.

“Like that?” He murmured, kissing her collar bone. “Do you want more?”

“More!”

With fingers that surprisingly trembled he reached for the hem of her sweater and pulled it over her head. When his eyes landed on what he had uncovered he was left speechless. Her light blue bra was transparent and showcased a set of breasts that were beyond perfect. Just looking at them he knew they would fit his hands perfectly. They were high and firm, the tips rosy pink and begging for his mouth.

“So beautiful.”
He murmured letting his fingers trace around each areola. Good Lord, she was so beautiful. “Do you want me to taste you?” She made a whimpering sound that he took as a valid ‘yes’.

Sebastian pushed the cups away and took her left nipple into his mouth. She cried out and stabbed her fingers into his hair to hold him to her. She tasted clean and pure, his tongue rubbing back and forward across the distended nipple causing her to whimper again and again.

He pulled back enough to turn his attention to her other breast and worship it with his mouth as well. “Bastian!” She cried in a whispery breath.

His right hand went to the hem of her s
kirt and trailed up the inside of her thighs. When he came to the little triangle of fabric that was her panties he found her drenched and that was just the undergarment. He could just imagine how wet her pussy was and had to bite back a curse.

His body was throbbing, pleading with him to put an end to his pain. But their first time…her first time
ever
…was not going to happen in the back seat of a car, even if it was a limo. Eve was special and she deserved a hell of a lot better than this for her first trip into lovemaking.

That thought made him catch his breath. He had never thought of it as lovemaking before. In the past it had just been sex to him.
Fucking on most occasions. The women in his bed hadn’t really been more than that. A quick fuck, some good sex. Most hadn’t lasted past the first night, others no longer than a week or two. But this was Eve. The only female to make him ache to the point of madness from simply looking at her. Eve, who made his heart race from the first addicting sweet taste of her lips.

“Bastian?”
She was frowning at him, obviously not understanding his sudden withdrawal.

He gave her one more kiss, this one tender and precious compared to how he wanted to devour her lips. When he pulled back he gave her the sweater. “Not like this, babe. We need to go slow. I want you to the point of mind numbing madness! But that is not the way this is going to happen. No
t when you are innocent. It will happen, Eve. Just not here like this.”

The next day was Christmas Eve. She took her time wrapping the last of her gifts then carried them down to put under the tree.

On the last trip down with an arm full of presents it was to find Cameron in the family room unloading his own presents from a large box. She sat down on the floor and began helping him. In truth she was worried about her stepbrother. They had always been friends. Maybe not as close as she and Quinn were, but still good friends.

Eve positioned a present front Cameron to Garth, trying to find a way to ask what needed asking. Finally she just went for broke. “So are you in love or what?”

He didn’t laugh at her like she had imagined he might. Instead he frowned at the Christmas tree for a while before shrugging. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

Eve blinked. “Wow! I wasn’t expecting you to actually admit to it, but hey, that’s wonderful. It’s that French chic right? I have
actually met her before. She seemed nice.”

Cameron grunted. “Ami is a stubborn pain in the ass.”

“O-Kay.” She set there, expecting him to go on if she was just tenacious enough. She wasn’t wrong.

“She got it into her pretty head that I love my job more than her. She said that she wanted to come first with me…just once.” He glared at the tree, like he couldn’t understand anything about what he had just said.

Eve raised a brow at him. He sounded as if he really could not figure out what Ami’s problem was. “Well, you are a slave to your camera, Cameron. And before you bite my head off just let me tell you something.” She said quickly when he started to protest. “Yes, I know you are an artist. You like to work when you see something that inspires you. I even know that your camera is like another appendage to you, just as if it were another arm or leg. But I also know that you, who would cause world hunger all on your own by eating anything in sight, would give up a meal to take ‘the picture’.”

He had been glaring at her while she spoke, but slowly the glare turned into a frown and he
groaned. “Am I really that bad?”

“To me you are perfect
, Cameron Savage. But to someone like Ami, who would expect you to love her first, I can see you coming off as a bit of a jerk.” She finished arranging the last of the Christmas presents under the tree. “You could always call her. Say how sorry you are and ask her to pretty please join us for Christmas.”

“Do you think she will forgive me?”

Eve laughed. “As cute as you are? She would have to be crazy not to.”

Cameron jumped to his feet, bent to give her a quick kiss on the lips and with a
whoop
practically ran from the room.

As he was leaving the family room Garth was entering it. His blue eyes were surprised as he watched his son. “What’s with you?” He called after him.

“Love.” Cameron called back, laughing.

The older man sat down in the chair closest to where Eve was still seated by the tree, shaking his graying head. “Who is the boy supposed to be in loved with?”

She shrugged. “I’m sure you will find out soon enough.” She scooted over and pressed her back against his legs. “Rub my head?” She gave him a little pout. “Please?”

“Spoiled.”
He muttered but there was a smile in his voice. He started running his fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp and her eyes drifted shut.

She felt exhausted. The last few nights she had been f
inding it hard to sleep. Nightmares from the robbery continued to haunt her dream. That was when she could actually fall asleep. Last night she had tossed and turned for hours, her body aching for Sebastian. When she had finally drifted off to sleep she hadn’t gotten more than an hour or so before she awoke in a pool of sweat with the room smelling distinctly of fear. Her fear.

“So what did you get me for Christmas, angel?” Garth asked, continuing to stroke his long fingers through her hair just the way she loved.

“Not telling.” She informed him, her eyes still closed.

“Did I say spoiled?” He playfully tugged on a lock of her hair. “More like a brat.”

She smiled. “All true. But you love me anyway.” She rested her head back on one of his knees and sighed. There was something that she had been meaning to talk to him about all morning. “I received a Christmas card this morning.” She confided.

“Oh? Was it a nice one?”

She bit her bottom lip, torturing the delicate tissue. “I don’t know. I haven’t opened it yet…It had a post mark from another country.” She felt him stiffen and finally opened her eyes and turned to face him. “It was from my grandfather.”

Her mother’s father was a very well-known French Ambassador to some foreign country in which she knew nothing about. She had never met the man that had helped give her mother life. As Giselle’s mother had been his second wife, and an arranged marriage in which to get him into a certain dignitaries good graces, Giselle had been over looked in favor of wife number three and subsequent children born thereafter. As far as Eve knew her mother had only ever met her father—Eve’s grandfather—a few times in her entire life.

Therefore Eve had never met the man personally, nor ever had the desire to look him up. Not even after the death of her mother. She supposed that with her grandmother no longer living that her grandfather and what children and grandchildren he had with his current wife were all the family that she now had. But to her they didn’t really matter.

She did, however, know that her grandfather was considered a powerful man on the little island in which he was a French Ambassador. The island, which was under the rule of a king that had recently been in several English
newspapers, was one of the richer kingdoms. Her grandfather was in tight with the old king who had recently stepped down in favor of his sons rule, or so the papers said.

The Christmas card had been bothering her all morning. Ever since the housekeeper had handed it to her she had this horrible feeling of dread. Eve wanted nothing more than to tear it up and burn each tiny piece without even looking inside. But another part wanted
to know what the old man wanted. Because that could be the only reason he would dare contact her now.

“Okay.” Garth gave her a small, but encouraging smile. “Maybe you should open it.”

Grimacing she pulled the envelope from her back jeans pocket. After only a small hesitation in which Garth nudged her with his foot she tore it open. There was a nice picture on the front of the card that she recognized as the island country in which he now lived. The island was inside a snow globe with glittery snow falling.

Flipping the card open she began to read aloud:

“Dearest Granddaughter:

It is with great hope that this card finds you in good health this so celebrated holiday. I was hurt to find that your darling mother had passed from this world. I trust that her husband
has treated you kindly. However I see fit to inform you…”

She trailed off as she silent read the rest of the letter. Then with an outraged cry she jumped to her feet, dropping the offending card as she began to angr
ily pace. How dare he?!?

Garth sat forward. “What?” He demanded, sounding worried. “What is it? What does he want?” He reached for the card that had landed at his feet. “Eve, you are really starting to scare me…”

Fury, pure and uncontrollable fury was rushing through her veins. “He…” Words failed her and she turned away, ready to scream her rage at a man that wasn’t there. A man that she so desperately wanted to slap in the face right then!

But Garth was already reading the card and she could see the tension gathering in his shoulders with each sentence that he read. Eve took a calming breath. “He has arranged for me to marry the
newly crowned king of his precious country. That man has practically sold me to some guy that I have never met. All he has is sons and grandsons. So now
I
have been bartered off.”

--

It took quite a while for her to calm down.

First she tore the Christmas card with its beautiful picture and so hurtful words into a thousand pieces before tossing them into the fire. Then she went into Garth’s office to find some stationary and a pen.

After taking a few minutes for meditation she was no longer shaking with rage. She sat behind her stepfather’s desk and put pen to paper. She put all of her fury—and yes hurt—into each sentence she wrote. Instead of English, which was not her grandfather’s first language, she wrote it all in French so that there would be no doubt exactly what she was saying to him.

She told him exactly what she thought of him. His treatment of her mother, his acknowledgement of Eve as his granddaughter only when he needed her for his precious king, were all spelled out in perfect French. She informed the bastard that she wanted nothing to do with neither him nor the man ruling the country in which her grandfather was now a powerful dignitary.

Eve refrained from curse words, which were actually burning in her throat from wanting to spit them out at the old man’s feet. But she was better than that. Garth would have been very disappointed in her if she were to act in such a childish manner, even if she was sure that he was feeling the same urge to do so as well.

It took nearly three pages for her to express her disgust with the man before she felt she should end the letter. She ended the letter by telling him she wanted nothing to do with him and for him to leave her alone. At the bottom she put a
Merry Christmas!
and then scrawled her signature before folding the thick letter and sealing it in an envelope. After addressing the letter she gave it over to the housekeeper and asked her to take it to be mailed right away.

Two hours had passed since she had a complete melt down over the letter and the horrible man that she unfortunately shared genes with. Now she was much calmer and felt better for having addressed the situation in a letter where she could come across as cool and collected
, instead of a phone conversation in which she was sure she would have ended up saying things that would have her poor mother turning in her grave.

She returned to the family room to find Garth picking up a gift and shaking it carefully. “Hey!” She laughed, taking the gift from him and replacing it under the tree. It was marked to him from Quinn and was in a medium sized box wrapped in beautiful silver paper. “Stop that.”