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CHAPTER TWO
BY THE TIME they had gone through a maze of high-gloss marble corridors and arrived at Mauro’s suite, Astrid was trembling. She did her best to try to disguise it, and hope that he would perhaps assume it was because they were surrounded by ice. But the fact of the matter was, the pieces of the structure that were not made of ice were quite comfortable, and she imagined he assumed no such thing.
She was so good at pretending to be confident, serene and as if she were in possession of every secret in all the world, that sometimes she even convinced herself such things were true.
Sometimes she forgot what she really was.
She was a queen, that much was true. A queen with quite a lot of power, education and confidence that was rightly earned.
She was also a woman who had been kept separate from peers for most of her life while she focused on her education. A woman who had danced with a man, but never, ever kissed one.
She was a virgin queen, above reproach as her mother had always instructed her to be.
But matters had become desperate, and so had she.
And she was waging war in a sense, and that meant she could not afford nerves. Even as they rolled over her in a wave, the reality of the utter disparity between the two of them a strange and intense sort of drug.
An aphrodisiac and a bit of a terror.
She was used to having a mantle of power over her, but he didn’t know who she was. And here, in this private room he had just ushered her into, he was the experienced one. He was physically so much more powerful than she could ever hope to be, and her guards were well and truly dismissed. She had no one to snap her fingers for and call for rescue. She didn’t even have her phone, as she and Latika had agreed that her being traceable to the club in any manner wasn’t acceptable.
It was why the timing of everything was so crucial.
His suite was warm, wonderfully appointed with furs in a dark ebony, and bright white cotton spread over a massive mattress.
She looked over at him, and his lips curved as he closed the door behind them.
“Second thoughts?”
“No,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “Not at all.”
“I did not take a woman who would freely admit to being a sex tourist as one who would be overcome by the nerves of an innocent.”
She laughed, so very grateful for all the years she had spent at various political events dodging barbs of every sort, allowing her an easy smile and confident stare even while verbal daggers were being thrown her way. “Naturally not. It’s only that… We haven’t even kissed yet. And I do want a bit of certainty regarding chemistry.”
“A woman of high standards.”
“Exceptionally,” she said. “I should have mentioned to you that I am—as far as sex tourists go—not a backpacker. I only go first-class. And if things are not to my liking, I don’t stay.”
A dark flame burned yet higher in his eyes, a clear response to what he obviously took as a challenge.
“I was going to offer you a drink,” he said.
“Why? Because you think you should fare better if my senses are dulled?”
He chuckled and moved to her, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her against his body. He took hold of her chin, keeping her face steady as he stared down into her eyes.
“Let us test the chemistry, then,” he said, his voice rough.
He bent down, closing the distance between them, and it was like a flame had ignited across her skin.
His kiss was rough, commanding and intense in ways she had not imagined a kiss could ever be. And this was why she had chosen him. It was why he was the only one she could fathom being with.
She had known, somehow, that he would be the one who could make her forget, for just a moment, what she was. That he could be the one who made her exult in feeling delicate. Fragile.
His masculinity was so rough. So exciting. His kiss that of a conqueror. And how she reveled in it. Gloried in his touch. His hands, large and impossibly rough, held her face steady as he angled his head and took the kiss deeper, deeper still, his tongue invading her, making her tremble, making her knees weak.
When they parted, he stared down at her, those eyes shot through with intensity. “Is that quite enough chemistry for you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I think that is exactly the chemistry I was looking for.”
He stood back and shrugged his jacket off, tossing it carelessly toward the couch on the opposite side of the room, and then he began to unbutton his shirt.
Astrid’s mouth went dry as she watched him expose his body. His chest was hard looking and muscular, his abs clearly defined, with just the right amount of dark hair dusted over those sculpted ridges. And he had tattoos. Dark, swirling ink that covered his shoulder, part of his chest geometric patterns that she couldn’t quite divine the meaning of.
But the beauty of tonight was that it didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter what any of this meant to him. All that mattered was what it meant to her.
Freedom. Wildness.
A night with her very own barbarian.
The kind of man she would scarcely have been allowed to speak to if her handlers were present. Much less be alone in a room with.
Much less be on the verge of…
“Pictures don’t do you justice,” she said.
“I have a feeling that dress doesn’t do you justice,” he returned. “But I would like to see for a fact if this is true.”
With shaking fingers, she reached around behind her back and slowly lowered the zip to her dress, letting the soft white fabric release itself from her body and fall to the ground, a pale, silken pool at her feet.
She was still wearing those impossibly high heels and a pair of white panties. Nothing more. He seemed to approve.
Her breasts grew heavy, her nipples tight, her body overcome with restless anticipation.
Then he sprung into action, his muscles all languid grace and lethal precision as he took her in his arms and swept her up off the floor, carrying her over to that large bed and setting her down on the soft, black fur that was spread over the top.
He said something in Italian, something completely unfamiliar to her, something she assumed was something like a curse, or just something so filthy no one would have ever seen fit to teach her. Anticipation shimmered deep and low inside her.
He drew away from the bed, his eyes never leaving hers as he slowly undid his belt, drawing the zipper on his pants down as he divested himself of the rest of his clothing, leaving him completely naked in front of her.
Astrid was one for research. For being prepared when going to war. And as such, she had done a fair share of figuring out just what happened between men and women in bed, not simply in the perfunctory sense. She had done a bit of pictorial research.
But it had not prepared her for this. For him. All of him.
He was quite a bit more of a man than she had ever seen, and she had certainly never been in the same room as a naked man before. So deliciously, impossibly male.
“You are stunning,” he said, advancing on her, moving toward the bed. Her stomach twisted, fear and excitement twining together and becoming something so exciting, so unbearably potent she could scarcely breathe, let alone think. She licked her lips, grabbing hold of the waistband of her panties and pushing them down her legs as she arched her bottom up off the mattress, managing to pull them only down to her knees, then uncertain how to continue. He clearly took her uncertainty as an intentional coquettishness, and she was happy to have him think so. He growled, moving down to the bed and grabbing hold of the scrap of lace and wrenching it from her body. Leaving her bare and exposed to him.
His eyes roamed over her hungrily, and there was something so incredibly close and raw about the moment that Astrid had to close her eyes.
Because there was no title here to protect her. No designer clothing, no guards. Nothing between her and this man. This man who seemed to want her, though he’d had many other women.
Astrid was used to being special. Singular. But she had none of the hallmarks here that made her any of that. She was simply a woman. She was not a queen.
And yet.
And yet he still wanted her.
She began to push the shoes off she was wearing, and he moved over her, gripping her wrists and drawing them up over her head. “Leave them,” he said, pressing a kiss to her mouth before skimming his hand over her curves, his thumb moving over her nipple, an arrow of pleasure hitting her down low, making her feel aching and hollow. And then he kissed her neck, her collarbone, down to the plump curve of her breast, his tongue tracing a line around the tightened bud there.
She squirmed, arching against him, but he held her wrists fast with one hand while he continued his exploration with his mouth, and his other hand, which had moved to her hip, and was now drifting between her thighs.
Her hips bowed up off the bed when he touched her there. His fingers delving expertly into her silken folds, finding her embarrassingly wet for him.
But then, there was no point to embarrassment. Not now. Not with him.
This was her one night of freedom.
Her one night to claim a lifetime of greater freedom.
And she would not do it with a whimper. But with a roar.
She moved her hips sinuously, in time with his strokes, with the soft suction of his mouth on her breast.
He moved his thumb over the most sensitive place between her legs, stroking back and forth, and she cried out, caught off guard by the intensity of the sensations he created there. When her release broke over her, it was a shock, shattering her like a fragile glass pane, the sharp, jagged edges of her pleasure making her feel weak and vulnerable.
She clung to his shoulders, kissing his mouth, moving her hands over his finely muscled back as she did. She shifted beneath him, feeling the hard, heavy weight of his erection against her thigh. He began to move away.
“It’s okay,” she said in a rush, while she still had her wits about her.
And she knew what he would interpret it to mean.
She also knew, from much of her reading, that he was a very careful man when it came to these matters.
But she was counting on him being lost in the moment. She was counting on him being mortal.
This was her killing blow, so to speak, and she had to deliver it and not falter.
“Please,” she whispered against his mouth and she rolled her hips upward, so that his erection was settled against her wet heat, and she arched back and forth, the pleasure making her see stars.
She could see, mirrored in his own eyes, no small amount of that same pleasure. Of that desire. That need. He was no stronger than she, and she had been counting on that.
He growled, wrapping his hand around his arousal and positioning himself firmly against her before he slammed inside.
His savage kiss swallowed her cry of pain, and she knew that he misinterpreted it as pleasure as he lost control and pulled out slowly before thrusting back home again.
Astrid closed her eyes tight, willing herself to make it through this without crying, without embarrassing herself.
She simply hadn’t anticipated it would hurt quite so badly.
He was lost to it, and she needed him to be. She only wished that she could join him.
She held his shoulders, burying her face in his neck.
And then he seemed to grasp some kind of hold on himself, his movement slowing, his pelvis rocking forward, hitting her just so, and creating a spark inside her she had been convinced would be lost in this encounter.
But it wasn’t. Oh, it wasn’t.
Suddenly she felt it. Deep and pleasurable and building inside her. Overcoming the pain. Overcoming everything else. It was wonderful. Beautiful and real.
He kissed her as he held her hips and drove home, hard and relentless, and welcome now. It was like she couldn’t get enough. As if he couldn’t go deep enough, hard enough.
There was something mystical in this joining that she couldn’t figure out, but it had something to do with that instant spark that had happened when they laid eyes on each other.
Maybe even with the spark she felt when she had first seen his picture.
And when her release broke over her, it was different from before. Her body gripped his, drawing him deeper, pulsing around him as light exploded behind her eyes. And she didn’t feel shattered. She felt renewed. Reinforced as he broke apart, as he trembled in her arms, this large, muscular, experienced man, reduced to shaking as he spent himself inside her.
They lay there, not for long. Only a few moments. While Astrid tried to catch her breath.
And then she heard the sound of a clock strike two chimes.
“What time is it?”
“Two?” he asked, his words muffled, sleepy.
“I have to go,” she said. She scrambled out of bed in a panic, hunting around for clothing, getting dressed as quickly as possible while Mauro looked on.
“You’re not going to just leave.”
“I have to,” she said, desperation clawing at her.
“Give me your name.”
“Alice,” she said.
“Your full name. I wish to find you again.”
“Alice Steele,” she said, the lie tripping off her tongue.
“That’s wrong,” he said.
“No,” she said, panic like a wild thing inside her. “It’s on the invitation.”
“That isn’t your name,” he said, his dark eyes seeing straight into her.
She straightened and looked at him for one last, lingering moment, before she fled. She made her way down the halls, thankful that he was naked, and therefore wouldn’t be able to move as quickly as she.
By the time she made it out to the main part of the club, Mauro was right behind her. She kept on running, one of her shoes flying off as she did, as she made an uneven escape down the stairs and tumbled straight into the limo that Latika was driving.
“Go,” she said.
“Were you successful?”
She looked back at the doorway and saw him standing there, holding her shoe in his hand.
“Just go,” she said, panic and emotion rising up in her throat.
And Queen Astrid escaped into the night, without her virginity, but very hopefully, carrying her heir.
CHAPTER THREE
“FORGIVE ME FOR saying so, sir, but you do not seem yourself.”
Mauro Bianchi, dissolute playboy and renowned billionaire, looked over at his assistant Carlo, and treated him to a fearsome scowl. “You are not forgiven.”
Not because his assistant was not wrong in his observation. No. Mauro was not himself, and had not been for the past three months. He could not pretend he didn’t know why. He did.
He was held utterly captive by memories of a bewitching redhead, and a stolen hour in his private suite of rooms.
By the way she had run from him, leaving him holding her shoe.
And by the discovery he’d made when he had gone back to his bedroom.
The blood left on the sheets.
It was entirely possible the woman had started her period, he supposed.
Also… Also a possibility that she had been a virgin. Though he could not fathom a virgin speaking as boldly as she had.
A virgin going back to a man’s room for sex, and only sex.
And she had said there was someone waiting for her at home.
He was captivated by the mystery of her, by the erotic memory of her, and nothing he did allowed him to shake it.
Apparently his staff was beginning to notice.
Certainly, the paparazzi had.
Wondering why he’d yet to turn up anywhere with a new woman on his arm, and there was endless speculation about that.
Some even suggesting that he might be in a real relationship, rather than just engaging in one of his usual transient sexual dalliances.
Of course, the press could not be more wrong.
His bed was cold and empty. And Mauro Bianchi could not remember a time in his life when that had been true before.
As soon as he reached sexual maturity, he’d not been alone unless by his own choosing. As a homeless boy, he’d found quite handily that if he were to seduce a woman who did have a bed, he could get not only sex but a nice place to stay.
He had never been shy about using his body. It was one of his many tools. Something that could bring him profit and pleasure, and why not?
He behaved thus even still.
But since his encounter with Alice. Alice Steele, who he knew was not real. He had searched high and low for women bearing that name who resembled her even slightly. Women who resided in England, and then indeed anywhere, and none fit her description.
As he suspected, her name was not real.
She was like a ghost. And the only thing he had to assure himself that she had been real at all was the shoe.
The shoe that sat on his nightstand. Not the act of a man who was in his right mind. Not at all. But knowing that did not entice him to change it.
He didn’t feel in the mood to be in his right mind. That was the problem.
He was in the mood for her. Hungry for her.
He’d told himself he’d never be hungry again. Never want without having.
She’d forced him into that position and it made him feel…
Powerless.
Which was a foolish thing. He was a man at the top of the world. At the top of his field. She was… She was nothing. Just a woman in a club. He was a man who’d risen from the slums of Italy in defiance of his father, a man who had been rich and titled and had wanted nothing to do with his son.
On the far wall, between the windows that overlooked a view of Rome below, news was playing on the TV. He always had news on. It was imperative that he keep up with world events, and he was well able to absorb information without giving it his full attention. His ability to multitask another part of his storied rise to success. His aptitude for numbers, and investments, and indeed for picking places that would become the hottest locations in terms of real estate and trends, had made him incredibly wealthy.
That required him to work constantly, and to pay attention to a great many details at once.
Of course, he could pay people to do much of the day-to-day things now, but still, if he didn’t have a lot of input he was bored easily.
Without a female in his bed for the past three months he was growing intensely bored and incredibly bad tempered.
But no one appealed to him. None at all. None save…
Suddenly, a flash of red hair caught his attention and he gave his full focus to the TV, where a woman was sitting in a private-looking room, pale legs crossed at the ankles, hands folded in her lap. She was dressed incredibly demurely. Her red hair was pinned into an elegant bun, her butter-yellow skirt falling below her knees, her high heels sensible and sedate.
She looked so very like the woman—his woman—from three months ago, and yet like a different creature entirely.
She was regal in her posture, her every movement elegant, each slight turn of her head intentional.
“Sir,” Carlo said.
“Shut up,” Mauro said, grabbing the remote and turning the TV up.
She was speaking, but it was in a different language, something like Norwegian, but slightly different, and he didn’t speak it either way. They were not putting up subtitles on the screen, but the news commentators were going over the top in his native Italian.
“Queen Astrid von Bjornland issued a statement today to her people, that she is about to embark on an unusual path for a woman in her position. The queen is pregnant, it seems, and is determined to raise the child alone. Invoking an old rule native to the country, the queen is able to claim herself as the sole parent of the heir to the throne.”
The camera panned away from the woman, shrinking the video down to a small square, where two news anchors were sitting at a desk now, a man and a woman.
“And only women can do this?” the man asked, looking somewhat incredulous.
“Yes.” The female news anchor nodded gravely. “An old, protective law that ensured a queen would not be bound to one of the country’s invaders, should she be forced against her will.”
Against her will? She had…
That lying bitch.
She was pregnant with his child.
More than that, she was denying him his right as a father.
It took him back in an instant. To what it had been like to be a boy. Knowing his father was there in the city, an omnipresent being in his mind who had been potentially around any corner. Who had, to him, been possibly any well-dressed man walking by.
He’d known his father was a rich man. A powerful man.
A man who didn’t want him.
And he had done his best to be careful—with every woman except this one—but he’d always known that with sex there was a chance birth control would fail. And he’d always known that should that ever happen he would not be like the man who’d fathered him.
He would never let a child of his wonder like that. Would never leave him abandoned, unanchored to what he was.
Would never deny him anything he had.
Yes, Astrid von Bjornland had money, had a title. But their child was more than her. That child deserved all, not half.
And yet there she was. Claiming his child as hers and solely hers, when both of them knew he was well involved.
He remembered the way she had looked up at him, the way she had trembled just before he’d entered her body.
“It’s fine,” she had whispered.
It had bloody well not been fine. He hadn’t realized he’d stood up until he looked over and saw Carlo’s shocked expression.
“Sir?”
“Ready my plane,” Mauro said, his tone hard. “I’m leaving.”
“Where are you going?”
“Bjornland. I hear it’s lovely in summer, and a bit harsh in winter. However, I hear their queen is a lying snake all year round. And that is something that needs addressing.”
“Mr. Bianchi…”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to make an international incident. Provided she falls in line.”
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