The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection. Кейт Хьюит
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up there.
“Naturally. You need perspective for that. And you can’t get perspective till you’ve lived somewhere else. Experienced somewhere different.”
Like she was changing his perspective on women. Or perhaps the women he’d known before made him appreciate Lexie.
“Did you ever run away?”
“A couple of times. It was pretty difficult. The security staff kept the challenge interesting. You?”
“A few times. I used to hide in the woods. You know, the ones—”
“Yeah. I know.” Those same woods he’d found her in. “My specialty was hiding within the palace.”
“Really?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“You just seem a little…conspicuous.”
“Maybe not so conspicuous when I was ten. And parts of this palace are hundreds of years old. There are hiding places galore. Or just places to avoid notice. There’s a room at the top of the south turret with views forever, and even to this day it’s almost never used.” He patted a gleaming suit of armour at the top of the staircase. “The armour was too hard to get into without help. And even if you managed it, you were stuck in it.”
“But you tried?”
“Makes an unbelievable racket when you fall over.”
Lexie laughed, but Rafe finally placed the other sound he’d been hearing coming from the gallery and growing louder. He muttered a curse.
“What?”
“Schoolchildren. Blasted anniversary. It was in this morning’s briefing, but I’d forgotten. Come on.” He grabbed her hand, headed along the hallway, past the stern gazes of the portraits hanging on the walls.
Lexie was laughing still. “I didn’t know children scared you so much.”
“It’s not just the children, it’s their cameras.” His gaze dipped to her breasts. “I don’t think this is the look the royal brand needs right now.” And no one else needed to know her bra was pale blue. With white dots.
Her gaze followed his and her eyes widened. “Oh, help. I hadn’t realized.” Her giggles grew louder.
Duke still at their side, they ran the last few steps to the door he wanted. Rafe reached for the handle just as he heard a high-pitched shout of “Look!” and pulled her into the room, shutting the door behind them. Lexie leaned back against the door, her slender frame shaking with laughter.
Rafe was laughing, too, as his hands slid up, gripping her arms. “Shh.” They were making too much noise.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, her mirth brimming over.
His hands reached her shoulders, curved round them. She had no idea what she did to him. How hard he fought her.
“I’m trying.” She laughed harder, her eyes dancing. “Really I am.”
And Rafe caved in. He stepped closer and covered those laughing lips with his and absorbed her delight as he drank in the taste of her.
Lexie stilled beneath him. A strange, hesitant pause, and then she was kissing him back, swept along with him. Rafe tasted the joy of her. His hands cupped her jaw, fingers sliding into her damp hair, as his tongue learned the sweet, hot ecstasy of her mouth. He felt her growing hunger. A hunger the echo of his own. Felt the heat and fire that was pure Lexie.
It had happened like this at the masquerade ball. The kiss gathering a life of its own, turning heat to glowing embers to blistering flames in an instant.
He’d known he desired her, but he’d denied it. What he hadn’t known enough to even refute was the fathomless depth of that desire. There was no denying it now.
The final shreds of rational thought deserted him as the damp breasts that had tormented him for the last and longest twenty minutes of his life were finally pressed against his chest. The supple length of her molded and moved against him.
He closed his eyes, lost in intoxicating sensation.
Hunger and need swamped him as he drowned in the feel of her. Never had anyone’s mouth, anyone’s body fit so perfectly against his. Never had any woman enflamed his desire as she did. His hunger had him craving. He could kiss her forever and ever and still want to go on tasting and learning her sweet perfection.
His woman. He wanted her. And no one else.
He slid his thigh between hers, felt the exquisite and needy pressure of her as she bore down on him. Rocked, just a little. He slipped his hand beneath her blouse. The cold skin of his palm touched the damp heated curve of her waist. She gasped and froze.
The hands that had been gripping his shoulders suddenly flattened and pushed.
Too late, Rafe remembered with sickening clarity precisely who he was with.
He pulled back, breathing hard. He swallowed, and for once was lost for words. What was he supposed to say? This kiss, unlike their others, had been no accident.
There had been no masks. He’d known precisely who she was as he lowered his mouth to hers.
There had been no thoughts of a peck on the cheek.
He’d aimed for her lips.
Officially, only to silence her laughter. But un officially…that had been an excuse. He’d wanted her kiss. And the instant his lips had touched hers he’d wanted everything from her. All of her.
His brother’s woman.
Damn.
Her blouse had slipped from one shoulder, and through his shock he saw that the dots were in fact tiny white daisies. So innocent. A woman who wanted a fairy tale. Which made him the evil villain. He turned away from the distress in her eyes, and away from the reproach in Duke’s. And realized he’d led her to a bedroom. That part at least had been unintentional.
He strode past the bed to look out the window, giving himself time to gather his thoughts, giving Lexie time to right her blouse and gather her words for the verbal lashing he deserved.
The silence stretched on. Outside, a team of gardeners shoveled mulch around the rose garden. “Lexie, that shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have done that.
I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” Her quiet voice carried to him. Not angry as she should have been, but distressed. He turned in time to see her striding through the doorway, her blouse hanging loose and untucked at one side.
“Lexie.”
She didn’t turn, didn’t so much as pause or even slow.
Eight
Lexie’s hat did little to shade her from the sun beating down on the San Philippe anniversary parade. The cheering, flag-waving crowd, most dressed in the national colors, many in traditional costume, lined both sides of the street.
Feeling like the ultimate fraud, she made her way carefully along the open-topped, double-decker bus that crawled at a snail’s pace, bringing up the rear of the parade. The bus carried the royal family and senior dignitaries and a few other guests. But not her mother, who had left early this morning after Lexie’s brief conversation with her.
She’d sat beside Adam at the front of the bus for a while, but there was something she had to do, and in public seemed like the safest place.
Her gaze was on the dark head of her quarry as she slid into the empty seat beside Rafe. She hadn’t seen or spoken to him since that kiss. He didn’t move, though he had to know someone was there. And she figured the very fact that he didn’t turn around meant he knew it was her. He just kept waving at an adoring public. Maybe it would be easier to say what she had to if he