The Prince's Captive Virgin Page 10

“Please,” she said, the word a whisper. “Please Adam. I want you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SHE KNEW EXACTLY what she was asking for. But she was tired of pretending it wasn’t what she wanted. She had been determined to make it his responsibility. And then, when he had done all those things to her that had made her shake and shiver, that had affected a small earthquake inside her body, she had run away.

  Had avoided him as diligently as she possibly could. As if she could wait him out. Until the timer was up on her sentence.

  But, she was done with that. Done with it completely. Tonight, she was cocooned in fantasy, at a ball in a beautiful palace with the only prince who would ever rule over her heart. Yes, in the end she would have to sort everything out with Tony, and she was probably being a bad person, giving herself to another man when she had avoided doing that with the man she’d been dating for months.

  But for some reason, in Adam’s arms everything seemed clear. Desire, need and that hungry thing inside her that might be a beast.

  She was so tired of pushing it all down. So tired of pretending to feel nothing, of forcing herself to want nothing. She had clung to that stability she’d been given by her father, to every easy, responsible thing that had come her way, because she had been certain it would be the key to protecting herself from further injury. The key to protecting herself from hurting other people. And here she was, considering doing something that would certainly hurt at least one person.

  That made her stomach seize up tight. But, it was something she would have to deal with later. If she had a phone on her, she would deal with it now, but she had been prevented from making any contact with the outside world, so she couldn’t. And anyway, it was probably for the best. That she was cut off from all that safety, from that familiarity.

  In many ways, being taken captive by Adam had led to a strange kind of freedom. She wasn’t beholden to anyone. Didn’t have to be the perfect daughter, didn’t have to be an example of anything. She was cut off completely from all her responsibility, from everyone who knew her. Everyone who knew her as Belle Chamberlain, the very levelheaded, bookish girl who led with her head and never her heart. And certainly never the needs of her body.

  None of those people were here to judge her. None of those people were here for her to please or impress. And without that...

  She wanted him. And she would have him.

  “Adam,” she said, his name a plea on her lips. “When do we get to leave the party?”

  He growled, drawing her up against him, his arm like a steel band around her waist. “Now,” he said, that voice shot through with iron just like the rest of him.

  She found him leading her off the dance floor, out of the ballroom. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I assume that Felipe readied the room I normally stay in when I come to visit.”

  “Oh. Did you often stay here? With—”

  “No,” he said quickly. “We never stayed here together. This is not about her. This is not about recapturing some kind of memory, or stepping into the past. I can promise you that. My marriage is entirely separate from this. I swear to you.”

  A wave of relief washed over her. She didn’t know why it mattered. It shouldn’t. This wasn’t about emotion; it wasn’t about love. Yes, Adam had tapped into something inside of her, had captured a part of her that no one else ever had before. Awakened it. But, she didn’t need to compete with his wife. Adam had loved his wife; she could see it in that expression of pure happiness on his face in the photograph in his room. He’d had a future set before him, a hope and joy that had been ripped from him. She could never presume to understand it. Would never ask that he relinquish any kind of hold on it.

  She didn’t want him to push his wife out of his heart. She simply wanted a space with him for now. That was all.

  She knew that people were looking at them, that guests and staff members alike were regarding them with curiosity as they made their hasty exit.

  Adam paused for a moment, reaching into his pocket as his phone buzzed. “A text from Felipe, who has indeed informed me that my room is prepared. And confirmed the location. Clearly, he was paying attention.”

  “A good friend to have,” she said, her voice sounding thin even to her own ears.

  She wondered if she should tell him now. About her inexperience. But, she didn’t want to do anything to compromise what had grown between them. And that meant changing any perception he might have of her. It was too late. They could have a postmortem after, because she doubted she would be able to affect the role of experienced woman with any kind of skill. She would wait until after.

  He was so large and sure beside her, and she gloried in that strength as he took the lead, sweeping them both through the halls effortlessly. His confidence, his certainty, filled her with her own.

  There was something about his strength that made her eminently conscious of how delicate she was, and yet made her feel all the stronger for it. It was some kind of magic. That she could feel small, fragile and yet also as though she held this large, impossible, impenetrable man in the palm of her hand. That she had the power to affect him. That she had power in this situation at all.

  If it was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up from it. If it was fantasy, she was in no hurry to get back to reality.

  Finally, they arrived at a set of ornate red doors that she knew led to the bedchamber. Her heart slammed up, seeming to hit her at the base of her throat, making it impossible to breathe.

  Adam must have noticed the sudden fit of nerves. Because he reached out, smoothing her lower lip with his thumb. “You have nothing to fear from me. I want... I want this,” he said, his voice growing frayed. Raw. “I was going to give you some kind of speech. Beautiful words. Something seductive, I suppose. But I am out of practice. And all I can offer you is honesty. I want to lose myself in you. I have spent years wandering through the darkness, losing myself there. And you...you are light to me, Belle. I want to lose myself in that, if only for a little while. I know that it can’t be more than a night. I know that after this I must let you go, as I have promised. But, just for a while. I want to be lost in something beautiful. And you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I may have seen beauty before my accident, before my loss, but I didn’t see it the way that I do now. It could never have meant as much to me then. After so many years of ugliness, so many years of solitude. So many years of darkness. You cannot know what it means to have you touch me.” He cupped her cheek, his hand large, rough, his expression earnest. “I don’t know how many women I’ve been with. I never bothered to count. For years, there was only my wife, but before that... I was a prince, I was young and handsome and powerful and I made the most of that. It doesn’t matter. Because a single touch from you, your fingertips on my face as it is now erases all of that. It is so much heavier—it has so much more value. Now, as the man I am today, it is without price. I am not a man given to speeches. I’m not a man given to emotion. But I am full with both now. And I want you to know that. You are not my prisoner. I have grown to suspect that I might be yours.”

  Those words washed over her, threw her, warming her, making her feel a flood of that earlier certainty, that earlier strength. Yes, this was the man she wanted. This was the moment. Because it meant everything. Because it wasn’t simply about being carried away on a tide of passion. It was a decision, a need, given in to with the full cost clear to her.

  Because it would rattle the fabric of the life she had left behind, because it would change the situation Adam had been living in for the past three years. Because both of them would leave it marked as indelibly as Adam had been by his accident.

  That was what she wanted. That was what she craved. To have this chance to affect someone’s life so profoundly. To affect her own so deeply.

  When she had been removed from her mother’s care, she didn’t think the woman had lost a moment of sleep over it. In fact, she had likely thrown a party. She had managed
to make no change in the life of her own mother, and that wounded her deeper and more profoundly than she had ever realized before this moment.

  But Adam would remember her. He would think of her. No matter who came after her, she would always be the first woman to touch him after he had been so changed. After he had been scarred. She would always be the first woman he had chosen.

  Dear God, how she craved this. How she hungered for being chosen.

  So, she stretched up on her toes and kissed him, lost herself in him, in this. Poured out everything inside her that he seemed to think was light, and committed herself to giving her all. To giving all of herself.

  When they parted, they were both breathing heavily, her heart fluttering in her chest like a bird trapped in a cage. “Please,” she said, not caring if she was begging. “I know that you want whatever you see in me, the light, the beauty. But I want everything inside of you.” She put her hand flat on his chest, felt his heartbeat rage beneath her palm. “I don’t need you to change. I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to stop being a beast. I want you to show me how to be one too.”

  “I can do that.” He pushed open the doors, drawing her into his arms and propelling them both into the room. Then he closed the door firmly behind them, leaving them shrouded in darkness, shrouded in privacy. She thought for a moment that he might leave the lights extinguished. But he did not. Instead, he flicked the switch, bathing them in light. Leaving no chance to hide from this moment. From what they felt. From what they were about to do.

  It made it all the more terrifying, certainly, but it also made it feel more real. More stark. She wouldn’t be able to block it out in the misty haze of darkness, and she found herself grateful for it.

  Because if this was her big, loud moment, she should allow nothing to temper it. Nothing at all.

  “I want... I want to see you,” she said, the words coming out with a bit more of a stutter than she would have liked. But, she was a virgin, after all, and the confidence that she was clinging to was tenuous at best.

  A strange expression crossed his face. “I had not thought anyone ever would again. Not as I am now.”

  He undid the knot that held his bow tie to his throat, then cast the strip of black fabric onto the floor. He began to undo the buttons of his shirt, exposing a glorious wedge of tanned, toned chest as he did.

  She was held captive by him, by that sheer masculine beauty.

  She saw shirtless men at the beach all the time, and given that it was Southern California, a lot of them had that perfect gym-sculpted look. But, most of them were waxed within an inch of their lives, leaving behind none of the glorious, masculine chest hair that graced Adam’s body.

  As he let his shirt fall to the ground with his tie, revealing a sculpted, toned body that spoke of his physical strength, she found herself mourning that current trend of minimizing a man’s testosterone.

  She loved it. She loved how feral it was. How untamed. But then, given the fact that she loved that this man was a beast, it didn’t surprise her that she felt that way.

  “The rest,” she said, her throat growing tight.

  He kept his dark eyes fixed on hers as he reached down, working the belt free, then undoing the closure on his pants, as well. He pushed the pants and underwear down in one motion, leaving him gloriously naked for her appraisal.

  She had never seen a naked, aroused man in the flesh, and nothing had prepared her for the sight of Prince Adam Katsaros in all his glory.

  Truly, she hadn’t known men could be quite so large. Or quite so hard. And that wasn’t just the most intimate part of him, but all of him. He looked as though he were fashioned from the rock, life breathed into him by some kind of mythical creature. And since she felt as though she were lost in a fairy tale, that didn’t seem fanciful at all.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice surprisingly gentle given the brutally masculine sight he affected before her.

  “You’re just...beautiful seems an insipid word,” she said. “And nothing about you is insipid. But you take my breath away—that much I know.”

  “I’m not sure I’m worthy of such compliments. However, I am happy as long as you are happy. And as long as I can entice you to reveal your beauty to me.”

  She reached behind her back clumsily, her fingers shaking as she felt for the zipper on her dress. She wanted to do this. For him. Wanted to be the first woman that he saw naked after all these years. But, she had a hard time, the tiny zipper catching itself on the folds of fabric and sequins. “I’m nervous,” she said.

  A smile curved his lips, lips she could never think of as ruined again. And his smile...she could never think of it as compromise. It was his. And she could see it now, could easily read it, regardless of whether or not anyone else would ever be able to recognize it in quite the same way she did.

  “Let me,” he said, that gentle tone combined with the firm touch of his hands at her hips putting her instantly at ease.

  He dealt with her zipper deftly, her dress falling loose at her waist, then to the floor, a golden pool around her feet.

  She was left in nothing more than a pair of whisper-thin underwear. Her dress didn’t require a bra, so her breasts were bare to him.

  He had already touched her there, had already put his hands on her intimately, and she found she wasn’t embarrassed in the least.

  Especially not when he clenched his jaw tight, the obvious restraint it was taking for him to hold himself back speaking to how deeply she affected him.

  She liked that. Gloried in the fact that she tested him. It did make her wonder about Tony. No, she would not have liked him to pressure her, but that was something separate entirely. He didn’t look at her like this. Didn’t look at her with all this naked need, with this barely repressed desire.

  Maybe if he had, she would have wanted him.

  Except, she knew that wasn’t true. Knew that part of herself had always been waiting for Adam. Even before she had known who he was.

  He surprised her by dropping to his knees, pressing a kiss to the tender skin beneath her belly button before grabbing hold of her panties and dragging them down her thighs. He was eye level with the most intimate part of her then, and that made her feel exposed. Naked, when before she hadn’t felt that way.

  “Adam—” Her words were cut off as he leaned forward, pressing his face to her inner thigh and inhaling deeply, the rough, sandpaper quality of his evening stubble on the fragile skin there sending a shiver of pleasure up her spine.

  Then he turned to her, tasting her deeply right where she ached for him most. She stiffened, and arched back, and his hand clamped down hard on her lower back before sliding down to cup her rear, drawing her back forward, holding her to his mouth as he subjected her to a sensual assault that far surpassed anything she had imagined possible.

  He wasn’t Prince Charming. Wasn’t the soft, smooth fantasy man she had always imagined she might end up with. But then, she imagined Prince Charming would never think of doing something quite like this.

  The intensity of his desire was evident with each pass of his tongue, and when he brought his hands in—stroking her, teasing her—she lost her mind completely. Lost the ability to analyze anything that was happening. She simply gave herself up to sensation. To him.

  To passion. She didn’t feel so afraid of it now, not when it had consumed her so beautifully, not when he consumed her so beautifully.

  Her orgasm washed over her like a wave, different from that time in the library, where it had felt so fraught and fractured. This time, it was warm and comforting, rolling through her with building intensity, going on and on and leaving her gasping for air.

  He rose up slowly, kissing her stomach, her rib cage just beneath her breast and then her lips. He kept one palm cupping her butt, the hold possessive, a demonstration of strength that made her knees weak. He pulled her naked body up against his, let her feel that hot, hard length that clearly proved his desire for her.

  He
pushed his fingers through her hair, pulling her hard into the kiss. She felt wrapped in him, consumed by him, his scent, his heat, the strength and hardness of his body, and when he walked them both to the bed she didn’t feel afraid. She didn’t feel nervous; she didn’t feel unsure. This was Adam, and she wanted him. Whatever that might mean, whether it might hurt, or whether it might leave her heart feeling torn after...it didn’t matter. At least, it didn’t outweigh the overwhelming need she felt to be joined to him in this way.

  Adam lowered her slowly onto the plush mattress, gripping her thigh, moving his hand down behind her knee, teasing the sensitive skin there as he lifted her leg slowly, draping it over his lower back, moving himself into position between her spread legs.

  He flexed his hips forward, sliding that thick arousal through her slick folds, making her gasp, building her arousal back up, impossibly, perfectly, to the heights it was just before her last climax.

  She reached up, grabbing his face, holding him steady, looking in his eyes as she rocked her hips against him, in time with his movements, making them both gasp. He moved to the side, and she tried to stop him, bereft as the cold air washed over her when he removed himself.

  “What?”

  “If I know Felipe...” He opened up a drawer on a nightstand next to the bed and produced a box. “Yes,” he said, “I do.”

  They were condoms. He opened them, taking out the plastic packet and tearing it quickly before rolling the protection over his length. She watched, fascinated, because she had never seen it done before, because she was fascinated by everything about him. By the strength in his hand as he gripped his own shaft and smoothed the latex over himself.

  Then he was right back where he had been only a moment ago, positioned at the entrance to her body, one hand gripping her thigh, another pressed into the mattress by her face. He lifted her gently, the blunt head of his arousal pressing more firmly against her as he did.

  A slow, intense stinging sensation began to build, burn as he moved deeper inside her, joining their bodies together, filling her, stretching her. She gritted her teeth, screwed her eyes shut tight, bringing her hands back above her head and balling them into fists, her nails digging into her palms as she did her best not to show him her distress.