A Christmas Vow of Seduction Read online

  She barely had a chance to register the hot, angry glitter in his dark eyes before he closed the distance between them, his mouth crashing down onto hers.

  The force of him pushing her back against the wall shifted her hand, her palm sliding over his hardness before coming to rest on his flat stomach, crushed between their bodies as he angled his head and slipped his tongue between her lips.

  He proved then what he’d said before. He had the power. She could do nothing, not in this moment. Nothing but simply surrender to the heat coursing through her, to the electrical current crackling over her skin with a kind of intensity she’d never even imagined existed.

  His hands were firm and sure on her hips, his body pinning her to the wall as he sought restitution for her attempt at claiming control.

  He shifted, grabbing hold of her wrists, freeing her trapped hands for just a moment before lifting them, pinning them back against the wall and pressing his body more completely against hers. “You want a fight?” He growled the words against her mouth. “I can give you a fight, Princess. We don’t have to do this the easy way.” He angled his head, parting his lips from hers, kissing her neck. She shivered, fear and arousal warring for pride of place inside her. “But if you want to test me, you have to be prepared for the results. I do not know what manner of man you have been exposed to in the past, but I am not one that can be easily manipulated.”

  He rocked his hips against hers, showing her full evidence of the effect she was having on his body. She should be angry, disgusted. Instead, she felt all the more powerful. She hadn’t hurt him, but she had succeeded in making him react. She not only enraged him; she turned him on. She had spent so much of her life being ignored that eliciting such a powerful response from such a man gratified her in ways she never could have anticipated.

  She didn’t know a kiss could be so many different things. That it could serve so many purposes. That it could make her feel hot, cold, afraid, enraptured. But it did. It was everything, and nothing she should ever have allowed to happen between them.

  But it had happened. And it was too late to stop it. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to stop it.

  Her heart was thundering so hard she was afraid it might crack through her chest, before attempting to beat straight through his.

  She was furious. With him, with this. She wanted to punish him. Wanted to make him pay. For making her feel helpless. Even when she had been captive in the palace in Tirimia, she thought there was hope. But here, she wasn’t kept in bondage and chains, wasn’t made to stay put with threats. Here, she was simply stripped of options. Shown how small she was in the vast context of the palace, of a country she didn’t know. She couldn’t go back to her own country, and Andres knew that. Couldn’t return to the only home she knew for fear of the safety of her protectors.

  He had made her famous now. Putting a ring on her finger and parading her in front of all those people. Had stolen her anonymity. And beyond that, she had no money, no clothes beyond the far too formal princess wardrobe that had been procured for her upon arrival in Petras.

  She wanted him to understand that helplessness. To feel it too.

  If he was going to take her choices from her, then she would make certain he felt the weight of that. She would be a millstone around his neck. His punishment.

  She flexed her hips against his, pushing back, changing the angle of her head and leaning in, claiming his mouth with her own before biting his lower lip. He growled, pressing her hands more firmly against the wall, deepening the kiss, consuming her as if she were the dessert they were missing in the ballroom.

  She had spent very little time imagining what it would be like to be kissed. She had craved kind smiles and closeness more than anything physical. But she had thought about it a small amount. And when she had, it had been gauzy. Soft. She had imagined slow, gentle touching. Something sweet and slow-building. She had expected to feel a kiss only on her lips.

  She had not expected this explosion. Had not expected a knot of emotion and need that she couldn’t even begin to untangle. Had not expected to feel the kiss in every part of herself, over her skin, beneath it, in the deepest, most secret parts of herself.

  But he was too protected. And this was nothing new for him. He was a self-confessed playboy who practiced no decency or restraint; he had told her himself. He was shielded by that. By his experience. By his perfectly tailored suit that kept him separate from her.

  Without thinking, she reached out, tearing at his tie, loosening the knot. His mouth was still fused to hers, his tongue sliding in deep, tasting her, tormenting her. She couldn’t separate out her feelings anymore. Couldn’t work out what was arousal, what was rage. It had all grown into a ball of intensity in her chest that was threatening to burst from her if she didn’t do something. If she didn’t find a release for it.

  She was being driven by something else entirely now. There were no thoughts. There was no strategy. She gripped the sides of his shirt, tugging it open, buttons popping off and scattering onto the floor. She put her hand on his chest, gratified when he pulled away, air hissing through his teeth. Yes, she was getting to him. She had affected him. She had broken through the wall. They were in a fight. A fight for control. And beneath that, a fight for something else entirely.

  Rough hair covered hot skin, the sensation beneath her fingertips foreign, enticing. Beneath that, he was hard. She looked down, admiring the definition of his muscles. He was a man. So very different from her. She had spent a great deal of her life around men, but she had never experienced a man on this level. Had never truly appreciated what it meant that men were different from women. She appreciated it now.

  He released his hold on her, cupping her chin, holding her face steady, keeping his eyes on hers as he reached between them, his hand on his belt buckle. He started to work the fine leather through the silver clasp, before undoing the button on his pants. All the while watching her face. She knew he was checking to see if she was frightened. To see if she wanted him to stop. She didn’t know if she did. She had a vague idea of what they were headed toward. Of what was coming next. Nothing about it frightened her. Nothing about it made her want to say no.

  He let go of her chin, putting both hands on her hips, slowly gathering her skirt, drawing it upward, exposing her legs. He moved one hand between her thighs, his touch a sharp, unexpected shock. His fingertips slipped slowly beneath the edge of her underwear, a feeling of white-hot pleasure streaking through her as he rubbed the bundle of nerves there. She was slick, and he used it to great effect, creating a ripple of pleasure that threatened to overtake her.

  This wasn’t a struggle anymore. This was a surrender.

  She couldn’t even regret that. Couldn’t even spare a moment to be angry.

  He kept his eyes on hers as he touched her, as he stole her breath and pushed her closer toward heights she hadn’t known existed. He was touching her. He saw her. In that moment, they weren’t warring. They were connected.

  She didn’t feel afraid that she was so close to another person. That she felt as if she needed him. As if he mattered.

  He tugged her panties to the side, pressing his pelvis against hers, the heat of his bare arousal shocking, exhilarating.

  He flexed his hips, the blunt head of him pushing up against the slick entrance to her body. She wondered, just for a moment if she should fear this. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She wanted him closer. Wanted to capture this one moment of fighting on the same side as him. Of pursuing the same goal. Of being connected to another person in a way she had never been.

  This moment of not being alone.

  He thrust upward, a sharp, shocking pain lancing her as he did. A shocked cry escaped her lips, swallowed up by his harsh groan. He buried his face in her neck, withdrew slightly from her body before pushing in deep again. She gasped, biting her lower lip, squeezing her eyes shut tight, trying to keep tears from falling as the tearing sensation receded.

  He wrapped one arm around
her waist, holding her steady as he began to move inside her. The pain faded into the background, replaced by a strange feeling of being claimed, invaded. Filled. But with that was a sense of security, of being a part of another person in the way she never had been before.

  He filled her, and as he did, he filled that void in her chest that had been there since she was a girl, taken from the only home she’d ever known. Alone in the world.

  She wasn’t alone now.

  He found his rhythm, and as he did, she found hers. Not fighting against him, but moving with him. Not the same as he did, but to complement. Their differences fit here. Her softness working with his hardness. Her body yielding as his advanced. And she learned quickly that surrendering here gave her power that she’d never imagined she possessed.

  He kissed her, rocking hard against her body. She barely had time to grab hold of his shoulders before she was sent straight over the edge into oblivion. Left spent, shaking and dependent on him to keep her from sliding onto the floor.

  Wave after wave of sensation she was unprepared for. She had no defenses against it, because she’d never seen it coming.

  She’d had no idea it would be like this. None at all.

  As he growled out his own release, his body pinning hers harder to the wall, she wrapped her arm around his head, holding him steady, her fingers laced through his hair. He stayed there for a moment, breathing hard before wrenching himself away from her. Leaving her cold, empty.

  And no less connected to him.

  That should have eased, shouldn’t it? Now that he wasn’t inside her, shouldn’t she feel the change?

  She looked up into his eyes, dark, blank. And she knew that for him it was over. She knew that no part of her lingered inside him, as he did her.

  And then, as if to prove her suspicion, he turned on his heel and walked away, leaving her standing there against the wall shivering and changed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ANDRES CALLED HIMSELF ten kinds of fool on his way back to his chamber. He couldn’t go back into the luncheon, not after that. Anyway, Zara had destroyed his shirt.

  He had left her there, similarly destroyed. Altered.

  But he didn’t fix things, he only broke them further, so there had been no point in him staying. He hadn’t been able to.

  He hated isolation. Hated it. But it was the only way he could regain control after something like that. A fact driven into him from childhood.

  It was why his mother had always locked him in his room after an outburst. Why he was condemned to staying in the palace when the royal family went out.

  Now he was doing the same to himself. Because he had to do something, anything, to calm the raging monster inside him that had claimed control of his actions.

  An image flashed through his mind, her hands wrapped around the fabric, tugging hard, sending the buttons onto the marble floor. The look in her eyes, dark, determined. As with all things she had been uncivilized, untutored, and wholly authentic. For a man who had no idea what his own personal authenticity might look like, it was alarming.

  But that wasn’t what disturbed him now. Wasn’t what caused rage to roar through his veins like a ravening beast.

  He had lost control.

  Civilizing Zara was one thing. It was himself...that was where he failed. He was cracking apart inside. The years spent forming himself into the man he was seemingly washed away on the tide of lust Zara had inspired in him.

  The woman was new. The failure was not.

  His best effort had never been good enough. When he was a boy he had been the one at the formally set table dropping silverware, fidgeting in his seat. Crawling underneath the table to pick up a crouton he had dropped. And when the thought to get up struck him, he had never been able to control the impulse. Sometimes he would think of something to say, and it would just spill out of his mouth. His father would simply glare at him, his eyes ice. Kairos would pretend it wasn’t happening.

  His mother would cry. As though he had done it to her personally. As though he had done it to hurt her.

  She had felt everything so deeply. He would make a loud sound and the poor woman would tremble. He wondered at that now, though he’d never understood it then.

  Finally, they had stopped allowing him to attend events. The solitude had been frustrating, but better than being set up to fail. Every luncheon, every church service, ever concert...it all seemed designed to doom him.

  Then the last Christmas banquet had come. The last one his mother had been at.

  He had destroyed that too.

  He had tried, and it hadn’t been good enough. He had made her cry one too many times. And he was certain that his father, that Kairos imagined it had been like every other time before. But Andres had felt it. When his mother had wiped that final tear off her cheek, he knew that it would be the last year she ever cried for him.

  Of course, in order for him to stop making her cry, she couldn’t see him anymore.

  None of them saw her again. Because of him.

  Kairos never blamed him, because Kairos was too honorable to ever think about doing such a thing. Kairos only blamed him for the loss of his fiancée when it suited him, and then, never as much as Andres felt he deserved. Given that, he would never, ever blame him for their mother leaving.

  Their father had. Angrily. Loudly. And Andres hadn’t even been able to feel sorry for himself because it had been true. He had known it then; he knew it now. You will never amount to anything. You’re nothing but a disappointment. If that was your best, if that was you trying, then you will never, ever succeed.

  He had known it to be true then, and so he had simply gone off to do what he wanted. He hated trying to conform to palace life anyway. Who did he have left to please? His father believed him to be beyond redemption, his mother was gone. Kairos cared, if only in a long-suffering way, and didn’t seem to mind what Andres did as long as it didn’t affect him.

  His indiscretion with Francesca had not been acceptable as far as Kairos was concerned, but then, Andres was not terribly surprised by that.

  It was because of that that he was trying. Because of Kairos. Because if nothing else his brother had always cared for him, in spite of the fact that he had been nothing but trouble. Nothing but a disappointment. He was trying, and Zara was intent on seeing him fail.

  That was why he had dragged her out of the ballroom. That was why he had allowed her to push him into this power struggle. Allowed her to push him into trying to one-up her.

  And then she had grabbed him. She had meant it to be a threat, and he was not naive enough to think she wouldn’t follow through with it. Zara was a survivor. A fighter. He would not underestimate her. Had not underestimated her from the moment he had walked in and seen her in his bedroom.

  He had anticipated that she would be difficult. That dealing with the engagement, the upcoming marriage, wouldn’t be an easy thing. He had never anticipated he would lose his mind completely and take her up against a wall in the palace. In public, where anyone could have found them. Yes, they were in a slightly hidden alcove, but all it would have taken was someone to wander out of the banquet and get lost looking for the restroom.

  That was not how a prince was to treat his future princess. It was certainly nothing Kairos would ever have done with Tabitha. Of course, his brother was the authority on unhappy marriages. That was becoming more and more apparent.

  That was also Andres’s fault.

  His actions had forced Kairos into the speedy marriage in the first place.

  The reason he had to atone now.

  And Zara was making things impossible for no reason other than her own bloody-mindedness. She had nowhere else to go. He didn’t treat her badly.

  What happened back there wasn’t treating her badly?

  He gritted his teeth, shoving the thought down deep. Trying to ignore the growing unease in his chest.

  He threw open the doors to his bedchamber before slamming them behind him. He pushed his
fingers through his hair, and only then did he realize that his hands were shaking. How could he have done such a thing? How could he have allowed her to push his control like that?

  How could he allow her to prove that he was still nothing more than the boy he’d been? The boy who couldn’t sit still for more than a couple of minutes. Who couldn’t fight any impulse that came upon him. He had wanted her, and so he had taken her.

  Without a condom.

  He swore, taking his suit jacket off and casting it onto the floor. He had never in his life forgone the use of protection. In truth, he was quite controlled in his debauchery. He didn’t keep himself from doing anything he wanted, but if he wanted to resist something, he was able. Sure, he didn’t have to exercise self-denial very often, but he was capable of it. Was capable of making responsible decisions.

  Not today.

  In public. In the middle of the day. Without protection.

  The door burst open behind him and he whirled around to see Zara standing there, her hands clenched at her sides, her expression stormy, her dark eyes glistening. Her glossy black hair, which had been expertly schooled into a bun earlier, was disheveled now, all but shouting about what had taken place only moments earlier.

  “How dare you walk away from me?” Her voice was quivering with indignation.

  There was no doubt that Zara’s feathers were thoroughly ruffled. Though he had a feeling there was nothing he could do at this point to unruffle them. In truth, she had been rather ruffled from the first moment he saw her. It was the effect he seemed to have on her.

  That didn’t bother him. What disturbed him was the effect she seemed to have on him.

  “Did you want me to stay and initiate another round? We were standing in the hallway. Anyone could have walked by,” he said, throwing the same accusations at her that he had just thrown at himself.

  “That didn’t bother you before.”

  No, it didn’t. Because he hadn’t been thinking. He hadn’t been in control.