A Queen for the Taking? by Kate Hewitt Read Free Book Online Page B

hair had come undone a bit, a few tousled curls lying against her neck. The back of her dress, he saw, was crumpled and stained from where she’d sat on the table. Just remembering made hot, hard desire surge through him again. She might, for the sake of pride or modesty, play the ice maiden now, but he knew better. He wanted to make her melt again, even as he watched her return to her cold composure, assembling it like armour.
    ‘Thank you,’ she muttered and stepped quickly away from him.
    ‘You’re welcome.’ He surveyed her, noticing the faint pink to her cheeks, the swollen rosiness of her mouth. She would not look at him. ‘I’m afraid our meal is quite ruined.’
    ‘I’m not hungry.’
    He couldn’t resist quipping, ‘Not for food, perhaps.’
    ‘Don’t.’ She dragged her gaze to his, and he was surprised—and slightly discomfited—to see not simple embarrassment in her stormy gaze, but a tortured recrimination that ate at the satisfaction he’d felt at her physical response. He’d seduced her quite ruthlessly, he knew. His kisses and caresses had been a calculated attack against her senses. Her coldness.
    But she had responded. That had been real. Even if she regretted it now.
    He folded his arms. ‘Our marriage might be one of convenience, Liana, but that doesn’t mean we can’t—or shouldn’t—desire one another. Frankly I find it a relief.’ She shook her head wordlessly, and a different kind of frustration spiked through him. ‘What do you see our marriage looking like, then? I need an heir—’
    ‘I know that.’ She lifted her hands to her hair, fussing with some of the diamond-tipped pins. A few, he saw, had fallen to the floor and silently he bent to scoop them up and then handed them to her. She still wouldn’t look at him, just shoved pins into the tangled mass of silvery hair that he now realised was really quite a remarkable colour. Quite beautiful.
    ‘Are you a virgin?’ he asked abruptly, and her startled gaze finally met his. She looked almost affronted.
    ‘Of course I am.’
    ‘Of course? You’re twenty-eight years old. I’d hardly expect, at that age, for you to save yourself for marriage.’
    Colour deepened in her cheeks. ‘Well, I did. I’m sorry if that is yet another disappointment for you.’ She didn’t sound sorry at all, and he almost smiled.
    ‘Hardly a disappointment.’ Her response to him hadn’t been disappointing at all. ‘But I can understand why you might feel awkward or afraid about what happened between—’
    ‘I’m not afraid .’ Her lips tightened and her eyes flashed. She dropped her hands from her hair and busied herself with straightening her rather ruined dress.
    ‘What, then?’ Sandro asked quietly.
    Her hands shook briefly before she stilled them, mindlessly smoothing the crumpled silk of her dress. ‘I simply wasn’t... This isn’t...’ She took a breath. ‘I wasn’t expecting this.’
    ‘It should be a happy surprise, then,’ Sandro answered. ‘At least we desire each other.’ She shook her head, the movement violent. ‘I still fail to see the problem.’
    She drew a breath into her lungs, pressed her hands against her still crumpled dress. ‘This marriage was—is—meant to be convenient.’
    ‘Not that convenient,’ Sandro answered sharply. ‘We were always going to consummate it.’
    ‘I know that!’ She took another breath; her cheeks were now bright pink. ‘I simply don’t... I don’t want to feel ...’ She broke off, misery swamping her eyes, her whole body. Sandro had the sudden urge to comfort her, to offer her a hug of affection rather than the calculated caress of moments before.
    What on earth was causing her such torment?
    * * *
    Liana felt as if Sandro had taken a hammer to her heart, to her very self, with that kiss. She’d very nearly shattered into a million pieces, and it was only by sheer strength of will that she’d kept herself together.
    She’d never been touched like that before,