HOLIDAY ROYALE by Christine Rimmer Read Free Book Online

“Just for a minute or two—why not?”
    “Yes!” She pulled him in.
    It was just as he’d pictured it. Her bags and packages from the Thanksgiving Bazaar were piled atop the armoire. The maid had been in and turned down the bed.
    She stood on the rug in the center of the room, her hands behind her, looking very young. “I should have something to offer you....”
    He gave her a sideways look and a half smile. “How about a chair?”
    Both hands appeared from behind her and waved around a bit. “Take your choice.” He chose the one under the small window. She sat in the other, crossed her slim legs and smoothed her lacy skirt. “I had an amazing time tonight.”
    “You always have an amazing time.”
    She tipped her head from side to side as though reciting some rhyming verse in her head. “You’re right. I do. I can’t help it. Especially now, here in Montedoro, where I feel like I’m living in my own private fairy tale.”
    “Complete with a lecherous old aristocrat in an ancient smoking jacket.”
    She laughed, a happy little sound. He thought of V for some reason. Of the differences between Luce and V. V would have been brassed off to have some old man following her around trying to flirt with her. Not Lucy. Lucy had been patient with Richie. Patient and kind. “He was actually very sweet. But a little bit...relentless.”
    “A little bit?”
    “Okay, a lot. But I liked him, though, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
    “I know you didn’t.” His own voice surprised him. Too low. Too...intimate.
    She almost smiled, her soft lips pursing just the slightest bit, so the dimple in her left cheek started to happen but then didn’t quite. He stared at the white flesh of her throat and wondered what it would feel like to kiss her there, to scrape that softness lightly with his teeth.
    And that was when he knew he needed to get out. Now. He stood.
    A tender little “Oh!” escaped her and she jumped up, as well. “You’re going already?”
    “I really should.” Something was the matter with him. He seemed unable to master his own voice. First too low, now too stiff.
    “But I...” She hesitated.
    “What?” Now he sounded ridiculously hopeful. What was this? He hardly knew himself—his voice not his own, his heart pounding away in the cage of his chest as though hoping somehow to break free. You’d think he was twelve again, surviving his first crush.
    She settled back onto the heels of those naughty satin shoes. “You’re right. I have to let you go.” Regretful. Resigned. And then she smiled, her gamine face lighting up from within. “I mean, you’ve been amazing and there’s always tomorrow.”
    His shoes were moving, carrying him with them. Suddenly he was standing an inch away from her. She gazed up at him and he saw there were gold and green striations caught in the velvet brown of her eyes. “Yes,” he heard himself say, “tomorrow...”
    And then he was doing what he had no intention of doing, lifting a hand, brushing a finger down the side of that white throat, bending close to her, capturing that soft, slightly parted mouth.
    So good. Her breath tasted of apples, fresh. Sweet. He touched her lower lip with his tongue, testing the warmth and the wonderful softness.
    She let out a throaty little sound.
    And then she lifted her slim arms and wrapped them around his neck. He followed suit, sliding his hands over the dusky, soft lace in the curve of her waist, gathering her in, deepening the kiss that was not supposed to happen.
    Her body fit against him, slim and warm and soft. Her breasts pressed into his chest.
    So good. Too good.
    He felt what he wasn’t ever going to feel with her: heat. Tightness. He was starting to grow hard.
    That did it. Arousal woke him from the trance that had somehow settled over him. Slowly, gently, with great care, he clasped her slender waist again, lifted his mouth from hers and pushed back from her just enough that she wouldn’t feel him