Princess by Gaelen Foley Read Free Book Online Page A

unforgettable violet eyes looking too deeply into him, her gaze like a flash of lightning, illumining landscapes within him he preferred to keep dark.
    Save me. The thought trailed through his mind, he knew not why. He could only sit there, captivated, immobilized, halfterrified. Someone wanted to help him and he didn’t know how to react. Not just anyone.
    Serafina.
    The only living thing he’d ever trusted.
    The only one he couldn’t have.
    Staring at her, he couldn’t force out a single word.
    Yet somehow she seemed to understand him.
    “Very well,” she said softly, searching his face. “You just sit. I’ll do it.”
    He couldn’t find the wherewithal to stop her or to move. He knew she shouldn’t be touching him. She knew it, too, of course, but when had she ever done as she was told? And when had he ever disobeyed a royal command?
    She slid his untied cravat from his shoulders first, then came closer, kneeling between his legs. Wary as a wild animal, he watched her every move as she unbuttoned his simple black waistcoat. He was only minimally helpful as she pushed it down carefully off his wounded shoulder, then freed him from it. His shirt remained, sodden, ripped, bloody. A lot of blood.
    “Poor thing,” she murmured. When she reached out and began gathering the wet cotton of his shirt in both hands so she could slip it off over his head, he pulled back, staring at her, heart racing.
    “What’s the matter, Darius?”
    He swallowed, dry-mouthed. The way she said his name could make him drunk.
    Between his legs, she stood, bracing her hands on his knees. He watched her rise and felt his loins pulse, felt his whole being in thrall to her, as if he were an uninitiated boy being slowly seduced by a goddess.
    Hands on her hips, she frowned at him in puzzlement. Then a strange, tender smile of understanding curved her lips.
    “Shy?” she asked softly.
    He stared at her, unable to speak, his soul in his eyes. He did not know all of a sudden what was happening to him.
    Slowly, he nodded.
    She reached out and caressed his cheek, then gently brushed his forelock out of his eyes. “I won’t hurt you, Darius. Don’t be shy. After all”—her gaze slid away from his—“you saw mine.”
    Mischievously, her eyes flicked back to his.
    Her impudent remark shocked him out of the trance. He stared at her in awe.
    “You bad little girl,” he breathed, suddenly afire for her.
    Her smile flashed.
    Jesus, what was he doing? His very hands burned with the need to touch her, run his palms from her slim waist down her elegantly curved thighs, part that dressing gown and smell her rain-scented skin. He curled his fingers tightly over the edges of the chair’s arms, fighting it for all he was worth.
    If anyone ever found out about this, he thought feverishly, if the king ever found out about this . . .
    Then he realized he would be dead in a few weeks anyway, considering the suicide mission ahead of him once he’d finished routing the spies, so what did it matter?
    It was too late to get out of this now and he should at least let her dress the wound.
    Maybe she knew what she was doing, which he doubted, but he could talk her through it, and it would save him a trip to the bumbling surgeon’s.
    But as he hesitated, strangely, he thought of all the men he’d slammed up against walls over the past few years, warning them away from her, enforcing the ironclad rule that Serafina di Fiore was off limits. The rule applied to him, too.
    Especially to him.
    Hell, he thought, bristling, he wasn’t the one who had started this tonight.
    It wasn’t as if anything was going to happen, after all. He would not let it. Tonight his black temper had slipped the leash, true, but he still ruled over his passions with an iron fist. Not for nothing was he descended on his father’s side from Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition. Besides, it would be over soon and then she would be somebody else’s problem.
    His heart raced faster as she