Page 122 of Royal Caleva: Luis

She knotted her hands together on her lap and waited.

He looked away for a moment before returning his gaze to her face. “I have made such terrible choices in the women I have loved. Long ago, I made a decision never to marry again because I could not bear to make another mistake. It seemed better to go through life alone than to destroy the life of another woman.”

She couldn’t bear for him to think that about himself. “You didn’t des—”

He shook his head to stop her, his lips in a tight line. “It’s how I felt. So I put the hope for a relationship built on love out of my mind. Very successfully.” He gave a self-mocking grimace. “As it happens, it is surprisingly difficult to come to know a woman well when one is a king.”

“I can imagine.” She thought of the number of people surrounding him most of his waking hours. Of the constant claims on his time and attention. Of the schemers and sycophants who cared about him only because of his position. Her heart ached for his strange loneliness.

“But I had the good fortune to find not only a daughter, but her mother, a woman I came to know well,” he said, his face softening. “Eve, I didn’t hesitate because I don’t believe you are queen material. I hesitated because my mind had been closed to the idea for so long that I needed time to process the astonishing possibility. I was stunned that I had been so blind as not to see you in that light before.”

“And then you collapsed,” Eve said flatly. But her heart was banging against the walls of her chest in an unsettled way.

“The timing could not have been worse,” he said, his tone grim. “For that alone, I will never forgive Camacho.”

Eve would never forgive Camacho for nearly killing the man she loved.

Luis reached for her hands now, holding them gently in his, the touch sending sparks up her arms to race through her body.

“Mi querida, what I ask of you I do not ask lightly. Being queen is not something you want, I know. All I can say is that you can do much good in the country and even in the world from that position. That might balance the burden somewhat.” His sigh came from deep in his lungs.

He clasped her hands more tightly. Eve was grateful for that because she was beginning to shake with nerves. What was Luis leading to?

“I think you would make a spectacular queen, but that does not matter.” His face was luminous with emotion. “I brought you here, away from all the trappings of my position, because I wanted to speak to you as just a man. Because I want you as a man wants a woman. I want your face to be the one I see first every morning and last every night. I want to worship your body and give you the pleasure you deserve. I want to cherish and protect you.”

His gaze traveled over her face as though he was trying to will her to say something, but Eve could not make her tongue move. She could barely get any oxygen into her lungs.

He changed tack. “We would be a family. Raul, Grace, you, and me. It would be incomplete without you. You are the glue, the final piece. Without you, there would always be an empty space.”

Tears welled in her eyes at the haze of sadness over his face.

As he leaned forward, his tone became urgent. “Please do not shut me out of your life. Allow me the chance to change your mind.”

Hope was doing a tap dance in her chest, but she couldn’t give in to it yet. “To change my mind about what, exactly?”

“Ay, Eve, I am offering you my battered, rusty heart. No, it is already yours. I love you, cariño mío! With everything in me.” His grip on her hands was so tight it almost hurt. “I want the chance to make you feel the same way about me.”

She thought her heart would explode with joy. “Oh, you clueless man, I love you too. That’s why I tried to leave you.”

His eyes burned with a luminous exhilaration. “I don’t entirely understand, but I don’t care.” He released her hands to cup her face and kiss her with desperate hunger, his lips questing and yet tender. She hung on to his broad shoulders as she answered him by opening to him and teasing his tongue.

He pulled away an inch to say, “You love me,” with a look of amazement before he kissed her again, his hands sliding into her hair to tilt her head to the angle he wanted. Once again, he stopped, his face a study in relief. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

“I thought I was going to lose you Saturday night,” Eve said. “That was much worse.”

“I had no intention of dying when I had just found a daughter and the love of my life.” He yanked at the ties holding her neckline closed so he could lick the hollow at the bottom of her throat.

Desire raced through her like a wildfire, and she moaned as she let her head fall back. He skimmed his lips lower to the swell of her breast. Heat liquified between her legs, and she ached to have him inside her.

“Wait!” She threaded her fingers into his hair to lift his head away from her. “Did Dr. Ibarra clear you for…this?”

“She told me to listen to my body.” He cupped Eve’s breasts, his gaze a scorch of wanting. “And this is what it is telling me to do.”

The pressure on her aroused nipples ripped electric sensation through her. “I don’t think that’s what the doctor meant.” But Eve’s body agreed with his, so she gave in.

Sliding her hands inside the open collar of his shirt, she traced her thumbs over the sharp lines of his collarbones. The buttons slipped from the buttonholes as she pushed the linen aside so she could brush her palms against the light furring over the hard planes of his chest. She found the raised circles of his nipples and danced her fingers over them.

He groaned and sat still as she jerked his shirt all the way open. “You are so gorgeous,” she said, running her hands over the sculpted muscles of his abs before she skimmed them down to rub the hard bulge of his erection.

---