Page 58 of Royal Caleva: Luis

He must have sensed her hesitation, because he said, “I can’t have you in the way I want right now, but I still wish to touch you.”

They waded in the surf, hand in hand, as though they were just two regular people and not a Calevan king and a vet tech from Iowa.

CHAPTER 15

“We’re not telling Grace and Raul about this,” Eve said to Luis, gesturing between them as they rode the elevator back up to the terrace.

“Not yet,” Luis said, capturing her hand to press his lips against her palm. Delicious shivers radiated over her skin.

Or ever.

The door slid open, and Luis stepped back to let her exit first. As she headed toward the pool, he called, “Wait a moment. We can rinse the sand off our feet here.”

She turned to see what she had thought was a small fountain pouring water into a bronze basin. Luis held out his hand to her. “Stand in the pool and run your feet under the water,” he said. “I’ll balance you.”

She had never thought cleaning sand off her feet could be a sensual experience, but the water was warm, and Luis’s grip was powerful. She lifted one foot at a time to let the water spray over it, leaning on Luis’s strength.

“Your turn.” She stepped out of the basin and tugged him into it. He had no need of her support, but he held on to her hand anyway. He had narrow feet with high arches, and when he flexed his toes in the cascade of water, the well-defined muscles in his calf bunched and shifted. It was strangely intimate to ogle his bare feet, and desire surged through her again.

Then he pivoted on one foot to run the arch of his other one up the inside of her calf. She gasped and jerked her gaze up to his. He was smiling with a roguish glint in his eyes. “I hope to explore higher tonight,” he purred.

She dipped one foot in the water and flicked it upward to spatter droplets over his trousers. Surprise widened his eyes before he leaned in to say, “I could throw you in the dungeon for that…and come visit you every night.”

His words rippled through her, stoking the ache between her legs. “Would I be tied up for your visits?”

He sucked in a quick breath and then threw back his head to laugh. “Dios mío, you beat me at my own game.”

Eve grinned at him, but inside she was a roil of arousal.

“There you are!” Grace came around the corner with Raul on her heels. “Aren’t you starving?”

All the sexual heat in Luis’s eyes was quenched in a nanosecond. He dropped Eve’s hand and stepped out of the fountain in one smooth movement without any sign of discomfort. “Have you not been eating the tapas?” he asked.

“Of course,” Raul said. “But Annamaria keeps lurking at the door, which means dinner is ready.”

“When one is enjoying the beach, time passes swiftly,” Luis observed.

Eve almost choked at his description of what they’d been doing, but she cleared her throat to say, “I was treated to the story of how the Pirates’ Surprise got its name.”

“Will you tell it again at dinner?” Grace asked.

“There is nothing I like better than sharing the history of Caleva,” Luis said with a smile. “Shall we go in?”

As the sexual fog cleared from Eve’s brain, she looked at Grace and Raul standing side by side. This was Grace’s true family, the one she was related to by blood. A pang of grief wrenched at Eve’s heart. She had the unhappy sense that Grace was slipping away from her with every minute her daughter spent here in Caleva.

Being a mother meant letting go, allowing your fledgling to fly to her new destiny. But why did Grace’s destiny have to be so far out of Eve’s reach?

Eve paced around her suite’s living room, trying to sort through the hurricane of conflicting emotions roaring in her brain. She had barely been able to eat the delicious dinner, and she had probably had too much wine. But that was the only way she could manage to smile and nod and pretend everything was normal when it was so far from normal, she didn’t even know what to call it.

She needed to get to know Raul, to judge whether he was really as welcoming to his new half sister as Luis claimed. He was a charmer, smooth and polished, with a flashing smile and a ready wit. He and Grace teased each other—and their father—with outward ease. Yet Eve still had no sense of who the prince truly was behind that handsome façade.

Then there was the pain and pride of watching Grace fit right into the family dynamic. Her daughter was not intimidated by the company of a king or a prince. Eve couldn’t help being impressed with Grace’s poise and confidence. Somehow, she seemed to have raised a young woman who could handle being a princess. But the more comfortable Grace was, the less likely it was that Eve would continue to be a large part of her life.

Eve sagged onto a chair as the truth of that lanced through her with a physical agony. It wasn’t even the distance between Iowa and Caleva. It was the distance between a vet tech and a princess.

The hardest part of dinner, though, had been the sizzle of awareness that crackled between her and Luis. Eve leaped up to pace again. Every time Luis looked at her, she felt his mouth slanting against hers. The heat and arousal and ache slammed into her all over again, just from seeing the desire lighting his eyes.

If Grace and Raul had noticed the charged atmosphere, they hadn’t given any sign. They must be blind. She smile-grimaced. More likely, they just couldn’t imagine their parents being interested in sex, especially with each other.

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