Page 26 of Off-Limits To The Crown Prince

He had the power here. An imbalance she must never feel beholden to. He needed her to crave him as much as he craved her, to a kind of distraction.

She licked her lips. The mere peek of her tongue almost undid him. How he wanted to plunder that mouth. Tear the clothes from her body. Rip apart the fabric of both their lives for a night of pleasure, lost in her arms.

‘If I’m a princess tonight, then who are you?’

The fantasy wove around him. Something which allowed them to forget who they were and what they were doing here.

‘I’m the frog you’re about to kiss.’

‘But that means you’ll turn into a prince.’

‘I won’t be Prince of Lasserno. I’ll beyourprince.’

Hers alone.

Hannah’s lips curled into a wicked smile. ‘For only one night.’

It wasn’t a question, and in a strange way that gave him some comfort. But the thought laced him with a kind of pain, that when the sun rose in the morning this blissful, illicit fantasy would be over.

‘That’s all it can ever be. Sex has a way of changing things, but it can’t change this,’ he said, as much of a warning to him as it was to her. Though the fantasy wove into a reality, where she could turn him into someone else for a few hours, because they both willed it.

‘And what about duty?’

‘Tonight?’ It could only be one night and nothing else. That was all he would allow himself. And for him, that would be enough. ‘Duty can go to hell.’

Duty can go to hell.

The words rang through her like some clarion call. He stood there, jaw hard. Hands clenched to fists at his sides. His bow tie hanging loose, and the top of his shirt unbuttoned to show the dark hair at his throat. Yet he wouldn’t come to her. She knew it. She saw it in the tense set of his body. He wanted her to decide. And she craved him, with a zeal that made little sense to her. She’d never been particularly interested in sex, or so she had always thought, the idea of getting too close to someone, letting anyone in, crushing the breath right out of her. Caring was dangerous. Loving, even more so. But around Alessio, there was no common sense. As if he were all the oxygen in the room, as if to breathe she had to have him.

She wanted to walk into his arms, into all that strength. Bury her nose to the hollow at the base of his throat. Let every part of him overwhelm her. She took a step. The first. It wasn’t so hard because this was a moment of fantasy where they could pretend to be other people. Alessio flexed his fingers as she took another step, and another. And only when she stood so close that his warmth seeped into her, did he wrap his arms round her, as strong as she’d imagined them to be. He dropped his head as if in slow motion. She rose on her toes and their lips touched. The warm press of skin to skin. Gentle, strangely innocent in a way that almost broke her heart. She dropped back, looked into his all-dark eyes, the pupils drowning out the velvet brown.

‘Look,’ she whispered, her voice cracking. A hesitation between them as if everything was tentative and the universe waited. ‘I’ve made a prince.’

And then it was as if the world exploded around them. Alessio groaned and took her face in his hands, crushing his lips to hers. She met him, her hands on his chest, fingers curling into the strong muscles there. She had no experience, but this seemed to lack all finesse, drawn from pure need. Their tongues touched, battled, as if each were trying to win over the other. Her body was all heat and fire, her exquisite dress of fine fabric a scraping interruption to his fingers on her overheated skin. She slipped her hands under his jacket, over the shoulders, tugging because every piece of clothing between them was a travesty. He let her face go, tore the jacket from his body. Tossed it to the floor.

‘Your dress. I don’t trust myself.’

She barely did herownself. But she reached round with trembling fingers and slid the zip down, slowly. As if this were a kind of performance, because she was transfixed by the hooded rapture in his eyes as he watched. There was no time for nerves, no time for doubts. Not here, not now. Tonight shewasa princess, and she could do and have anything she wanted.

And how she wanted Alessio.

The dress slumped from her shoulders as she shrugged out of the bodice. The fabric slid over her body, fell to the floor. She stepped out of it, as if it were a sea of foam on the ground and she was leaving the ocean, reborn, in only the exquisite lace bra and panties which she’d purchased to match the dress. The single extravagance she’d allowed when preparing her trip to Lasserno. Her skin seemed too tight, as if she were a butterfly ready to burst from the chrysalis. It was as if for the past nine years she’d been in stasis, waiting. And now she’d been changed on a cellular level.

Hannah began to walk forward towards Alessio and he held up a hand.

‘Wait. I want to look at you. To always remember your beauty.’

There were so many things that would be left unsaid tonight, but how precious these moments were would not be one of them. Now wasn’t the time to be shy, but to be brave.

‘I need to see you too,’ she whispered, unsure as to whether her voice was loud enough with all the emotion trembling through it. Alessio’s throat convulsed with a swallow which told her all she needed to know, that he’d heard her plea. He grabbed his bow tie, dragged it from round his neck and dropped it on the floor. Undid a button on his shirt, then another and another. Tugged the zinc-white fabric from the waist of his trousers, tossing it aside the way of his coat and bow tie. She inhaled sharply at the sight before her, his broad shoulders, the muscles of his arms all sculpted and bronzed. The hair at his chest, dusting the muscles there, trailing down, darkening and disappearing at his trouser waistband. Her fingers became restless to run them through the crisp hair. To touch. He undid his belt, drew it slowly from his trousers before tossing it aside. Her eyes dropped as he gripped the top of his trousers. Even though they were black, the evidence of his arousal was bold and obvious.

She’d done that to him.

‘Like what you see?’

‘I’d like to see more.’

He chuckled and the ripple of it rolled through her, like a promise for something she didn’t know she’d been waiting for. Anticipation at its finest.

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