Page 50 of Mistaken as His Royal Bride

He pushed it aside for now. Along with all the other things he didn’t want to think about. Like how he’d already spelled out what this relationship was, but now he was teasing her about it.

She said, ‘I’ll do my best not to fall for you, Your Majesty.’

‘Good,’ he said, as he moved closer, not able to resist temptation any more.

He reached for Maddi’s towel and loosened it, so that it fell to her feet. Then he took the towel from her head and her hair fell in damp dark skeins around her shoulders, long enough to touch her breasts.

‘Because we both know that this situation is just a very unique temporary hiatus in our lives.’

She was breathing fast now, her breasts rising and falling, making Ari’s hands itch. But before he could touch her she’d put her hands on his sweatpants and tugged them over his hips and down. He stepped out of them. They were both naked.

He led her back to the bed and told himself that this ravenous hunger was purely due to the novelty of having a new lover. Quite possibly his last lover before marriage. It wasn’t specifically unique to Maddi Smith.

Because thinking about the consequences of her being different from any other lover was not something he was prepared to contemplate.

A few days later, Maddi was looking at the tabloid pictures of her and Ari that had been taken at the charity event the other evening. The evening they’d made love. His hand was on the small of her back and her face was turned to look up at him. She was smiling, and his mouth was on the verge of a smile as he looked at her. The headline said:The look of love between King Aristedes and his future Queen!

Amazing how misleading pictures could be...

But she knew the reality behind them. The reality being that she wasn’t Princess Laia and she shouldn’t be here. She was only here to try and stop Ari tracking down Laia with one hundred percent of his focus, but that was fast becoming far too easy to forget.

Especially after the other night.

Maddi put down the papers and went to the terrace and breathed in the fresh, fragrant air deeply. She hadn’t slept in her own bed since the other night. Hannah had subtly moved her things to Ari’s suite, and since then it had been a blur of making love, having food delivered to Ari’s rooms and periodic breaks before indulging in their ravenous hunger for each other over and over again.

He only went to his office when she was sleeping.

Was it always this...intense? It almost scared Maddi how much she wanted Ari. He’d awoken something in her that she’d never even thought she possessed. A carnal hunger. She revelled in this new incarnation of herself, revelled in his touch. She craved him. And even though she knew this phase would fade, it didn’t feel as if it was fading any time soon. Only getting stronger.

She had come back here to her own suite under the pretext of needing to find something, but the truth was that she needed some space and time to get her head around what was happening.

She was having an affair with her sister’s fiancé. Except she knew that she wasn’t really betraying Laia. If anything, she was giving her sister an even more solid reason to turn around and declare their agreement null and void.

She wondered if the newspaper pictures would reach Laia, wherever she was. Would she feel confident enough to return to Isla’Rosa? Had Dax found her? Was that why there was no contact? Maddi knew Laia was resourceful—she’d been successfully avoiding Ari for four years—so if Dax had found her, Maddi wouldn’t be surprised if she’d managed to take him by surprise...

There was a sound from the room behind her and Maddi turned around. Ari was walking towards her, in a dark suit with a light shirt, open at the neck. She drank him in helplessly, her body already reacting, softening, moistening, aching for him.

‘Here you are.’

He stopped and looked at her. There hadn’t been anything planned today, so she’d thrown on a pair of loose trousers and a cropped silk top.

He said, ‘Do you want a riding lesson?’

A momentary frisson of fear as she recalled the terror of being on that out-of-control horse made her tense, but she refused to let it stop her. ‘I’d like that.’

‘Good. The horses will be ready in an hour—they’re being groomed at the moment. Which leaves us just enough time...’

‘Time for what?’

He came and slid his hands around her waist, finding her bare skin. Maddi’s heart picked up pace.

He bent his head and said, close to her mouth, before he kissed her, ‘Time forthis.’

Maddi was fast being pulled under, weakly pushing aside all the things she’d been thinking about. This shouldn’t be her reality. But with Ari’s mouth on hers and his hands finding her tender flesh and making her moan, she really wanted to believe that it was.

‘We’re going to a what?’ Maddi asked, feeling a sense of panic at what Ari had just said.

She knew he’d told her earlier, but she’d been distracted because he’d been kissing her at the time.

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