The Prince's Chambermaid(7)

He looked at the buttons which trailed so enticingly down the front-and  which seemed to be losing the battle to keep those magnificent breasts  contained. 'So what happened?' he questioned unevenly. 'Did you gain  some weight while it was being made?'

Cathy suspected that Rupert had deliberately told the dressmaker to make  the uniform tighter-but she could hardly turn round and admit that.  Disloyalty to your boss was not an admirable trait-no matter how much he  might have deserved it. And neither was answering back this insolently  rude prince-no matter how much he deserved it.

'None that I'm aware of,' she said woodenly.

Xaviero found his gaze travelling over her undulating curves. No, if  she'd gained any weight at all, then it had been a complementary gain,  because there wasn't an ounce of flesh on her which shouldn't have been  there. Hers was not a fashionable shape, he decided-much too rounded for  modern tastes-but it appealed to the primeval sexual hunger which  underpinned the desire of every man. The biological imperative which  subliminally announced to the onlooker that soft hips and full breasts  equalled fruitful and fertile.

He felt his mouth drying along in time with the increasingly sweet  torture of his tightening groin. Those magnificent breasts looked as if  they should never be sullied by the wearing of clothes-and maybe he  should do them both a favour by removing them as quickly as possible.  She looked like one of the naked women adorning his favourite painting  in the Throne Room back in Zaffirinthos-the one he used to gaze at with  surreptitious longing during his teenage years.

Yet this woman was not responding to him as he had anticipated she  would. Xaviero studied her with interest. Today she wasn't sending out  those delicious come-and-kiss-me messages which had made him pull her  into his arms without thinking. Her eyes weren't telling him that he was  at liberty to do so again-in fact, on the contrary, she was regarding  him with the caution that she might use if she had suddenly found  herself alone in a room with a rather terrifying snake. And why was  that? Especially when this time they were not in a public place. Rather,  one which conveniently had a bed in it-and his guards would not disturb  him unless he gave them permission to do so. What the hell was holding  her back?

Xaviero's eyes narrowed. Unless she really did desire the man she had  thought him to be more than the man he really was! A woman more turned  on by a painter and decorator than a member of one of the most  prestigious royal houses in Europe. And, inexplicably, this thought  excited him more than anything he could remember.

'So which is the real you?' he drawled softly. 'Did I catch you unawares  the other day, all soft and natural. Or is this … showgirl appearance  your usual look?' Irresistibly, his eyes now strayed to the generous  curve of her bottom. 'Maybe you thought that a prince would respond  favourably to the rather obvious signals you're sending out today. Am I  right, Cathy?'                       
       
           



       

He said her name quite differently from the way anyone else had ever  said it-his tongue seeming to caress the first syllable as if he were  kissing it. And even though she was dimly aware that he was insulting  her with that sexy drawl of his, that didn't seem to stop her traitorous  body from responding. It was as if she had no power at all over her  reaction to him. As if she was helpless in her fight to resist him. She  could feel the blood pounding at her pulse points and her throat seemed  to have constricted so much that she could barely stumble out her  answer. 'I … I would not dream of being so presumptuous, Your Highness.'

'Wouldn't you?' he questioned as he noticed the soft rise of colour  washing over her cheekbones. 'That's a pity. Because maybe I'm in the  mood for a little presumption right now. Maybe I'm bored with the people  who always bow and scrape to me. Who act like puppets and tell me only  what they think I want to hear.' He glittered her a look. 'Because, you  know, I rather enjoyed the way you reacted to me the other day.'

'Sir-'

'I enjoyed the honesty with which you looked at me and the unashamed  hunger you clearly felt for me. The way you gave yourself up to that  kiss and melted into my arms-that delicious body promising untold  pleasure.'

Her throat dried. Hadn't she been trying to put the memory from her mind ever since? 'Sir-'

'Why, if that infernal alarm hadn't gone off, then who knows where it  might have ended?' His voice deepened, enjoying the way she was trying  not to react to his verbal seduction. 'Except that we both know exactly  where it would have ended, don't we, Cathy?'

Please stop looking at me like that, she prayed silently. A way which  was making her blood move like thick, warm honey as it pulsed its way  through her veins. Making her stomach feel as if it wanted to dissolve  and her skin tremble as if she were standing in a snowstorm. She  struggled to find something to say, but the only thing which came from  her dry lips was a strangled little sound which was barely  comprehensible. 'I-'

'And there's nothing I hate more than unfinished business,' he murmured.  'So I think we'd better do it all over again, don't you? Kiss me again,  Cathy. Only this time without stopping.'

His words both shocked and excited her but Cathy could feel her body  thrilling in eager response to the way he was looking at her. Wanting to  feel the warm brush of his lips against hers once more. Was that so  very wrong?

Xaviero's eyes narrowed, her hesitation surprising him as he reached out  his hand and touched the smooth flush of her cheek. He couldn't  remember ever having to ask twice before. 'Unless there is something  preventing us? Some commitment you have made to another man perhaps?'  But he spoke with the natural arrogance of someone who knew that there  was not another man who could not be cast aside in the light of his own  wishes. The Prince's desire overrode anything. The only thing was that  meant he might have to wait … and he did not want to wait-not when his  appetite felt so exquisitely and unexpectedly sharpened.

Cathy shook her head-her pulse racing erratically. How could she think  straight when he was looking at her like that? 'No. There isn't.' She  bit her lip as she remembered the sense of aloneness and rejection which  had flooded through her on receipt of Peter's letter. 'There was … there  was someone. I was engaged to be married, but … but … '

'But what?' prompted Xaviero, eager to get this one last obstacle out of the way.

'He … he … well, it's over.'

Xaviero allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction. Perfect.  Absolutely perfect. A fiancé meant that she was experienced-but that she  had been faithful, too. Had the man broken her heart? he wondered idly.  And if that were the case-couldn't he, Xaviero, show her that there was  life after the end of a love affair? And that she could enjoy the  caresses of another man …

He traced the outline of her quivering lips almost thoughtfully,  recognising that in a way she would be getting the very best and yet the  very worst of a postfiancé lover. Because he was undoubtedly the finest  lover she would ever know-but she would spend her whole life searching  fruitlessly for a man to equal him.

'So let's make love,' he said simply.

'Your Highness!' she breathed, even though she realised that her protest  lacked any real conviction. The look of intent which had darkened his  golden eyes was just too beguiling-the expectation that he was about to  hold her too tantalising to resist. And the sense of burning hunger in  her empty heart was like nothing she had ever experienced before. Should  she stop him? Shouldn't she even try?                       
       
           



       

She would never know. Because now he was pulling her into his arms with a  smile on his lips which made her desperately want to kiss him. To  relive the amazing sensations he'd awoken in her the other day.  Half-heartedly Cathy twisted in his arms but the movement brought from  him a low and mocking laugh and she quickly realised why-as she collided  with a rock-hard and very formidable groin. She felt the mad, frantic  race of her heart and the intoxicating fizz of her blood-her body  blindly reacting to the sweet sensation of his touch.

'Sir!' she gasped.

'Xaviero,' he corrected, on a groan. 'What is it? Tell me.'

What could she tell him other than that this felt like heaven itself? As  if she'd never been properly alive before that moment-because no man  had ever made her feel like this. He was so close that she could feel  the warmth of his breath on her face and it felt so unbelievably  intimate that she felt weak. Already she was way out of her depth-and  every atom of common sense she possessed was telling her to get away  from him before it was too late. But common sense was immediately  scrambled into a hot and senseless desire as his lips came down to meet  hers-and Cathy knew she was lost.