Yet as Cathy's fingers kneaded softly at his shoulders and she grazed her lips over his nipple he felt himself shudder and knew he could not wait. Her fresh eagerness was like nothing he'd ever felt before-like fasting for days in the fierce heat of the sun and then suddenly finding a long, cool drink of something indescribably sweet.
He reached for a condom and began to slide it on, aware that she was watching him. If there was one thing which had been drummed into him since he had first entered puberty-it was the precious nature of royal seed.
Cathy bit her lip. Should she tell him how gauche she really was-and that she was terrified of disappointing him? But who in their right mind would want to let reality intrude and threaten this delicate magic he had woven over her? And then he pulled her back in his arms and began kissing her again, and it was too late to say anything.
She felt herself shiver as his tongue slid inside her mouth and that irresistible heat began to creep over her body once more, dissolving all thoughts in its wake. It was as if something had taken hold of her. Some urge. Some desire. Some need to feel him closer than close. Something beyond her control, which was orchestrating her movements.
She felt him suddenly tense as he shifted his position, his fingers parting her legs, and Cathy trembled as his mouth continued its heavenly plunder. There was a split second where one final consideration struggled to make itself heard and her lips parted to tell him. But it coincided with a single thrust, the sharp sense of pain mingled with the sweet sensation of this beautiful man filling her. Her strangled cry. And then his.
What was he saying? Surely not, 'no'? No?
Something had changed. There was movement, yes-but the mood in that bedroom seemed to have shifted inexplicably from joy to anger. Yes, anger. Bewilderedly, Cathy struggled to chase the incredible feeling which had been so tantalisingly close, moving her hips in time with his.
'Keep still,' he bit out.
But it was too late. She writhed beneath him with an abandon which was driving him wild, and that-combined with her hot tightness-meant that he was lost. Completely lost.
It was the most intense orgasm he had ever experienced and yet he hated her for every gasping second of it, withdrawing from her just as soon as his body recovered its strength from those powerful spasms. Staring down at her as a heavy kind of blackness enveloped him.
'Why did you keep something like that to yourself?' he accused, getting off the bed and grabbing his robe, before knotting it viciously at the waist.
All she was aware of was the condemnation which was spitting from his eyes as he towered over her like some dark avenging angel. 'But … Your Highness,' she said shakily-still not quite daring to use his Christian name-and her sense of shame and confusion grew, 'what have I done?'
'Done? You know damned well exactly what you've done!' he bit out with quiet rage. 'What kind of game are you playing?'
'G-game?'
'Didn't you think it might be a good idea to tell me you were a virgin?'
Chapter Four
CATHY shrank back against the pillows, her heart sinking as she stared up at the darkened fury of the Prince's features. 'I've done something wrong?' she questioned, her voice shaking with bewilderment.
'Wrong? Oh, please don't play the innocent with me!' Xaviero snarled, until the irony of his words hit him. Because she was innocent, or, rather, she had been-until about five minutes ago. But now he realised that a woman could be innocent in the physical sense while having the most devious of motives. And there he had been-imagining that she was a sweet little thing who had desired him as a man more than she had desired him as a royal. As if!
How could he have been such a fool not to have seen through her? To have realised that he was being lured into the oldest trap of all. Because she had misled him, that was why. And so cleverly, too-those big aquamarine eyes clearly concealing a scheming brain, that voluptuous body luring him with its seductive promise. His fist clenched with impotent fury. 'Did you lie about having a fiancé?'
'No!' she protested. 'I did have one!'
'Then how can you still be a virgin if you were engaged to be married?' he flared. 'I know that nobody waits until their wedding day any more-well, certainly not in the world which you inhabit!'
Cathy saw the contempt which had twisted his sensual lips, and flinched at how little he obviously thought of her. Oh, what a fool she had been. What a stupid little fool. Her greatest gift and she had given it to a man who had thrown it back in her face as if it had been a dirty rag. Her virginity treated with the contempt with which he might have viewed the bargain-basket at the supermarket. Except that she doubted this man had ever been near a supermarket in his life.
'As a matter of fact, he said he thought we should wait until we were married!' she objected heatedly.
'And you-a woman who turns on as quickly as you do-you were happy to wait?' he demanded, in disbelief.
'Well, yes! Actually, I was.' With Peter waiting had never been a problem and in view of his job it had been more than appropriate. 'He wasn't like you,' she finished miserably.
'Nobody is like me,' he qualified arrogantly, before his features darkened even more. 'I have been duped,' he grated.
Cathy stared at him. Wasn't he forgetting something? 'And what about me?' she whispered. 'You duped me, too, didn't you? Pretending to be a painter and decorator! What was that all about?'
But he was not listening, his mind working overtime-until the realisation of what must have happened hit him like a dull blow in the solar plexus. He thought of the Englishman, Rupert. The way she had whirled away from him when he had entered the hotel that morning. Surely he was not the fiancé?
'It is this … this … Rupert?' he accused hotly.
For a moment Cathy stared at him in complete puzzlement. 'What is?'
'He was the man you were to have married?'
'No!' she protested, appalled. 'My fiancé was a trainee clergyman,' she added, though this added piece of information seemed to make him even angrier.
Xaviero's eyes narrowed. Then what the hell was going on-were she and the hotel owner colluding? Had he convinced this little chambermaid to seduce him for his own nefarious purpose? But there was no way he could possibly interrogate her when she was lying there so bare and so beautiful. 'Cover yourself up!' he demanded hotly.
Cathy wondered if he meant for her to start dressing and she went to get off the bed when something in her movement made his face darken again and he bent and picked up the silky coverlet which must have slipped to the ground during their love-making. Love-making, she thought in revulsion as she hastily caught the coverlet he tossed towards her, and hauled it over her body. The last word you could ever apply to what had just happened was love.
Xaviero drew a deep breath as he looked at her, at the pale hair beginning to fall out of the pins which constrained it-thinking that he had been so eager to possess her that he hadn't even got around to letting it spill over her magnificent breasts. A pulse flickered at his temple. 'Okay,' he said steadily. 'Let's just get it out of the way. Tell me what it is you want?'
'What I w-want?'
'You heard me!'
She stared at him. What she wanted was to be rid of this terrible feeling that she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. Or for the last ten minutes not to have happened and for him to come back and start kissing her again. But she suspected that neither of those options was going to happen. 'I don't understand what you're talking about.'
Xaviero looked at her disbelievingly. Had he believed those eyes to be so guileless, her passion to be so sweet, because he had wanted to believe it? But he came from a world where virginity was highly prized-an old-fashioned royal essential to ensure the pure continuation of his ancient bloodline. And he could not believe that any woman would have given it away so carelessly unless she had some kind of separate agenda.
'You must want something to have behaved so impetuously,' he snapped. 'Did you collude with your boss? Provide the irresistible bait with your too-tight uniform and your over-made-up eyes? Knowing all the obvious ploys which will hook in a man. Yet I knew all that, and still I fell for it,' he added bitterly. 'Because sexual hunger has made fools of men since the beginning of time.'
'I don't understand,' said Cathy again, beginning to grow a little bit angry now. Yes, he was a prince and yes, he seemed genuinely shocked that she had been a virgin-but everything was about him, wasn't it? Him, him, him! Didn't he stop to think for a moment about how she was feeling right now? Foolish and empty and aware that she had been carried away by a hopeless fantasy that there was a spark of something real between her and the golden-eyed man. Something which had begun the very first time she'd seen him. Inexperience had made her attribute the passion of his kiss to something more than mere lust. So hadn't she been the fool, not him?