The Royal House Of Karedes Collection Books 1-12. Кейт Хьюит
his lips that sent shock waves through her blood.
“Just one thing …” He reached out, took the clip from her hair and let all the wild curls tumble to her shoulders. “Perfect,” he said softly.
She had to stop herself from returning the compliment. Instead, she tossed her head as if it meant nothing. Damned if that didn’t make him grin.
“Shall we?” he said, holding out his hand.
Maria ignored the offer, brushed past him and went down the stairs.
His car was a low-slung, snarling crimson beast.
A Maserati. A Lamborghini. A Ferrari. One of those, she was certain, but what would a born-and-bred New Yorker know? Subway trains, yes. Automobiles, no. The only certainty was that he drove fast, too fast, with a macho assurance that she tried not to let impress her.
But it did.
Was there a female alive who wouldn’t be impressed by a man so beautiful it hurt to look at him, driving a car that rumbled like a big, predatory animal? One hand was curved over the steering wheel. The other rested lightly on the gear shift lever.
Such competent hands. So powerful. His hands had been all over her the night they’d met. She could still feel them, if she closed her eyes. His fingertips playing with her nipples. His thumbs gently parting her labia. Her shocked cries that had quickly turned to sobs of ecstasy.
She felt the instant bloom of warmth between her thighs.
“Something the matter?”
His voice startled her. She looked at him and thought it was a good thing he didn’t have X-ray vision or he’d see straight through her clothes, see that she was wet, that her nipples were peaked.
“Maria?”
I want you, she thought dizzily, that’s what’s the matter.
“Are you worried about dinner tonight?”
No, she thought, on a faint wave of hysteria, not dinner.
“Don’t be. This is just my family.”
Dinner. She had to remember that. He was talking about dinner.
“Oh,” she said, and caught her bottom lip between her teeth.
Alex felt his muscles contract. Did she have to look so beautiful? Did she have to worry her lip that way? Damn it, this was not good. He should never have kissed her in the guesthouse. He’d taken two cold showers before he got dressed and he was still hard with wanting her.
What if he pulled the car over, took her in his arms and nipped that sweet bottom lip himself? Just lightly enough to make her moan and sigh and beg him…
“Family?” she said, and he blinked.
“Uh, yes. Family. My older brother, Sebastian. My baby brother, Andreas. My sister Katarina—everyone calls her Kitty. The only one missing will be Elissa. She’s in Paris.”
“So many people?”
The tip of her tongue slicked over that softly bitten, now undoubtedly sensitive bottom lip. By the time they reached the palace, he’d be completely out of his mind. When had this woman assumed such power over him? It made him angry, and his words were more harsh than he’d intended.
“Don’t tell me you’re nervous about meeting royalty, glyka mou. After all, you did fine with me the first time out.”
She swung toward him.
“I told you, I didn’t know who you were.”
“Right. You just happened to meet me on the street and when I suggested we go to bed, you said, hey, I have nothing else to do, so why not?”
It hadn’t been like that and he knew it. She’d been sweetly innocent; he’d seduced her with words, with caresses, with a need unlike any he’d ever experienced in all his thirty-one years. Except, it had all been a lie. She’d set him up. She had seduced him…
Hadn’t she?
“You know what, Alex?” she said, her voice shaking. “You’re a real bastard!”
She was right. What was between them was personal and had nothing to do with this evening’s gathering. Tonight was about plans for the national celebration of his mother’s birthday. Affairs of state came before everything else, a truth that had always been part of his life.
“Okay. Let’s start over. Ask me again about who’ll be at dinner tonight.”
Maria stared straight ahead. Alex sighed in resignation.
“You need to know these things, glyka mou. How else to prepare for the sight of Sebastian, who stands four feet tall and weighs three hundred pounds? Or to know that Andreas is in The Guinness Book of World Records for Worst Footballer of the Year?”
She swung toward him, as he’d hoped she would. “What?”
Alex grinned. “Don’t panic. We still tease Andreas over the time he missed six consecutive tries in a game—but we leave out the fact that he was only five years old at the time. As for Sebastian …” His grin broadened. “The truth is, except for a lack of hair anyplace but his knuckles and back, he’s not bad-looking. Well, he’s not as handsome as I am, of course …”
He couldn’t be.
Alex was joking, Maria knew. Still, what he’d said about being handsome was true. He was, without question, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen… And what did that have to do with anything? He was still exactly what she’d called him. No-good, self-centered and arrogant, and if she had not called him all those names yet, she surely would before the evening ended.
She sat back, folded her hands in her lap and told herself she’d get through whatever lay ahead because she had no other choice.
The Ferrari paused before the high gates outside the palace. A smartly uniformed soldier stepped from the guardhouse, approached, looked in at Alex, shot straight as a ramrod and delivered a perfect salute.
“Your Highness.”
“Stavros. It’s good to see you pretending to be a soldier again.” Maria looked at Alex in surprise. The soldier, still saluting, went on staring directly ahead. “Especially since we both know I can out-run, out-shoot, out-anything you choose when we have the chance to give it another try.”
The soldier’s lips twitched. “Your Highness is, as usual, full of, ah, full of air. Sir.”
Alex laughed and returned the salute. “At ease, Stavros. Good to see you back. The ankle’s okay?”
The soldier grinned. “It’s fine, sir. And your shoulder?”
“Good to go. You signed up for the next Games?”
“Absolutely, sir. And you?”
“Try and keep me away,” Alex said, smiling.
Another smart salute; the gates opened and they drove slowly down a wide, tree-lined avenue toward the broad marble steps that led to the front doors of the palace.
“You and that man know each other?” Maria said.
“For years. We went to nursery school together.” He smiled. “My mother’s modernist ideas won out that time. My father thought it was a mistake to educate me among what he tried not to call the commoners.”
“But he didn’t—I mean, the way he addressed you—”
“What’s the problem, sweetheart? Disappointed to find out some people don’t think of me as you do?”
He pulled up before the steps. A valet opened his door; another did the same for Maria. Ahead, the enormous entry doors swung open. To Maria’s surprise, she saw the world-famous King Aegeus and Queen Tia in the doorway.
“They