Nina Bruhns - Capturing the Crown Bundle

He tilted his head, squinting up at her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Her need still pulsed within her, making her ache. She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, wishing she could think of something to say, something to diffuse the fierce sexual tension making the air feel so heavy.

Chase sat up, drawing the blanket close and carefully wrapping it around him.

“Sydney, don’t.” Though husky, his voice sounded tight, controlled, much like the man himself most of the time. If not for the hunger in his eyes, she’d think him unaffected. “Don’t try to seduce me.”

Seduce him? If he only knew how badly she wanted to and how hard she’d tried to resist him. She swallowed. “I’m not.”

Narrowing his gaze, he raked his hand through his hair. He looked away and cursed. “I don’t know what it is about you. I even see the promise of sex in your smile.”

“Sex in my smile?” Though she tossed his words back at him, a thrill ran through her at his words. “That sounds lovely, but it’s ridiculous. I’ve done nothing to entice you. I wouldn’t know how! I’ve never tried to seduce anyone in my life.”

He clenched his jaw and got to his feet, keeping the damn blanket snug around his waist. “But you have. Maybe you don’t realize it, but everything about you is a seduction. The way you move, the way you toss your head. Your smile, your voice…” Cursing under his breath, he took a step toward her and stopped, hands clenched at his sides. “You’d tempt a dead man straight into hell.”

“I—”

“I’m not finished. When I first saw you, I wondered. You weren’t Reginald’s usual type. But now I can better understand what the prince saw in you.”

Reginald. Hearing that name was like a dash of cold water. If Chase had wanted to hurt her, he’d succeeded admirably. Together, she and Reginald had created another life, and he’d spurned her. Not just her, but all of it. The man hadn’t wanted his own child. Exactly as her sire hadn’t wanted her.

She should be used to rejection, honestly. But that didn’t stop it from hurting. Hot tears stung the back of her throat. Damn hormones. She turned away, fist to her mouth.

Behind her, Chase snarled. “One mention of Reginald and that’s enough to bring you to tears? Did you truly care for him that much?”

He sounded furious. And hurt. Which was impossible. Either way, Sydney knew she shouldn’t care. Didn’t care. Hell, she wouldn’t care.

The rain had picked up again, mirroring her mood. On the edge of losing her fragile grip on self-control, she didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer, when it came right down to it.

“Who are you, Sydney Conner?” His hoarse voice told her he’d moved up behind her. He touched her shoulder, his hand impossibly gentle, and turned her to face him, pulling her close to his chest. Though she didn’t resist, she let him hold her, keeping herself rigid. Silently, he stroked her hair, while she fought back tears that came for no good reason.

“Go ahead and cry.”

Those four words, muttered against her hair by a man she suspected would rather miss every target on the firing range than soothe a weeping woman, pushed her over the edge.

She cried while he held her, this stranger who wasn’t a stranger, not any longer. Nearly dying in a plane crash and being stuck together on a deserted island had made him feel familiar. Intimately.

Her tears soaked his bare chest. Bare, muscular, hard chest. Dimly, this registered and, as her weeping subsided, she found herself longing to move the hand pressed against him. To splay her fingers, to stroke him slowly, to allow herself to indulge in all that masculinity right there under her fingertips.

His comment about seduction hadn’t been that far off the mark.

Good Lord! Had she truly become her mother? Gone totally over the edge? Though she’d already made one mistake her mother had made, she vowed she wouldn’t make another. If her affair with Reginald had made her this way, she needed to get back to the woman she’d been before.

This didn’t make her desire for him disappear, or even lessen. She still craved his touch, somehow addicted to something she’d never even had.

Hah! If he’d thought she’d been trying to seduce him before, what would he think if she gave in to her irrational need to caress him?

She wouldn’t. She’d made enough mistakes to last her entire twenty-four years, Reginald chief among them. She didn’t need to make one more.

Hiccuping, she sniffed and pushed herself away. “Sorry about that.” She wouldn’t look at him, her feminine vanity not wanting him to see her no doubt bright-red nose and swollen eyes.

He muttered something that sounded like “That’s okay.”

Though she waited, he made no move to leave, even though the drumming of the rain had all but stopped.

Wiping at her eyes, she managed a watery smile and gave the doorway a pointed look. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. The rain’s letting up. How about we go outside and forage for some breakfast?”

“What?” he stared at her as if he thought she’d lost her mind. “It’s barely dawn.”

“I’m pregnant,” she said crossly, then smiled to soften the sting of her tone. “Not only am I changing the subject, but I really am hungry.”

Crossing his arms, he swallowed. “You know, I keep forgetting you’re pregnant.”

One deep breath, then another. Soon, maybe her erratic heartbeat would slow down to normal. “It’s too soon for me to show.” Patting her still-flat abdomen, she grimaced. “Give it a few months. I’ve had so little time to actually enjoy my pregnancy. Every little girl dreams of the day when she’ll be pregnant and become a mommy.”

“Even a princess?”

She could see him relaxing in stages. “Yes, even a princess. I wanted to be able to luxuriate in it, wallow in it, you know? Instead, I’m trapped on an island with little food and no—”

“Luxuries.” He sounded so hard and so certain, she blinked.

“That’s not what I was going to say. I was thinking more of people. Friends that care.”

The look he gave her was skeptical. “Don’t tell me you don’t miss the life you had in Naessa. You made the papers often, you know. Your lifestyle was no secret. I saw your townhouse on the coast on that TV show. You lived like royalty.”

If only he knew. She’d filled her home with beautiful things, trying to fill the emptiness inside her. She’d been lonely more often than not, especially when she wasn’t traveling with the symphony.

But he didn’t know that. No one did. “I confess to missing some of it, yes.”

“What?” His voice was fierce, and his hazel eyes darkened. “Which do you miss most? The Egyptian cotton sheets? The fine restaurants? Or the chance to have Frost and French design your maternity clothes?”

“You know about them?”

“I’m in public relations. I have to keep up with the trends. Answer my question. Which do you miss the most?” He took a step closer, his face intent.

Heart caught in her throat, she stared at him.

He leaned close, and for one heart-stopping moment she thought he was going to kiss her. Worse, she knew if he did, this time she wouldn’t pull away.

Luckily for both of them, he caught himself in time.

Clearing her throat, she searched desperately for something to say to pretend she hadn’t noticed. Outside, the rain had slowed to a light patter on their metal roof.

“I really do miss my friends,” she said, inanely. “What about you?”

He shrugged.

“Since your business takes you out and about, I imagine you must have a large circle of friends.”