Lynne Graham: Indian Prince's Hidden Son

‘That was incredible,’ Jai purred like a well-fed jungle cat in her ear, long fingers tracing the relaxed pout of her mouth and trailing down to her shoulder to smooth the skin before he pressed his mouth hungrily to the slope of her neck. ‘All I really want now is to do it all over again.’

The tension of discomfiture, of not knowing how to behave, beginning to rise in Willow ebbed. He was happy, she was happy, there was nothing to fret about. Again , though? She had assumed that men were once-only creatures in need of recovery time, but Jai was already shifting sensually against her again, his renewed arousal brushing her stomach. That he could still want her that much gratified her and she smiled up at him.

That smile full of sunshine disconcerted Jai. His conscience twinged and it took him a moment to recognise the unfamiliar prompting because it was rare for him to do anything that awakened such a reaction. ‘You do realise that this… us , isn’t likely to go anywhere?’ he murmured.

‘How could it? I’m not an idiot,’ Willow parried in surprise and embarrassment that he felt the need to tell her that they had no future as a couple.

‘I didn’t want you to get the wrong impression,’ Jai told her levelly. ‘I only do casual with women and I never raise expectations I have no plans to fulfil.’

‘Neither do I,’ Willow assured him cheerfully, secure in her conviction that he had not guessed that she was inexperienced and relieved because pride demanded that he believe that he was no big deal in her life. ‘I wouldn’t want you getting the wrong idea about me either.’

Faint colour edged Jai’s high sculpted cheekbones because no woman had ever dared to tell him that he was just a casual encounter. ‘Of course not.’

‘Then we’re both content,’ Willow concluded, refusing to recognise the little pang of hurt buried deep within her…hurt that she wasn’t a little different from other women in his eyes, more special than they were, somehow less of a casual event in his life. He was telling it as it was and she should be grateful for that. This way she knew exactly where she stood and she wouldn’t be weaving fantasies around phone calls that would never come or surprise visits. After all, he didn’t have her phone number and even she didn’t know where she’d eventually be living. She and Jai really were ships that passed in the night.

‘I want to kiss you again,’ Jai breathed with a raw edge to his dark deep voice.

He had only one night with her, and he wanted to make the very most of the best sex he had ever had. He would move on; she would move on. That was the way of the world, yet a stray shard of guilt and regret still pierced him because she was so open with him, so impervious to his wealth and status. He would check that she was all right from a safe distance, stay uninvolved, he promised himself. He supposed there were ties between them that he was refusing to acknowledge lest they make him uncomfortable. He had vague memories of her as a child, could remember her shouting his name in excitement at sports events and could recall the way her eyes had once clung to him as though magnetised. But she had grown out of all that. Of course, she had.

‘I’m cold,’ Willow admitted, snaking back from him to tug the edge of the duvet up and scramble under it with a convulsive shiver.

Jai peeled off his trousers, shaken that in his haste to possess her he had not even fully undressed. Nothing cool or sophisticated about that approach, he told himself ruefully, wondering what it was about her that had made him so downright desperate to have her. For the first time with a woman sexual hunger had overwhelmed him and crowded every other consideration out. It was something more than looks, maybe that unspoiled natural quality of hers, not to mention her disconcerting honesty in assuring him that he was just a one-night stand and that she had no desire to attach strings to him. Jai didn’t think he had ever been with a woman who didn’t want those strings, no matter how coolly she was trying to play the game. He was too rich and too powerful not to inspire women with ambitious hopes and plans.

‘Let me warm you,’ Jai urged, hauling her into contact with his hot, muscular length, driving out the shivers that had been assailing her.

And it all began again and this time she was wholly free of tension and insecurity and the excitement rose even faster for her. The pleasure stole her mind from her body and left her exhausted. She dropped into sleep, still melded to Jai and still amazed by what had happened between them. At some stage of the night he kissed her awake and made love to her again, slow and sure this time, and achingly sexy. It occurred to her that Jai had made her initiation into sex wondrously sensual but, even then, she knew she ached in bone and muscle and would be wrecked the next morning.

In the dull light of dawn, she was surprised when Jai shook her awake. Dressed in his dark suit and unshaven, he stood over her, studying her with wolf pale blue eyes that burned. He yanked back the duvet, rudely exposing her, and said roughly, ‘There’s blood all over the sheet! Did I hurt you?’

Willow wanted to die of humiliation where she sat and she snatched at the duvet in desperation and covered up the offending stain, her face burning as hot as a furnace. ‘Of course, you didn’t. I didn’t realise I would bleed the first time,’ she whispered shakily. ‘I know some women do but somehow I assumed I wouldn’t…’

Slow, painful comprehension gripped Jai and rocked him to the depths of his being. He stared down at her in dawning disbelief. ‘Are you saying that you were a virgin?’

‘Well, it’s not something I can lie about now, is it?’ Willow muttered in embarrassment, her chin coming up at a defiant tilt. ‘But I don’t know why you would think that you have a right to make a production out of something that is my business and nothing to do with you.’

‘I would not have chosen to sleep with you had I known I would be your first,’ Jai framed fiercely.

‘Well, if that was a personal concern of yours, you should’ve asked in advance,’ Willow countered mutinously. ‘It’s not as if I dragged you into bed!’

‘How the hell could I have guessed that you were still a virgin at your age?’ Jai demanded.

‘I’m only twenty-one. Twenty-two in a few months,’ she added stiffly. ‘I’m sure I’m not that unusual.’

Jai was not appeased. She was years younger than the women he usually took as lovers, but he hadn’t registered that fact the night before, had been too turned on and in too much of a hurry to register anything important, he conceded, angry at his own recklessness.

‘Perhaps not, but I assumed you were experienced,’ he admitted flatly.

‘Well, now you know different. Can we drop this discussion? I want to get washed and dressed,’ Willow told him without any expression at all, her small, slight body rigid with wounded pride and resentment in the bed as she continued to hug the duvet to her. ‘You know last night was lovely…but now you’ve ruined it.’

‘I’ll see you downstairs,’ Jai countered grimly.

Willow scrambled out of bed as soon as the door closed behind him and then winced, her body letting her know that such sudden energetic movements would be punished. Just at that moment she did not want that reminder of the intimacy they had shared when Jai, so obviously, regretted it. She pulled out fresh clothing and trekked across to the small shower room. A damp towel lay on the floor and she bent to scoop it up and lift it to her nose. It smelled ever so faintly of Jai while her body smelled even more strongly of him. Shame engulfed her in a drowning flood of regret. Evidently in sleeping with him she had made the wrong decision, but surely it had been her decision to make?