Anne McAllister - Luxury Escapes - A Mistake, A Prince and A Pregnancy / Hired by Her Husband / Captured and Crowned

The walls had been textured and were painted a bright white that contrasted with bold pieces of artwork and sleek, dark furniture. Whoever Maximo had hired to decorate had excellent taste. Maybe his wife had done it. The thought made her chest tighten.

He led her to a curved staircase, winding his arm around her waist and placing a hand over her stomach as they walked up to the second floor. She found the proprietary nature of the gesture oddly comforting rather than offensive, and that scared her. When they reached the landing she moved away from him, not wanting to draw any kind of comfort from his touch. That was not a road she was willing to go down.

He pulled her to him again, placing his hand back over her flat stomach, slowly pushing the hem of her shirt up, his dark eyes intent on hers. He stroked his fingers slowly over the bare skin of her belly, as though he had every right to. It wasn’t a gesture of ownership, but an acknowledgment of the fact that they shared something infinitely special.

Tears stung her eyes. It was his baby that she carried and she couldn’t deny the connection that he felt with their unborn child, or the connection it made her feel with him. His touch felt right, so right that the steadily growing anxiety that had been gnawing at her since her phone call about the lab mix-up was momentarily masked by the comfort the simple contact gave her.

She looked down at the place where his hand rested on her, his golden skin contrasting with her pale flesh. It fascinated her, held her attention, made her stomach tighten with a deep kind of longing that went way past the desire for something simply physical. But that was there, too. Part of her wished that he would continue moving his hand upward, palm her breast, squeeze her aching nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

She looked up, trying to break the spell that he had somehow woven around them. His face was inches from hers and she was awestruck by the perfection of his striking features. Even close up she couldn’t find a single flaw with his sensual mouth, his strong nose and jaw, his dark, compelling eyes. She found herself moving closer to him, leaning in, drawn by an instinct she couldn’t understand or control.

When his mouth brushed hers she held her lips still for a second. Then he moved, pressed his hand to the small of her back, closed the gap between them and brought her up against his hard body. She parted her lips, allowing the tip of his tongue to delve between them, to lightly tease her. It wasn’t a demanding kiss. It was a slow seduction of her body, her mind, her senses. She’d never been kissed like this, with this level of skill and sensuality.

She’d kissed men before. Mostly back in college when she’d bothered with the pretense of casual dating. But never had a kiss made her feel so hollow, so desirous for more, as if she was in need of something only this man possessed.

Always, the kiss itself had been the main event for her. Other kisses had either been nice, or not so nice, but never had they made her want to lean in, to press her body more firmly against a man, to rock her hips against his hard length to bring herself at least some small measure of satisfaction.

His tongue slid over hers and she felt it all the way in the core of her body. Muscles she’d never been aware of before clenched in anticipation of something much more intimate.

When Maximo pulled away she swayed slightly, her brain totally scrambled by the drugging power of his lips covering hers.

“Max,” she whispered, touching her lips, feeling for herself that they really were swollen and hot from the press of his mouth against them.

His mouth curved into a slow smile. “Max. I like that.”

The fog of desire was starting to clear and awareness was creeping into the fuzzy edges of her mind, shame mingling with her slowly ebbing arousal.

He placed his hand over her stomach again, his expression intense. “This is my baby that you carry, Alison. Our baby. I could not feel it more if you had conceived in my bed.” His accent was thicker than she’d ever heard it, his voice a husky rasp that made her nipples tighten and her pulse pound. “The attraction between us is very convenient.”

“Convenient?” Her tongue felt thick and clumsy, her mind still clouded by passion.

“Of course. How could it not be convenient for me to feel desire for my future wife?”

“YOUR future wife?” Her head was still fuzzy from the kiss, her limbs heavy with arousal, and she was certain she must have heard him wrong.

“Yes. I have thought it through and it is the only thing to be done.” He said it so pragmatically, as though anyone should be able to see his point.

“I’m not going to marry you,” she said, trying to match his tone. If he wanted to try to have an insane discussion as calmly as if they were talking about the weather then she was more than up to the challenge. She certainly wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of rattling her self-control more than once in a five-minute time span.

“Alison, I credit you with a very high level of intelligence, and given your career choice it’s obvious to me that you’re not only very smart, but very compassionate. With those two qualities I can’t imagine that you have not arrived at the same conclusion as me.”

“I fail to see how intelligence and compassion would lead me to conclude that you and I should get married.” But darn if it didn’t make her heart thunder harder in her chest. The thought of being married to a man like Maximo made her stomach turn over, and not in an unpleasant way.

“Logic would tell you that we won’t be able to share custody as well as we might if you are living in the U.S. and I’m living here. Also, there would be the added stigma of my child being illegitimate. An illegitimate child will not be eligible to assume the throne, neither will they be able to claim the bulk of their inheritance. Compassion would prevent you from allowing that to happen to our son or daughter.”

She shook her head. “That’s your version of logic, but that can’t possibly be the best thing for our child. We don’t even know each other. How could it be good for them to grow up in a home where their mother and father are essentially strangers?”

“But we would not be strangers,” he said, supremely confident. “We share some pretty combustible passion. I think we would become acquainted very quickly.”

“I don’t even know you. You expect that I would just sleep with you?”

He shrugged. “It is not unheard of for strangers to sleep together. And anyway, if we were married it would only be natural.”

For him it might be natural to just sleep with a woman because he wanted her. For her there was nothing natural about it. Nothing natural at all about the idea of getting naked with him, of letting him touch her everywhere, see her totally uncovered. Her whole body tensed at the thought.

She tightened her lips and forced her expression to remain neutral. “Sorry, I’m not in the market. If you remember from previous conversations I’m not interested in snagging myself a husband.”

“Yes, that was your original plan. But things have changed.”

“Nothing has changed. Not really. My goals haven’t changed.”

His jaw tensed. “But the reality has changed. Believe me, marriage was not on my ‘to do’ list, either. I’ve been married. I don’t believe I have the ability to fall in love again. No woman will ever replace my wife.”

“Don’t break your no-marriage vow on my account.”

He cupped her chin and tilted her face up. “I wouldn’t be breaking it on your account. This is for our child. I thought you would be able to see that, and that it would matter to you.”