CAITLIN CREWS - One Reckless Decision - Majesty, Mistress...Missing Heir / Katrakis's Last Mistress / Princess From the Past

She had come here for him. For Tariq. For this raging passion that coursed through her veins and intoxicated her, this all-consuming desire that the intervening years and her own sacrifices had failed to douse in any way.

With a muttered oath that even she wasn’t sure was a cry of desperation or a simple curse, Jessa rocked forward and to her feet. Restlessly—agitation making her body feel jerky and clumsy—she pushed herself away from the table and blindly headed toward the wrought-iron railing that seemed to frame the Paris street five stories below her feet as much as protect her from falling into it.

The truth seemed as cold as the autumn night, now that she had moved away from the brazier that hovered near the table—and the far more consuming fire that Tariq seemed to light in her.

She wanted him. Arguing with herself did nothing to stop it. She had spent the whole day determined to simply not be at home when he sent his car for her, and yet she had found herself immersed in the bath by half past four. She had ordered herself not to answer the door when the driver rang, but she had had the door open and her wrap around her shoulders before he could press the button a second time.

“Surely this should not distress you,” Tariq said from behind her. Too close behind her, and once more she had not heard him move. Jessa closed her eyes. If she pretended, it was almost as if he was the magical, trustworthy lover she had believed him to be so long ago, and she the same starry-eyed, besotted girl. “It is a simple dinner, in a lovely place. What is there to upset you here?”

What, indeed? Only her own betrayal of all she’d thought she believed, all she thought she had gained in the years since his departure. What was that next to a luxurious meal on a Paris rooftop with the man she should avoid above all others?

“Perhaps you do not know me as well as you think,” she replied, her voice ragged with all the emotion she fought to keep hidden. Or perhaps she did not know herself.

“Not for lack of trying,” Tariq murmured. “But you will keep your mysteries, won’t you?”

It was no surprise when his warm, strong hands cupped her shoulders, then stretched wide to test her flesh against his fingers, sending inevitable currents of desire tingling down her arms. She let out a sigh and bowed her head.

Perhaps this was inevitable. Perhaps this had always been meant to happen, somehow. She had never had the chance to say her goodbyes to Tariq, her fantasy lover, had she? She had run away to a friend’s flat in Brighton to get her head together. The man she had loved had disappeared, and she learned soon after that he had never existed. But there had been no warning, no opportunity to express her feelings with the knowledge that it was their last time together.

A rebellious, outrageous thought wormed its way through her then, making her catch her breath.

What if she took, instead of lost? What if she claimed, instead of letting herself be deprived? What if she was the one in control, and no longer so passive, so submissive? What if she was the one who needed to get him out of her system, and not the other way around?

She turned in his loose grip, and leaned against the railing, tipping her head back so she could look him in the eye. What if she made this about what she wanted?

And what she wanted was the one last night she’d never had. She wanted to say her goodbyes—and it didn’t hurt that in giving him one night, in taking it for herself, she was acknowledging that it could never be more than that between them. This was a memory, nothing more.

“I will give you one night,” she said, before she lost her nerve. And then it was said, and there was no taking it back.

He froze. His face lost all expression, though his dark eyes glittered with jade fire. She had surprised him. Good.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, enunciating each word very carefully, as if he thought he had misheard her, somehow. It made Jessa feel bolder. “What do you mean?”

“Must I repeat myself?” she asked, taking too much pleasure in tossing his own words back at him. She felt the power of this choice surge through her. She was the one in charge. She was the one who decided whether or not she would burn on this particular fire. And then she would walk away and finally be done with him. It would be like being reborn. “I don’t recall you being so slow—”

“You must forgive me,” he interrupted her with precious little civility, his teeth bared in something not at all as mild as a smile. “But why would you change your mind so suddenly?”

“Maybe I’ve considered things in a different light,” Jessa said. Did she have to explain this to him, when she could hardly explain it to herself? She raised her brows. “Maybe I’m interested in the same things that you’re interested in. Putting the past behind us, once and for all.”

“For old time’s sake?” he asked. He moved closer, his big body seeming to block out the City of Lights. Tension radiated from every part of him, and she knew she should be afraid of what he could do to her, what he could make her feel. She knew she should feel intimidated, outmatched once again.

But this was the one place where it didn’t matter if he was a king and she a commoner. He wanted her with the same unwelcome intensity that she wanted him. In this, at least, they were equals. They matched.

She felt her mouth curve slightly into a smile that was as old as time, and spoke of a knowledge she had never put into words before, never felt so completely, down into her bones.

“What do you care?” she taunted him softly, daring him, challenging him.

His eyes went darker, his mouth almost grim with the passion she could feel surging through her veins.

“You are right,” he said, his voice hoarse, and rough against her, though she welcomed it. Exulted in it. “I do not care at all.”

His mouth came down on hers in something like fury, though it was much sweeter. Once again, he tasted her and went wild, and yet he merely kissed her, angling his head to better plumb the depths of her mouth, to intoxicate himself with her, with the feel of her soft body pressed against his. Her softness to his hardness. Her moan against his lips.

He had been prepared to seduce her if he had to. He had not been prepared for her to be the aggressor, and the surprise of it had desire raging through him.

“Be certain this is what you want,” he growled, lifting his head and scanning her expression with fierce intensity. Her eyes were glazed with passion, her lips swollen from his kisses. Surely this would put an end to all the madness, all the nights he’d woken and reached for the phantom woman who was never there.

“Have I asked you to stop?” she asked, her breath uneven, her tone pure bravado. She tilted her stubborn chin into the air. “If you’ve changed your mind—”

“I am not the one who required so many games to achieve this goal,” he reminded her, passion making his voice harsh. “I made my proposal from the start, hiding nothing.”

“It is up to you,” she said, her eyes narrowing in a maddening, challenging manner, her words infused with a certain strength he didn’t understand. Who did Jessa Heath think she was that she so consistently, so foolishly, stood up to him, all the while refusing to tell him anything about her life, claiming she could only bore him? He could not recall the last person who had defied, much less taunted, him. Only Jessa dared.

A warning bell rang somewhere deep inside of him, but he ignored it.

“You will find that most things are, in fact, up to me,” he replied, reminding them both that he, not she, was the one in charge, no matter how conciliatory he might act when it suited him.