Royal's Untouched Love (6 page)

"Oh, of course. I'll respect any boundaries that you put up," he said peaceably.

When the waiter came to get their plates, she thanked him, and Jaque touched her hand lightly.

"I love the way your voice sounds, it reminds me of velvet brushed over skin."

She would have responded to that, but then her brain helpfully supplied her an image of Jaque draped in nothing but red velvet, and she only sputtered instead.

When it came time to order dessert, Jaque grinned.

"I can imagine that if you were kissed, you would taste as warm and as smoky as burned sugar."

Her eyes went wide, and while she was still staring at him, he ordered a dessert for them to share, waving away any objections she had after the fact.

The dessert, when it came, was a perfect scoop of vanilla ice cream in some kind of crisp golden pastry. Drizzled over the top in an expert intricate design was a sauce that she quickly realized was singed cinnamon sugar.

When Heidi took her first bite, she glanced up to see Jaque looking right into her eyes. She thought that she had never seen eyes so blue. She had never seen a man look at her the way that he did.

Heidi felt a deep warmth course through her, as if there was a gentle fire licking at her insides. She had had kisses that felt less intense than that look.

"You're beautiful," she murmured, too entranced to even be embarrassed by it.

Jaque, for all his suave good nature, looked genuinely taken aback. "I am?" he asked, and though she felt a deep blush come up her cheeks, she nodded.

"Yes, I mean, I'm sure you know that you're good looking, but this close, when you look the way you look now? You're beautiful. Almost
… not like a man, but a statue, or some other piece of art. That you were created only to please the person looking at you."

"I think I like the idea of pleasing the person looking at me very much," he said quietly.

To her fevered mind, it almost sounded like an invitation, but she dismissed it. Surely it wasn't. Princes didn't make invitations to girls like her, no matter what jobs they gave them or where they took them for dinner.

The topics turned to lighter things, but that deep and pervasive warmth did not go away. Instead, when he took her hand to help her up from the table, it only intensified.

This time, when she walked through the restaurant, she didn't think for a moment about the women who were dressed so much more finely than she was, or the men who had more money than her entire hometown. Instead, she kept sneaking glances at Jaque, letting the warmth inside her rise up.

When he went to give his ticket to the valet, she stood in a small alcove in front of the restaurant. The night was warm, but there was a cool chill to the wind. Absently, Heidi rubbed her hands up and down her arms to keep warm.

To her surprise, Jaque came up, and he set his hands over hers, pulling her a little closer.

"It's going to be a cool night," he murmured, as if they did this every weekend.

"I can tell," she murmured. "I've been noticing it cooling down a bit."

"You are so beautiful," he said abruptly. His hand came out to brush against her cheek, sending a tremble through her body. When he pulled it away, everything in her only yearned to have it back.

"When I'm with you, I feel beautiful," she said, looking up at him. "When I'm with you … it feels as if everything is possible."

He laughed at her words, and then he touched her chin. It reminded her abruptly of the first time they had met, when he had looked her in the eyes and reminded her of her own worth.

"Kiss me," she whispered.

It was so soft that he might have missed it entirely. He might have chosen to ignore it, or to push her away, laughing at how seriously she was taking his little flirtation. He did none of those things.

Slowly, he bent down to brush his lips across hers, the very tip of his tongue running out to caress her tender flesh. She could feel that heat inside herself responding to him, wanting him, and needing him in a way that she could barely understand.

Somehow he was suddenly leaning into her, pressing her back against the stone of the building behind them. She could feel and not just guess at the muscles of his formidable frame. She felt utterly hidden from the world as they shared this pleasure.

At least, she felt hidden until a scuffing of a foot on the cobbles warned them both that the valet had returned. They pulled apart just in time, and Heidi was relatively certain that good training was the only reason the valet could look so calm.

"Your car, sir."

"Thank you."

They got into the car in silence, their seat belts clicking locked at the precise same moment. In the plush leather interior of the Ferrari, it felt as if she was somehow in a totally different world than the one that she had left. Suddenly, everything was different, and nothing felt as simple as it had when she was kissing Jaque—her boss, she realized with a cringe—against the wall of an exotic restaurant.

Jaque started to drive, and after a moment, he started to talk. His voice was as level as a board, warm and welcoming, but perhaps there was something distant about it.

"So that was a thing that happened," he said with a slight laugh.

She could still feel the fire inside her, dimmer and lower now, perhaps, but still hot. It wasn't just "a thing that happened" to her, but she had no idea how to convey that to him.

"I … it certainly was," she said. Heidi was not sure that she had ever felt so much like a country mouse as she did right then.

"I think that if I had my way, I would take you home," he said consideringly. "I would spread you out over my bed, and let all of that glorious red hair of yours free. I would kiss you, and I would touch you in all the ways that I have imagined doing in these last few hours."

"But you're not going to?" she asked, hearing a plaintive note in her voice.

He laughed, and now she could detect a rough note in it. There was something longing there, and something more than a little wild as well.

"That rather depends on you," he said. "I don't make it a habit to put my employees, particularly my new, young, and female employees into situations that they can't say no to. I want you to know, here and now, that no matter what happens, what you choose or do not choose, it will not harm your position with LaMer Enterprises. I have worked too long to gather the best, and I don't let them go so easily. Do you understand?"

"I … I think I do …"

"I want you in my bed," Jaque said bluntly. "I want to please you, and I want you to please me. That is something I am certain about. However, what I also have to be certain about is that it is your choice. I want you to crave this as much as I do. I need to know that you know what you are doing."

Briefly, Heidi's mind flickered to her past romantic encounters, if they could be called that at all. She remembered batting away one man's hand. She remembered standing up and going home when it had proved too strange, too off. Somehow, deep in her body, she knew that what she agreed to do with Jaque would be different.

Are you ready?
Heidi asked herself.
Are you dead sure?

No
. She didn't know anything for sure, but right now, that seemed like less of a terrible thing than it might be. She didn't know, but she did want, and that would be well enough.

"I think," she said slowly, "that I would like you to take me to your home."

"And?"

"And I think I would like you to take me to bed. With you. So we can … we can give each other pleasure like you said."

For some reason, it did not seem like Jaque was expecting her to say that. He choked a little, glancing at her. "As my lady commands," was all he could say, and they drove through the night.

*

If she had had to guess where Jaque lived, she would have said that her employer would be most likely found in the exquisite high-rises that framed Athens' financial district. She would have thought that he would have a gorgeously modern palace set aside for his own use.

Instead, he drove her a short distance to a startlingly isolated quay, one that was protected by a solid brick wall and a security guard on duty.

"Where are we?" she asked, slightly nervous.

He grinned. "You've been so brave so far, keep your nerve just a little longer," he said with a smile. "This quay belongs to LaMer Enterprises, a place where we can perform small repairs and do some preliminary testing on newer models. Sometimes, I work down here, and at some point, I decided that I'd rather be here than in town."

To her surprise, he parked his car and led her to a barge that was docked alongside one of the yachts that he must have been talking about. They crossed the narrow gangplank, and when he unlocked the door and turned on the light, she gasped.

The space was generous, easily as large as a small apartment in Athens. There were hints of modernity in the enormous flat screen television and the sound system, but otherwise, there was a kind of old-world charm to it. There were worn woven rugs on the floor, gorgeous black sheepskins thrown over the couches, and at the very rear of the barge, raised up on its own pedestal, was an enormous bed.

"This is gorgeous," she said. "Did you buy it as is from an early twentieth century expatriate?"

Jaque chuckled a little at her wonder. "It does rather look like that, doesn't it?" he admitted. "No, when I found La Bellissima, she was a bit of a wreck. I did most of the repairs on my own, and when she was seaworthy, I furnished her as well. Some of these things belonged to my father. The rest I have simply collected myself. I am glad you like the place."

"Oh, I love it," she exclaimed, but when she turned around, Jaque was far closer than she had thought. If she took another step, she would stand chest to chest with him. A part of her pointed out that she could feel his warmth, the bulk of that gorgeous body, if she did, but for some reason, she hung back.

As if he sensed her reticence, he cocked his head to one side. "Have you changed your mind?" he asked. There was a hint of regret in his tone, but more, there was the complete and utter acceptance of whatever it was she chose.

Heidi realized that whatever she decided, he would be fine with it, and that was something rare and special. "Not at all," she said with determination.

As if to seal her resolve, she did take those two steps towards him. Without thinking of what she was doing next, she threw her arms around his shoulders, looking up into his eyes. She expected him to take over, to kiss her as he had in front of the restaurant, but instead, there was only a deep merriment in his expression.

"What a little puzzle you are," he said, and she felt a blush come over her cheeks.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked, and he ran his hands up her back. His hands were warm, and she imagined how his dark hands would look sliding up her pale back.

"You are … an impressive enigma of a woman. When I met you, you seemed as if you were too afraid to say something if you were on fire. And now, the woman that I have taken to dinner is someone else entirely, someone confident and skilled in herself, so much so that I figured that the mouse was gone."

"And no, here she is again," said Heidi with some regret, but Jaque only laughed.

"I thought she was beautiful as well," he said, his voice lowering. "I can't figure you out. You're … innocent and seductive, beguiling and utterly transparent. All I know is that right now, I need to kiss you like I need to breathe."

Her breath escaped her in a wishful sigh, and she tilted her head back. Now she could look into his extraordinary blue eyes, as wild as the sea itself.

"Kiss me," she whispered, and that was all she needed to say.

His mouth descended onto hers with the hunger that she had glimpsed before. This was a kind of need that she had never encountered before, something that was completely absent in the callow men that had tried similar things. It was passionate and wanting, but there was something so wonderfully safe about it. She knew this man, and she knew that he would never hurt her. Heidi gave herself up to his embrace, clinging to him with all her strength.

Abruptly, he pulled away, but before she could even protest, he lifted her up into his arms.

"I have waited for this too long to waste time in the middle of the floor," Jaque said with a grin, striding towards the bed.

He laid her down at the center of the bed, and she gasped at how soft it was, how gorgeously sleek the sheets felt.

She reached for the hem of her skirt, but with gentle, deft fingers, Jaque started to undress her. In a matter of moments, she lay naked in front of him. Instead of immediately touching her, he sat back on his heels to look at her, frankly admiring.

Heidi had never been studied so closely by anyone, let alone a man like Jaque before. She blushed and turned away, but he chuckled, his voice thick with desire. "So beautiful," he said.

Finally, he pulled her hair loose, letting it spray across the black covers just like he said he would. Then, and only then did he start to kiss her.

She whimpered as he stretched out over her, his fine clothes stroking over her bare skin gently. She could feel her nipples become erect when she felt his shirt brush over them. When one muscular thigh slid along the soft skin of her knee, she was oddly and beautifully sensitive to it.

"I want you naked too," she whispered, and with nothing more than that, Jaque started to strip. He revealed a muscular frame that came from hard work rather than days at the gym, and skin that was beautifully bronzed all over. She knew that he was of Swedish descent, but his time in the business must have taken him to places with hotter suns than Stockholm.

"Do I please you?" he asked, his voice throbbing with amusement as he knelt beside her.

Without intending to, her eyes dropped down to his cock, half hard and larger than she thought it would be. Biting her lip, she nodded, and he laughed outright.

"You are such a breath of fresh air, my little American," he purred. "Let's see if I can make you feel as good as I promised …"