They were in the state bedroom, and the flush on Ionanthe’s cheeks was caused more by her emotions than by the heat or the fire—even if she was desperately trying not to look as though she cared about the fact that the room possessed only one double bed, and not a particularly wide double bed at that.
‘What exactly is it that you expect me to complain about?’ Max asked quizzically.
Ionanthe gave him a suspicious look. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. We’re going to have to share this…this room, or risk Ariadne making a dreadful fuss.’
Max grinned at her. ‘Well, we certainly don’t want that, do we? She might send us to bed supperless.’
To her own disbelief Ionanthe discovered that she desperately wanted to giggle.
‘She can’t help it,’ she defended the elderly woman. ‘She’s always been the same. Grandfather used to get infuriated with her and threaten to sack her, but she’d just ignore him.’
‘Sensible woman.’ Max flicked back the heavy silk linen window hanging and informed her, ‘It’s still snowing.’
‘Then you’d better work some royal magic to make it stop,’ Ionanthe told him shortly, adding, ‘I don’t know why Ariadne assumed we’d be here for Christmas. I certainly never said that. When I telephoned I simply said that I’d be staying for a couple of nights.’
‘It won’t be the end of the world if we do have to stay, will it? Or do you have some special reason for wanting to leave?’
Ionanthe frowned. ‘No, of course not. I was thinking of you. It will be expected that you spend Christmas at the palace.’
Max crooked one eyebrow and asked wryly, ‘Why?’
For a reason Ionanthe didn’t want to dwell on, something about the way Max was looking at her made her feel stupidly flustered—hot and flustered, she acknowledged. Treacherously, the image of a fig, luscious and ripe and dusted in sugar, slipped tauntingly into view inside her head. Now she didn’t only feel flustered, she felt flushed as well—hot and flustered and—She licked uncomfortably dry lips. Surely this wasn’t what was going to happen to her every time she was alone in a bedroom with Max?
Ionanthe struggled to replace the teasing image inside her head with a blank screen, knowing that she still hadn’t answered Max’s question and that he was quite obviously expecting her to do so.
‘I wouldn’t have thought that state business comes to a halt just because it’s Christmas,’ she eventually replied, in a stuffy, righteous voice she hardly recognised as her own.
Max looked less than impressed by her argument, one dark eyebrow inclining even more steeply. ‘I can conduct what state business I have to attend to just as easily here as there. One of the benefits of modern technology,’ he informed her dryly, indicating the Blackberry he had just removed from his jacket pocket.
Ionanthe took a deep breath in an attempt to steady herself, and was then forced to exhale it faster than she’d wanted when she saw that Max had turned away from her to remove the jacket of his business suit. The fabric of his shirt stretched across the breadth of his shoulders as he did so. Beneath that shirt lay flesh so smooth and honed that just looking at it was an intensely sensual experience, never mind what happened when she actually touched it—and him.
What was the matter with her? Hadn’t she sat through innumerable business meetings during which men had removed their suit jackets without reacting like this?
But they hadn’t been Max.
Like the muffled sound of a warning bell rung so hard and deep that its echo shook the depths, Ionanthe felt a tr
emor of warning deep within her body.
No! It was inconceivable that this man should be the one to affect her like this. The adage that it was too late to lock the stable door after the horse had bolted had surely never been more appropriate.
Ionanthe knew that if Max were to turn to her now and take her in his arms she would not be able to resist him—or herself. But when he did turn back to her he merely said casually, ‘Didn’t Ariadne say something about having made you some of your favourite soup?’
‘You’re hungry?’ Ionanthe guessed.
She couldn’t look at him. She was too afraid that he might see her disappointment and guess its cause. It was so unfair that, having taken flight here to protect herself from him, all she had done was leave herself more vulnerable. They would be thrown far more into one another’s company here than they would ever have been at court.
Max studied Ionanthe’s downbent head. The fall of her hair revealed a glimpse of the elegant length of her neck, her skin as luminous as a pearl. Desire flamed through him, hot and urgent. He wanted to go to her and draw her back against him, tasting the soft warmth of her skin as he did so, waiting for her to turn in his arms and press herself into him, silently saying that she shared his need, offering him her lips, herself, her love…
Her love? Was that really what the hunger gnawing at him was? A need not just for the sexual pleasure he had already shared with her, but for something richer and deeper, something stronger, more primitive and eternal?
Was he hungry? Ionanthe had asked, and the true answer was yes, he was. Hungry for Ionanthe. Hungry for exactly what he had told himself he must not want because of the danger attached to it.
How had it happened? Max had no idea.
‘Yes, I’m hungry,’ he agreed.
His voice was flat and hard, and for some reason it left Ionanthe with an ache in her throat and smarting eyes.