A part of Aleksander wanted to lie there, luxuriating in the silken muscles that gripped him more intimately than he’d ever felt before, but the raw animal part of him wanted more. He withdrew, pulling a whimpered protest from Henna, urging him back into her deeper and faster, and the sigh of satisfaction that met his every thrust was all he needed. Again and again, he drove them to the brink of her orgasm, and again and again, he pulled her back with gentle hands, telling himself that it was for Henna, that he wanted to bring her what she deserved.
It wasn’t a lie, but it also hid a truth. That, buried deep within her, was the closest thing to complete he’d ever felt and he wasn’t ready to let it go.
He luxuriated in the feeling, drawing it out until he thought that he might be able to take it with him for the rest of his life. And finally, when their bodies were sweat-soaked and fevered, when the pleas from her lips met the desperation in his chest, when his body trembled with the effort of holding back and could no longer fight, he thrust them into an abyss of such infinite pleasure he wasn’t sure he even wanted to find his way back.
CHAPTER TEN
ALEKSANDERWASSTILLsleeping when Henna quietly padded back into the room after her shower. She pulled the soft robe tighter around her shoulders as if to protect herself from the impact of the sight of the King of Svardia sprawled across the bed, the sheet draped across his abdomenjust aboutprotecting his modesty.
The thought drew a smile to her lips, then a warmth to her cheeks as she remembered that he had absolutely nothing to be modest about. Before they had fallen into an exhausted sleep, Aleksander had stayed true to his word and given her everything she could possibly have desired from a night with him. He had lavished her with pleasure and she had come apart beneath the ruthlessness of his focus. Even now a pulse between her legs flared to life and just for a moment she thought she could feel him again. There had been times when he had moved so deeply within her that the lines had blurred between them, as if they had become one and...and... Her heart stuttered. She had felt as if she had found a part of herself she’d never known she missed. As if she might never be lonely ever again.
The ground suddenly felt unsteady beneath her feet and her heart began to shake in her chest. She loved him. Shelovedhim. Complex and infuriating, but always with a core of unshakable integrity, he was a king who loved his country and a billionaire determined to make the world better in secret, a man who had compassion for her grief and no patience for his own. He was resolute in his convictions, ambitious and determined, but when the reins slipped he could be funny and charming, surprising and desperately sexy. Aleksander wasn’t easy, but his care for those he considered his was fierce. And sheknewhe cared for her. But he saw her as a threat to his country and to him—that was unacceptable and nothing she could say or do would change his mind.
Silencing the sob on her lips, she turned to the window but for the first time couldn’t see beyond the glass. Instead, she saw their return to Svardia, her office, welcoming Freya back, completing the final arrangements for her engagement party, travelling to London and all the little things that would be her future without Aleksander. From the moment they left this room she would never feel the heat of his body against hers, his lips against her skin, she would never feel warmed by the connection between them that had felt so pure and so private.
Her heart began to pound in her chest, her breath coming a little quicker, a cold sheen gathering at her nape, making her shiver, tremble in some awful contrast to how she had shaken in his arms. She was grieving for a loss she had refused to consider before, but now it demanded recognition, demanded to be heard. She loved him but she could never have him because he had closed himself off from anything that would remotely engage him emotionally. He had imprisoned himself within a maze so convoluted and complex, designed in grief and duty, that her heart just broke for him. Tears pressed at the corners of her eyes and her arms, wrapped tight around her ribs, were the only things holding her from falling apart.
A movement in the reflection of the window caught her eye. Aleksander was behind her, the white sheet wrapped around his waist, his body full of the kind of push-pull tension she’d begun to recognise in him when he wanted something but wouldn’t let himself have it—and it broke her heart that it was her.
‘Do you regret it?’ Aleksander winced as the words raked his throat raw. Everything he wanted to say but couldn’t was trying to get out, fighting tooth and nail. It was a question that he’d never had the chance to ask Kristine, but he wouldn’t shy away from the truth this time. Henna deserved more than his cowardice. Everything in him braced for the words that would send him to a hell of his own making. His hands were fisted, jaw clenched, thighs rock hard, holding him in place. He didn’t think he’d be able to bear it if—
‘No, Aleksander,’ she said, turning. The sincerity written across her face wasn’t even enough to break the hold that fear had on him. Her hand came up to the side of his face and he turned into her palm, seeking a solace he didn’t deserve. Warmth spread from her skin to his body, pushing back the cold darkness that had threatened to overwhelm him.
‘No,’ she said again, as if knowing he needed to hear it. Then she pressed her lips to his, once, twice, and a third time. Gentle brushes, slowly teasing his mouth open beneath her caress, and when he gave in it felt like his victory, not hers. Drawn into the sensual dance as if hypnotised by her touch, he pulled at the thin tie holding the robe together and slipped his hands beneath the silk to find the glory of her skin.
His hand swept around her waist and pulled her fiercely against his body and not once did she break the kiss or protest, even though they both knew she should. He lifted her up, bracing her with one arm as her legs wrapped around his hips, and he drew the silk away from her body and threw the sheet from his waist, bringing them skin to skin in a way that had them both trembling in seconds.
She fitted against him as if she’d been made to be there and everything in him roared against the restraint that pulled him back from simply plunging deep within her, seduced by the need to slide skin to skin with no barrier between them. Need was a war cry in his mind, but one he would never give in to.
He took them to the bed, aware of just how little it had taken for them to go from caress to carnal and the look in her lust-filled gaze appeared dazed by the same thought. ‘I can—’
‘Finish what you started, Your Majesty,’ she interrupted, the challenge, the tease, the desire so clear beneath the command she had uttered, he delighted in it and determined to do just as she had asked.
‘Henna?’
She turned to see Lisbeth coming down the corridor towards her. She smiled at the young woman she had worked with for three years, who would—happily—be taking over as Freya’s lady-in-waiting after Henna left. And then her smile turned into a frown when she saw the first look of concern mar Lisbeth’s features since accepting her promotion.
‘Is everything okay?’ Immediately her thoughts flew to Freya, then Marit, and finally her heart stopped altogether when she thought of something happening to—
‘Yes, yes.’ She nodded, a little frantically. Henna had never seen her so unsettled, and it wouldn’t bode well for her future if she didn’t get that under control. ‘I just... Are you going to your office?’
‘Yes, I left some paperwork there.’
‘Right, only...’
Henna heard her office door open behind her and turned to find Freya, leaning half out of it. ‘Ah, there you are. Can you...?’ She beckoned Henna forward.
Had Freya been looking for her? As promised, when she and Kjell had returned from their break, the two friends had spent an entire day together, no work, just catching up. It had been wonderful and Freya’s newfound happiness was glorious to see.
But what about you? You deserve your happiness.
Her father’s voice had whispered into her mind as she’d laughed and smiled with her closest friend. Twice Freya had asked if she were okay. Both times, she’d been thinking of Aleksander and both times she’d lied and said she was fine.
She had thought it would stop when they returned to Svardia—the strange sense that she knew where he was. It was a kind of foresight that warned her when he was near, raising the hair on her arms and neck, her pulse suddenly beginning to spin out of rhythm. Unable to marshal the reaction she had to him, it was as if he owned her, body and soul. The battle between fire and ice raging across her body made a part of her long for the end of her notice period but the other cling on desperately, hoping against all odds that he might change his mind.
And then she realised how foolish that was. As if he, King of Svardia, would pickher. That voice sounded horribly like Viveca’s, but she couldn’t shake it off. Henna had told him the truth in Macau. She didn’t regret spending that one night with him. If that was all she would ever have, she would keep it with her for the rest of her life. But she wished she’d known beforehand just how much it wouldhurt.
‘Come on.’ Freya hurried just as Henna’s feet grew heavier. Despite Freya’s and Lisbeth’s now palpable excitement, Henna was certain that Aleksander was in her office. Determining to relax, Henna let the two pull her into her office, where—