Rafe raised one dark, strong eyebrow. ‘Anything?’
She shouldn’t have said that. Not anything,almostanything. She pressed back in her chair. The delicate, wooden back crushed into her spine.
Rafe stood. He had a look of predatory intent on his face. Her heart beat faster, which only made her head throb more. Though if she didn’t have so much of a headache, she might have been more worried. But her voice seemed paralysed as he walked towards her, every movement languid and slow.
‘I understand. It’s been a difficult day for you. That’s why you have a headache,’ he murmured. ‘I can help with that.’
He moved behind her. The heat of his proximity was warm against her back. She tried to ignore him standing there, but the feel of his presence trickled down her spine like warm water.
‘What are you doing?’ She squirmed in her chair, trying to see what he was up to. Rafe stood out of her eye line. Without him to focus on in front of her, the whole room seemed too light and bright once more. She winced and shut her eyes against it. All she craved was a few moments of peace, for the pain to leave her. Physicalandemotional.
‘You’re tense. It’s clear in the way you hold yourself. If what I do doesn’t help, I’ll stop. Let me touch you.’ Rafe placed his hands on her shoulders. Firm, warm. Solid and, in the strangest of ways, comforting, as if through his touch he could absorb some of what plagued her.
‘You’re carrying the weight of the country’s grief, as well as your own, on your shoulders. For a few moments, let it rest.’ He pressed his thumbs either side of her spine and she arched back at the exquisite ache of tight muscles objecting under his forceful fingers. ‘Let me know if you want me to stop.’
His voice was a soothing murmur as he dug his thumbs a bit lower.Oh, there.Lise stifled a moan. Rafe didn’t stop the journey of his strong, intense fingertips circling either side of her upper back, finding trigger points she didn’t know she had. Working them under his clever fingers till they melted away. She’d had massages by therapists after her skiing, but it had been nothing like this. The intensity that made her forget everything. The hurt, the day. All she concentrated on was the pressure of his hands on her spine.
‘No.’ Her voice sounded far away. He lifted his fingers. ‘Don’t stop.’
He moved his hands towards her neck, the pressure making her soft and pliable. Melting her. She dropped her head forwards, closed her eyes. The relief exquisite as he dug in relentlessly. Rafe ran his thumb over a tight spot.
‘Right there,’ he said, and she exhaled. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched her, someone who might care. Certainly not her family. Yet all she could do was soften under his ministrations.
He left her upper back and slid his hands to her neck, a tremor skipping down her spine as he gentled for a moment, stroking his thumbs up and down as if searching. His fingers firmed on a tender spot at the base of her skull. Who moaned? Was it her? Rafe chuckled.
‘Does that feel good, Lise?’ His voice was all gentle temptation. She couldn’t resist listening to the way her name rolled from his tongue. ‘If you allow me nothing else, let me give you this.’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was a bare whisper as he kept working her tight muscles, softening the knots in her neck. He scraped his fingers across her scalp and eased her head back till it leaned against his hard abdomen. She didn’t care about anything. The voice of crippling self-doubt fell silent. The sharp edges of her life blurring and softening. As he gentled the stroke of his hands through her hair, she could purr like a cat. And when he rubbed the burn at her temples time lost all meaning. It could have been moments or hours since she’d been sitting here.
‘Please.’ Her body had melted like wax under a flame. Rafe ran his hands through her hair as if straightening it, then slid one hand round the front of her throat, cupping her jaw. He leaned in, mouth at her ear, his warm breath a gentle caress as she tipped her head back to rest on his shoulder.
‘I’ll give you anything you want.’
She didn’t know what she’d been asking for. For him to stop? For him to keep going? She couldn’t say. Her tongue, thick in her mouth. Her nipples tightened under her top. She wanted Rafe to slide his hand down her chest, ease the ache with his talented fingers.
‘Anything. You only need to ask for it,’ Rafe whispered, each syllable full of dark promise. Every part of her in a dream as his lips traced the soft flesh behind her ear, the barest of brushes, which set her body on fire.
Anything. He’d give heranything...except, he couldn’t. She opened her eyes, blinking slowly to focus. Her freedom, her family. They were all irrevocably lost. All she could do now was to ensure that what had happened to her would happen to no one else. She stiffened. Rafe could offer hernothing.
‘I want you to stop now.’ Her voice came out as a rasp, raw and pained.
He stopped. Immediately. She hated herself for missing his touch, an empty, bereft sensation. It proved her weak, as she’d known. One touch and she was ready to throw herself into his arms, welcome him to her bed. He stepped in front of her, looking down as solid and immovable as the mountains surrounding the palace. She wished she could take some of that strength for herself but taking anything from him was a vulnerability he could exploit.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You’re exhausted, and I’m being selfish. What my bride needs is a dark room, a soft pillow, a warm bed and sleep. I’ll ask the kitchens to send dinner to you here. I can look after myself.’ He brushed his knuckles against her cheek. Damn him and his gentle voice, his understanding. Because she wanted it, craved it. She closed her eyes, as he stroked her skin again. Shutting out the unbearable tenderness in his gaze. ‘I hope you’re feeling better, Lise.’
She heard the door snick as he left her alone, as she’d asked. But worse than the caring he’d shown. Worse than succumbing so easily to his touch. Worse even than the terrible sense of loss of his hands on her body...
Her infernal headache was gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
IFRAFECOULDhave developed a perfect torture, it would have been the exquisite agony of touching his wife with no early prospect of release. All night he’d had dreams of her, dressed in the magnificent sheer negligee that had lain on her bed. How it would hang on her body, showing tantalising shadows of what lay underneath. Those thoughts had morphed into imagining what she wore to bed each night, which meant all he’d been plagued by were visions of her lying naked on pristine white sheets.
Now he was in a car with Lise, driving the winding roads to his ancestral home in the mountains. The delicious smell of her, like wildflowers and rain. Everything about her taunted him in this closed-in space. Her golden hair, which had slipped like cornsilk through his fingers. All the softness of her that he craved to sink into. Her breathy moans. Those intoxicating sounds he could listen to again and again. Dreams of him over her, buried deep inside her body. The way she melted under his fingertips. All pliant. Willing.Please.
He had no doubt she’d wanted him last night. He was hard at the thought.
But he ruthlessly crushed those fantasies, for now. These few precious days away were being sold to Lise as shoring up the myth of their relationship for a curious public but the reality, for him, was so much more. Which was why he’d driven here rather than allow them to be chauffeured in a car with a little fluttering flag whilst they sat regally in the rear. Sure, there was security following at a respectful distance exactly the way he’d demanded, much to their protestation, but if there was one thing they’d learn, he always had his way. Lise needed reminding that, apart from being Queen, she was a woman with needs and desires. That she could still indulge in simple pleasures without being overwhelmed by misplaced guilt.