Resisting Alexandre (Knight Security 0.5) (7 page)

Stazzi cried out even while she continued to arch up and meet those thrusts, the pleasure intense as his thumb pressed and stroked her oversensitive clit and those fingers stroked deeply inside her.

“I’m going to take you so hard once we get back to the hotel.” Alexandre’s voice was guttural, his expression dark and fierce as he looked down at her. He was every inch a demanding and savage lover, rather than the urbane and sophisticated Prince Alexandre. “I’m going to take you everywhere. Be so deep inside you, I’ll fucking
own
you.”

Stazzi’s breath was a gasping sob as she felt her release surging over and through her for a second time, deeper and more intense than the first, as Alexandre’s fingers curled inside her to touch and stroke a place she never knew existed, and causing her juices to flow more copiously. That elusive G-spot? Stazzi didn’t care what it was, could only scream with pleasure this time as the intensity and length of her second orgasm claimed her and she lost all sense of anything but that overwhelming pleasure.

She had no idea how much time had passed when she finally came back to an awareness of her surroundings. Of Alexandre as he now lay half on her and half on the car seat rather than having his whole weight on top of her.

On the car seat!

The two of them were in the back of his limousine, with a driver and bodyguard seated up front. Okay, so there was a tinted privacy glass dividing the front and back of the car, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t been able to hear her screams.

“You’re okay,” Alexandre soothed, his fingers gentle as he caressed away the tears of pleasure from the dampness of her cheeks. “It’s okay, Anastazia—”

“Of course it isn’t okay!” she protested. She wanted to sit up, to tell him to stop the car and let her out here, but unfortunately, her body still felt boneless, even her arms too heavy for her to lift them. The most she could manage was to put her parted legs together now that he was no longer lying between them. “What did you do to me?” Her vision blurred with fresh and mortified tears.

“I only pleasured you. Damn it, it wasn’t my intention to frighten you,” he said with soft self-condemnation, unmoving, as if he didn’t want to alarm her.

As if Stazzi wasn’t spooked enough already!

She had never— It had never been like that for her before. Never.

She was twenty-seven years old, and there had been other men for her. Not many, but some. Men she had cared about, loved for a short time. Like Will— No,
not
like Will. The men before Will had cared for her too. But none of them had affected her like Alexandre had. She had never passed out from an overload of pleasure as it seemed she might have done with him.

“Anastazia?” Alexandre frowned his concern as the tears continued to trickle down her cheeks. “Did I frighten you?” He sat up and took her with him, straightening her dress before lifting her onto his thighs to hold her tightly in his arms, his face buried in the perfumed silk of her hair. “Please tell me I didn’t hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me.”

“But I frightened you with my intensity?” He knew he’d lost control for a few minutes.

“Not exactly.”

Alexandre gave an impatient shake of his head. “I need you to tell me how you feel. Tell me if I did something wrong.”

Her eyes were downcast as she gave a shake of her head and trembled in his arms, causing fresh tears to fall.

For a moment, Alexandre’s heart ceased to beat at the thought of having frightened her so much she couldn’t even talk to or look at him. “I know I was out of control.” His arms tightened about her. “But I never want to hurt you, Anastazia. Please, stop crying.”

“I’m not crying because you hurt me, Alexandre.” She raised her head to gaze at him through tear-wet lashes. “I’m crying because that was amazing. Totally crazy too,” she conceded wryly. “Sensual overload.” One of her hands moved up to his clenched jaw, fingers a light caress to ease his tension. “But now I need for you to take me home.”

Alexandre’s gut clenched at the thought of not being with her tonight. All night. “I know you’re worried about Lissa, but I seriously doubt she’ll be back to your apartment until the morning, and we would be more comfortable together at the hotel.” He glanced pointedly at the bodyguard in the front of the car. “Where I go, they go,” he reminded her.

“I realize that.” Stazzi sighed, her cheeks burning at the memory of her screams. Screams those men couldn’t have helped but overhear. “But the same doesn’t apply to me. And I do really need to go home. Alone. This is all… It’s too much too fast, Alexandre,” she added as his expression darkened.

“I’m only in London for a week,” he groaned as she moved out of his arms.

Stazzi knew that. As she knew also at the end of that week, this ruling prince would return to his island, and she would never see him again. She needed time, away from Alexandre, to gather together her fractured thoughts and emotions—and her shattered and satiated body—because when she was with him, she couldn’t think beyond the moment, let alone what the consequences might be of falling for this man.

It was only twenty-four hours since she had believed she would be agreeing to marry another man. This attraction to Alexandre could merely be a reaction to that, on the rebound, because she felt so hurt and humiliated—

I was attracted to him before I knew what a bastard Will is.

Well, yes, she had been, but it was an attraction she had denied, out of misplaced loyalty to Will. And despite now knowing of Will’s betrayal, she simply wasn’t the type to jump into bed with a man after knowing him for only one day.

I don’t seem to have any problem with that in the back of his limousine.

Because Alexandre was like no other man she had ever met. On the surface so suave and charming, controlled, but underneath that was the dark and intense savage who had made love to her while telling her he was going to “fucking own her.”

She gave a shiver, unsure whether it was one of apprehension or anticipation. And if it was the latter, what did that make her? What would it do to her to be owned by this man, body and soul, and then discarded, forgotten, when he returned to his Mediterranean island?

Alexandre was a prince, unmarried or even engaged, but she had no doubts that he would be, and not too far in the future. He was aged in his midthirties, a ruling prince, and one day very soon, he would need an heir. If she hadn’t been good enough for Will, she certainly wasn’t good enough for this rich-as-Croesus prince.

Nor, once Alexandre married, was she mistress material. It simply wasn’t in her to hurt another woman by sneaking around behind her back by having an affair with her husband. Her parents had brought her up never to do anything to another person she wouldn’t want done to her. Which meant she could never be any man’s mistress. Even more so when she could still feel the humiliation of knowing Will had cheated on her in that very same way.

And she was jumping way ahead of herself. Yes, there was no doubt that Alexandre wanted her now, tonight, maybe even for the rest of the week he was in London, but nothing he had said or done indicated he would be interested in continuing any sort of relationship with her once he returned to Androcco and his life there.

Better not to become involved in the first place—

“Have dinner with me tomorrow night. Just the two of us. At the hotel.”

“I can’t…” she groaned.

“You can,” Alexandre pressed, not touching her, but his proximity was overpowering nonetheless. “All you have to do is say yes. Say yes, Anastazia.”

“Ye— No,” she substituted with a decisive shake of her head. “This evening was…different,” she acknowledged ruefully as she thought of Lissa’s and Ash’s behavior, and the fact that her best friend was, in all probability, going to spend the night with the other man. That really was different. “I enjoyed this evening, I really did. But I’ve had a stressful couple of days and…and I don’t want to… Please understand, my last relationship ended only last night, and this—you and I, the attraction between us—could merely be a reaction to the abrupt ending of that relationship. I’m sorry.” She grimaced, heart sinking as that frown became even darker on Alexandre’s brow, his eyelids narrowing to slits over glittering eyes. No doubt as physical evidence he didn’t like what she had just said.

He confirmed that was the case by moving back to his own side of the car before pressing a button on a panel in the door. “Miss Carmichael’s apartment, if you please, Tomas,” he spoke into the intercom, giving the other man the address.

“Yes, Your Highness,” came the immediate response from the front of the limousine as the car immediately changed direction.

“I really am sorry, Alexandre.” Stazzi winced at the remoteness of his expression in profile as he looked out the side window rather than at her.

“No problem,” he dismissed tightly.

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the journey to Stazzi’s apartment. Her own feelings were ones of discomfort at that taut silence, but she had no idea how Alexandre felt or what he was thinking as he continued to keep his distance from her, physically as well as emotionally.

Finally, she couldn’t stand that silence any longer. “Are we parting as bad friends?”

Alexandre almost laughed at the ridiculousness of that question. He didn’t want to be
friends
with Anastazia. Damn it, he had wanted
her
, in his bed, before he even met her. He wanted her even more since meeting her. The last thing he wanted to hear from her was that her responses to him could just be on the rebound from her last boyfriend.

How fucking ironic was that? The international playboy prince who’d had any woman he wanted, now the ruling prince of Androcco, who had only to snap his fingers to have any woman he wanted, being told by the one woman he did want that her attraction to him might have been on the
fucking rebound
.

There had to be some sort of poetic justice in that.

All these years, Alexandre had never felt any more than a fleeting desire for the women he took to bed. Even though several of them had professed to be in love with him, he had never returned those feelings. Now the one woman he wanted so badly it made his teeth ache didn’t feel the same way about him.

Poetic justice, indeed.

“Alexandre, please…”

He turned at the sound of her beseeching tone. “What do you want from me, Anastazia? I listened to what you had to say, I accepted your decision, and you are now being driven back to your apartment, as requested. What else do you want from me?”

Her gaze roamed searchingly over his face for several seconds before her lashes lowered and she sighed before turning away. “Obviously, nothing else.”

Alexandre’s hands clenched on his thighs in his frustration with this situation. This was unchartered territory for him, and he had no idea what to do or say to break the tension that now existed between them.

There was so much he wanted to say. But he very much doubted Anastazia wanted to hear that he believed her ex-boyfriend was an idiot. That Alexandre had wanted her from the moment he saw her photograph on the hotel website. That he wanted her still. Ached with wanting her, in fact. No, Anastazia’s behavior made it clear she didn’t want to hear any of those things from him.

So he said nothing.

They arrived outside her apartment a few minutes later, Tomas parking the car before immediately getting out to come round to the back of the vehicle to open Anastazia’s door for her so she could step out onto the pavement.

“Don’t bother to get out.” She didn’t look directly at Alexandre as he would have slid across the seat to follow her. “Thank you for this evening. I— No matter what you may think, I did enjoy myself.” Her gaze was lowered to the pavement rather than him as she turned and walked away.

To hell with that!

Alexandre caught up with her as she was putting in the code to open the door and enter the building. He grasped her arm and swung her round to face him, his anger dissipating as she looked up at him with blue eyes swimming in tears. “Anastazia!” he groaned as he pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against him, his cheek resting on the top of her sweet-smelling hair.

Stazzi’s arms moved about Alexandre’s waist, her cheek pressed against his chest as her tears now dampened the front of his shirt. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

He snorted. “You do know that your ex-boyfriend is an idiot, don’t you?” He couldn’t hold back on that comment any longer.

She laughed without humor. “I do, yes.”

“Good.” Alexandre held her tighter still. “I’m not asking this time, Anastazia, I’m telling you. We’re having dinner together tomorrow evening at seven o’clock in my hotel suite.”

She lifted her head to look up at him quizzically. “Oh, we are, are we?”

“Yes.” He returned her gaze challengingly. “Dress casual. We’ll order room service, burgers maybe, and then we’ll watch a movie together of your choosing. Okay?”

Her smile was less strained. “Okay.”

“And if Daniel Meyers wants to know what you’re doing in my suite, you can tell him I want to discuss the arrangements for the rest of the week.” He dismissed that problem.

She eyed him teasingly. “What arrangements would they be?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” he announced arrogantly. “But you can rest assured they all involve the two of us getting to know each other better.”

“Okay,” she said again.

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all it took to get you to agree?” His brows rose. “A little bit of arrogance on my part?”

“Well, it was hardly little, and you are a prince…”

He winced. “Don’t remind me.”

She laughed softly. “Not as glamorous as it sounds?”

“Not glamorous at all.” He sighed with a pointed look at the bodyguards who had left the limousine and black SUV and were now standing only feet away in a protective circle, not quite in listening distance but close enough to make their presence felt. “No privacy either.”

Anastazia glanced at the other men too. “I see what you mean. Okay, burgers from room service and a movie tomorrow evening it is.”