Page 42 of Crowning His Lost Princess

“There’s absolutely no reason that you can’t hold on to that land if you wish it,” he said, roughly. His attention was on her linked hands again. “I will instruct my people to buy it tomorrow. It is easy enough to hire someone to tend to it.”

“But it’s not mine,” she said quietly. And then, though it hurt, “it was never mine. If my mother doesn’t want it, then it must belong instead to Princess Amalia.”

Cayetano let out a derisive sound. “There is no possibility on this earth that a spoiled princess like Amalia will ever wish to dirty her hands. And certainly not somewhere so far away from the beaches of Positano or St. Tropez.”

“Perhaps a princess would not.” Delaney kept her gaze trained on him. “But she’s not a princess, is she?”

And something seemed to swell between them. It wasn’t as simple as heat. She almost wanted to call it something else, something more likevulnerable—

But Cayetano made another noise, this one a deep rumble of need that seemed to lodge itself deep inside her. And then he was moving from his chair, sweeping her up from her seat and into his arms, pausing only to fuse his mouth to hers once more.

There was a part of her that wanted to protest, because she was sure that something momentous had happened here. And that if they only stayedright here, in this odd little moment where she was sure she could see parts of him he normally hid, they could make something kindle to life—

But his kiss was hard and hot, demanding her focus. Commanding her full attention.

She hardly knew what was happening when he began to move, carrying her out onto the balcony again. But he didn’t stop there. He continued walking, still holding her aloft, before shouldering his way in through a different set of doors.

His bedroom, she understood in a haze as he laid her down on the high, imposing bed, and settled himself half beside her and half on top of her.

And then he kissed her more. Deeper. Harder. In a way that made it clear that he’d been holding himself back before.

This was different. This was raw, unchained.

Beautiful, something in her whispered.

And he built the same storm, leading her even more quickly this time toward the same edge.

Delaney had some faint presence of mind as he helped her out of her dress, growling in deep male appreciation as he found her breasts, then slipped her panties from her hips. She was aware of every moment, of every part of her that he bared with his hands, then gazed at with such delicious possessiveness. He lavished her with heat and need, stirring her to a fever pitch. Then he tossed her over the side again, this time not waiting for her to shudder back to earth.

Instead he moved further south to settle himself between her legs.

That time she screamed when she flew apart, as the warlord ate her alive.

He rolled away from her then to strip out of his own clothes, and she felt almost uncomfortably torn. There was the spectacle of his beautiful male body, somehow even more glorious out of his clothes than in them. But at the same time, she couldn’t help thinking how mad this was. How unlike her.

Was she really about to do this thing that for twenty-four years had never been so much as the faintest blip on her radar?

Yes, he was beautiful. Yes, he seemed like more of a man to her than every other man she’d ever met, put together.

But this was so out of character.

He stood over her, there by the side of the bed, his eyes blazing and every line and muscle of his body held taut.

“You are already mine,” he told her, his voice low and dark, like a stirring deep inside her own soul. “You are the answer to prayer. The hope of a people. This is already so, little one. But tonight, you understand, the gift of your innocence and the fact you give it to me changes everything.”

“You’re too late,” she whispered, and it was odd that she had no sense of shame. No urge to cover herself when she had always been so modest. On the contrary, she felt wild with her own power and sat up, offering herself to him even more fully. “Everything is already changed. What’s one more thing?”

And finally, Cayetano laughed. He laughed and laughed, and she understood with a deep kind of shock, a wild sort of thrill, that she had known this man so short a time. Almost no time at all, and yet would do anything for that laughter.

Anything for him, something in her whispered.

But maybe she already knew that.

Or she never would have come here.

And she certainly never would have found herself naked with this man.

She felt as unsteady as she had on the plane, but this time, he was with her. This time, she could reach and touch him, and that made all the difference. She didn’t need ground beneath her feet, not when the burnt gold of his gaze seemed to cover her in all that molten heat.