The Prince's Runaway Lover (Men of the Zodiac) Read online

  “I want you to eat me up, right now.”

  He took her up on the invitation and jerked her to him, lifting her off her feet so suddenly she wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight grip. She tasted like sunshine and something so tempting and dark that he knew she was bad for him. The type of bad that makes a man forget his obligations and give up anything to spend forever wrapped up in it.

  He was going to forget for one night.

  He coasted a hand over the beaded bodice of her dress and dipped a finger underneath the silk of the gown and her bra to find her nipple. It tightened under his caress at the same time she dove into his mouth and took it with a fierce growl. He circled the tip, squeezing it gently until she threw her head back in a gasp and a moan that echoed off the marble floors and plaster walls of the villa.

  Nick tasted her throat with his tongue, nibbling at the pulse that pounded just under the thin layer of her skin. “Damn Isabel,” he said against her flesh. “I want to fuck you here. Right now.”

  She half-laughed, half-sobbed, her own desire dripping from every word. “Not in front of the servants.” Her head lolled forward and she pressed a swift kiss to his mouth. “Take me to bed. I want you inside me. I need it.”

  Nick lowered her to the floor and turned quickly, then led her up the stairs to the second level where light spilled out of an open doorway. Isabel followed behind, her own quick breaths joining his as the only sound except for the muted music floating out of the hidden speakers and the faint tick of a clock. He barely got her inside the room and closed the large double doors of innately carved wood before she was in his arms again and they were joined in a frantic press of lips and tongue.

  Her hands were at his tie, fingers untying it with haste that made it take twice as long. He shrugged out of his jacket, letting it slide off his shoulders and then feeling it tumble to the floor when gravity kicked in. Nick plunged his fingers into her hair, enjoying the cool slide of her dark curls as they wrapped around his fingers and gave him the grip he needed to hold her in place while he ravaged her mouth.

  He was not coaxing tonight, not as patient as he should be. Not this time. Later. Much later when his cock was sated and he was too exhausted to do anything but slip inside her and ride out the slow build of her orgasm. Now he wanted her so badly his hands shook with adrenaline and lust.

  He released her quickly, hands on her shoulders to steady her as she blinked away the haze of passion in her eyes. When she was steady he began removing the studs from his shirt, unbuttoning his trousers and throwing them all on the floor in a discarded heap. Isabel watched his hands as they completed their tasks, a soft whimper escaping her throat when she shoved down his boxer briefs and his erection sprang free, hard and ready for her.

  The sound she made caused his dick to throb and he had no choice but to take it in hand and stroke it. His own touch only eased the pain of his arousal and he knew what he needed to answer the need fully.

  “Take off the dress.”

  “Don’t you want to do it?” she asked in that pouty, sexy, Spanish-tinged drawl that made his eyes cross.

  “If I touch it, it will end up in shreds on the floor. If you love it, you’ll take it off. Now.”

  Her eyes widened with surprise and delight and he wondered just where the fuck this woman had been his entire life. The countless women he’d had in his bed over the years and none of them had met him as an equal. Not until now.

  Isabel drew his torture out and undid every clasp and button with excruciating care, never taking her eyes from his. The dress finallyfinallyslid down her body and pooled around her feet on the marble floor. Her hair pillowed around her bare shoulders, the lake breeze from the open doors stirred the curls and released her sweet scent into the air. She reached around with one hand and unfastened the strapless bra, drawing it off and dangling it in the air from the tips of her fingers before letting it fall to the floor.

  She remained before him, clad only in the gold lace thong he’d bought for her and the beaded silk stiletto pumps. When she hooked her thumbs on the panties to take them off, he stopped her.

  “Leave the shoes and the thong on and go sit on the edge of the bed.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Isabel shivered with her excitement and did as Nick ordered.

  The four-poster bed was huge, ornately Italian in design and covered in exquisite silk sheets and pillows in crisp white and cream. She moved around Nicky and seated herself on the edge, facing the view of the lake, and planted her feet on the floor. The air was full of the blooms from the garden below, the scent of the lake and sex. The moon was reflected off the water and gave the only light except for the dozens of candles lit and sitting on tables and scattered about the room.

  Nicky came up beside her, gorgeous in the moonlight. It highlighted the gold in his hair, across his chest and the deeper shade surrounding his erection. He was hard for her and she resisted the urge to reach out and touch him, knowing instinctively that he would push her away. Nicky had plans for her and she was dying to see what they were.

  He dropped to his knees on the floor and the sight of this large, muscled man playing supplicant to her was exciting. His height in this position put him eye to eye with her and they locked gazes as he moved between her thighs, his large hands pushing them open gently.

  “Watch the lake while I love you,” he murmured with a voice deep and rough.

  Nicky kissed her mouth briefly and then traveled lower with kisses lining her jaw, her neck, and across her collarbone. He finally kissed her breasts, laving the tips with sure, wet strokes of his tongue and long suckling pulls that shot heat straight to her core. Her panties were wet with her arousal and his fingertips so close to her clit. All he had to do was move one of them to the side…

  Nicky released her breast and pushed her thighs wider. “Pull your thong out of the way. I want to taste you.”

  A tremor of excitement and dizzying lust shook her as she lowered a hand and tugged the lace aside. She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, biting on it with the excruciating ache of her anticipation.

  She watched as he lowered his head, his broad shoulders opening her even wider. The dance of his tattoos across the hard muscles under his skin was mesmerizing but she wanted to see him, wanted to watch him as he went down on her.

  Nicky lapped at her wet folds, his tongue swirling around her clit, stabbing inside her heat in a dance calculated to bring her to the edge and keep her hovering there. He might have been the one on his knees, but there was no doubt he was in charge and she was at his mercy. She never thought she’d want to be under any man’s power again, but with Nicky she craved it, chased it, savored it.

  She thrust herself against his face, making silent demands of her own as the tension built in her belly. Her arm trembled as it held the brunt of her weight, and she was so laden down with her desire. The pleasure hit her with its expected intensity and she lurched forward, draping herself over the broad expanse of his back as she came and came. Nicky kept up his strokes, adding his fingers inside her in a lazy pump that drew it out and intensified the aftershocks.

  She lay against him, gasping for air and clutching at him when her world tilted and she was thrown over his shoulder as he switched positions with her on the bed. She was straddling his thighs, her body shaking as she watched him slide the condom over his cock. His eyes were hot, a dark midnight blue with flashes of white fire around the edges. His jaw was clenched tight, muscles taut with his restraint.

  “Nicky, I want you.” She panted as she leaned forward and slid the thong off her body. She kept on the shoes, loving how they made her feel debauched, powerful, sexy. “I want to come again with you inside me.”

  He groaned at her words and his fingers dug painfully into her hips as he dragged her forward and positioned her over his dick. In a contrasting show of tenderness, he grasped her hand and brought it to his lips in a kiss that scorched her skin with the intensity of its emotion.

&
nbsp; “I love to make you come. I love to hear the sounds you make as I get you off. Watching you come apart, shake, and tremble makes me hard and keeps me up nights with your taste on my tongue.” Nicky reached down between them and grabbed his penis, positioning it at her opening and easing her down his length. They both moaned at the tight fit and heat and she gasped as he swiped the pad of his thumb over her clit. “Isabel, make noise. I want to hear how good I make you feel.”

  She couldn’t have denied him even if she wanted to. She’d never been a vocal lover, but with Nicky she couldn’t help it. It was too much, too intense to bottle up inside. It felt like she’d burst open if she tried. So she didn’t. His name was her favorite word, the taste of it on her tongue like the sweetest candy.

  Nicky drove up into her, his strokes pushing him in deep as she pressed down and welcomed him inside her body, inside her heart. She was playing with fire, she knew. He would move on once she was gone and the life of being king overtook his mind and his time. She would have this, though, have this memory to hold at night.

  “Look at me, Isabel, please,” Nicky said on a deep thrust, his tone pleading and demanding at the same time.

  She gazed down at him, letting her body take over the natural rhythm between them, instinctively speeding up when his fingers dug harder into her ass. Nicky practically took over their movements now, thrusting hard up into her with every guttural groan that passed between his clenched teeth. Isabel touched her clit, circling the nerves clustered there with quick, sure strokes.

  The orgasm inside her was building up from the base of her spine, making her legs shake and grow weak with the effort. But it was the feeling of two of Nicky’s fingers entering her body alongside his cock and the sweet stretch of being overwhelmingly full that pushed her over the edge.

  Isabel fell forward with the impact of her pleasure, her face buried into the sweat-dampened skin of his neck. She bit him, hard enough to raise a bruise of possession overnight, and he thrust into her one last time as he let go on a shout that was part surrender and part triumph.

  Isabel lay on top of him in the moonlit darkness, not even noticing the chill of the lake breeze on her damp skin. Nicky was wrapped around her, his arms holding her tight against his chest while he pressed soft kisses on her hair, her temple, her fingertips. She had never felt so cherished, so loved in her entire life and the knowledge brought home to her how foolish her earlier choice of man had been.

  Adam Armstrong had been all flash and no substance. Nicholas Lytton was solid, kind, and genuine in everything he did. There was no comparison and she cursed herself for ruining her chances for real by aligning herself with a fantasy.

  She moved to slide off his body, to let him breathe without her weight on top of his chest, but Nicky wasn’t having it. His arms closed tighter around her body, the fingers of one hand tangling in her curls as he touched his mouth to her shoulder, her neck, the spot just below her ear that tickled when his warm breath ghosted over it. His teeth nibbling on her earlobe made her squirm against him and they shifted slightly, with her resting against his side, right leg covering his, her arm around his waist and head tucked underneath his chin. They watched the ripples on Lake Como, turned silver in the moonlight.

  His fingers traced circles over her back, lingering on the pucker of the scar left by a man who’d said he loved her.

  “You deserved better than this.”

  “I know.”

  “I would like the chance to give you what you deserve. To make you happy.” He let out a long breath, plunging in in true Nicky fashion. “I know you think you can’t have the fairy tale but I think we could. If you let me, I could make it so that midnight never comes for us.”

  She knew he could and everything inside her screamed for her to take it, to claim it and let him be her goddamn prince charming. But what she said was the cold hard truth and even as it ripped her open, she remembered that they had promised to have no lies between them.

  “Midnight comes for everyone, Nicky. Even us.”

  …

  This was the wrong time to bring this up.

  Nick knew before he even opened his mouth that this was not the time or the place. She’d asked for him to drop it and he’d agreed but he just couldn’t. Isabel had somehow slipped past his defenses and become the center of his life.

  And she was slipping away as quickly as she’d entered.

  Nick shifted in his seat in his private jet, the cushioned, butter-soft leather seats as comfortable as concrete under the weight of his anxiety. Isabel kept talking about their time being temporary and the mere thought of her being gone made his stomach clench so painfully that he wondered if his feelings hadn’t become living, breathing things that were going to claw their way out and likely kill him in the process.

  Isabel was quiet, her eyes glued on the view outside the window, but he knew she wasn’t seeing anything. Her big brown eyes were glazed with worry and hurt and a myriad of emotions that he would give his crown to know and understand. The flight was near an end and he knew she was going to bolt the minute they landed and one day in the near future he would go to her cottage and she’d be gone.

  “Is there someone else?” She jumped and he regretted the iron edge to his tone but he couldn’t curb it. It was impossible to temper any of his reactions when it came to her.

  Isabel swiveled her head to look at him, her eyes wide with astonishment. “No.”

  “Is there someone with a prior claim on you?” He squeezed his hands in fists, the only place to put the need he had for physical release. A run. A swim. Some way for him to get to the things that always gave him the headspace to figure out all the shit in his life. Not going to happen at thirty thousand feet. “Because, Isabel, I’m an honorable man but it would not stop me from trying to keep you. He cannot have a prior claim on your heart. I would fight for you.”

  “No, Nicky. There is no one else.”

  He swallowed hard, the burn making his laugh harsh and painful. “I’m a fool enough to believe you because of what we feel.” He swallowed again, the words like razorblades. “What we feel when we are together. No one can stand in the way of it.”

  “Oh, Nicky,” she whispered and turned her face back toward the window but not enough for him to miss the tear on her cheek that she didn’t even bother to brush away. “It’s not about how we feel…”

  He unfastened his seat belt and slid out of his seat to his knees in front of her, hands braced on the armrests and looking straight into her eyes. He was supplicant in this position and it was startlingly appropriate. He wanted her and would do anything to keep her.

  “How do we feel Isabel? I want to talk about it without you changing the subject.” He gripped the armrest tight, hearing them creak a little under the pressure. “I’m falling in love with you.” She let out a gasp and shook her head and he raised his hands to frame her face, stopping her movement. “Yes. And I know you feel the same way about me. I know it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “That isn’t an answer.” He pressed a hard kiss to her mouth, gentling it at the end into a pleading press of his mouth against hers. She made a sound, unhappy, desperateand whatever had calmed surged upward again. “Talk to me, explain to me why I cannot keep you. Explain to me why I control a goddamn kingdom but I can’t have you.”

  She stared at him, a million things passing over her face, the most prominent the pain he knew he was inflicting on her. But he had to be the one to bring this to a head. She’d made her position clear, told him from the beginning that this wasn’t a forever thing and he’d heard her, agreed with her. Until he didn’t.

  “I can’t stay.” She sucked in a huge wet breath that caught in her throat and shook her entire body. Her hands traveled over his chest, up his arms, until they wrapped around his head and she tangled her fingers in his hair. Her grip was hard, tense, almost painful, and he relished the sensation because if she was feeling this as much as he was, there was no way she was going to l
eave him. “I’ve told you this. I can’t stay. Please stop asking.”

  “Stop saying that,” he said, wishing he could compel her to do it as her sovereign. But she wasn’t his subject and he never wanted her to stay because he told her to. He needed her to stay because she couldn’t live without him. All this power and he knew he was as helpless as a babe when it came to this. He choked out a harsh laugh and pulled completely out of her grasp, standing to pace the small aisle of the jet.

  “So, you can walk away from this? From us?”

  She undid her own seat belt and rose to her feet, reaching out to him but then checking her movement and grabbing on to the back of the adjacent seat instead. Isabel squeezed her eyes shut and he waited, the longest damn fifteen seconds of his life. It was like that moment just before a race started, when you hovered between action and inaction…waiting. Her eyes opened and he didn’t like what he saw there.

  “You can’t love me.”

  “Too late.”

  “I can’t love you. This will never work.”

  “That’s not an answer. It’s never been an answer.”

  “You said you wouldn’t push. As long as there were no lies, you wouldn’t push.”

  “That was before us, before I had you, tasted you. Before you became the person I needed to help me to do this, to remember who I am.”

  She groaned in frustration and anger and he loved the sound. Every time she let what she was feeling slip he felt hope. She motioned between them and he reached out and grabbed her hand, twining their fingers together and tugging her closer. Isabel shuddered and leaned in and he exploited her reaction, using their physical connection to change her mind about them.

  “Nicky, I can’t tell you what you want to hear. I can’t stay and I can’t tell you why. I’ve told you this from the beginning. It’s why I didn’t want to do this.” He opened his mouth to argue and she cut him off, her voice barely above a whisper. “You want me to tell you that I love you and that I’ll stay but I can’t give you that. I won’t lie to you about this. Not about us.”