href="#u4e1fb49b-33ce-5dfb-9bba-522c0b795942">CHAPTER TWO
HE KNEW HOW to use that sexually explicit mouth of his, firmly capturing her lips in a hot, hard kiss. He slid a hand to the back of her head, rocked his damp mouth across hers, and damn well made love to her mouth like he had the absolute right!
She knew immediately that he was punishing her, but not in a violent way. He wanted her response, wanted to make her melt and succumb to him, to prove his mastery of her and this situation.
And he was doing it, sliding right past her resistance, ready to make her his conquest.
Hard-learned shreds of self-protection rallied. She had trained to meet any attack with an attack of her own.
She kissed him back with all the incensed outrage he had provoked in her, all the frustration that he affected her this powerfully.
She didn’t accept his kiss. She matched it. She stepped into his space so the heat off his body penetrated the silk she wore, branding her skin through it. Then she scraped her teeth in a threat across his bottom lip and stabbed her own fingers into his hair. It was completely unlike her to be sexually aggressive, but how dare he come in here with his accusations and intimidations?
Did this feel like she was daunted? Did it?
She felt the surprise in him, and the hardening as he grew excited.
His reaction fed hers. The quickening of arousal in her swelled, rising like a tide that picked her off her feet, washing her in heat, sensitizing her skin and making her hyperaware of her erogenous zones. Her back arched to crush her breasts against his hard chest. Her pelvis nudged into the shape behind his fly, inciting both of them.
His arms tightened around her and he kissed her harder. Not taking control so much as pressing his foot to the accelerator so they burned hotter and faster down the track they were on. His hand slid down to her backside, possessively claiming a plump cheek through silk.
The sensation was so acutely good, the moment rushing so fast beyond her control, Angelique pulled back to release a small moan and gasp for air.
He growled and ran his mouth down her throat, now angling her hips into his so he ground himself against her with blatant intention.
She let him, completely overcome by the moment. She was used to being treated somewhere between a trophy and a revered goddess on a pedestal. No man had ever kissed her like a woman who was not just wanted, but craved. This was real.
It felt earthy and elemental.
Pure.
She let her head hang back, hair falling freely, and maybe, yes, she was succumbing, but not to him. To this. Them. What they were creating together.
He muttered something that sounded like an incantation and his lips moved from her collarbone to the line of her camisole.
She gasped, “Yes,” aching for him to bare her breasts to his mouth, she felt so full and tight. When his hand moved up to her chest to caress along the edge—
Wait.
“Don’t—” she tried to say, but he had already picked up the silver disk of her pendant to move it over her shoulder.
* * *
One second, Kasim was sunk deep in arousal, well on his way to making love with a woman of exceptional passion.
Then the door crashed open and men burst in with guns drawn.
His heart exploded.
He instinctively tried to shove Angelique behind him, but she resisted, shouting, “I’m fine! Orchid, orchid! Stand down. Orchid!”
She held out a splayed hand like it could deflect bullets and tried to scramble in front of him, as if she could protect him with that soft, slender figure, but Kasim was pumped with as much adrenaline as the invaders. He locked his arms protectively around her while his brain belatedly caught up to recognize that these were guards he’d seen on his way in.
“I’m fine,” Angelique insisted in a shaken tone. “Stand down. Seriously,” she said with a look up at Kasim that was naked and mortified. “Let me go so I can defuse this.” Her hand pressed his shoulder.
Kasim’s arms were banded so firmly around her, he had to consciously force himself to relax his muscles.
“I’m fine,” she assured her guards as she slid away from him. She was visibly shaking. “Honestly. This was my fault. He was looking at my necklace. I should have warned him to be careful.”
Looking at her necklace? Her lipstick was smudged and she was bright red from her forehead to the line of her top. Her guards weren’t stupid.
They were professionals, however. One said, “Second level?”
“Water lily, and did you really?” She went across to a panel and reset something, then sighed and crossed to her desk to pick up her smartphone with a hand that still trembled. “Thank you. Please resume your stations.”
The guards holstered their weapons and retreated, closing the door behind them.
While her phone rang with the video call she’d placed, she plucked a tissue and leaned into a small desk mirror to hurriedly wipe her mouth. “This will only take a sec, but if I don’t—”
A male voice barked a gruff “Oui.”
“Bonjour, Henri.” Angelique tilted the phone so she could see the screen. She still looked somewhere between dumbfounded and grossly embarrassed, but was trying to paste a brave smile over it.
Kasim was utterly poleaxed. That kiss had been so intensely pleasurable, all he could think about was continuing from where they’d left off. Get off the phone.
“Je m’excuse. Totally my fault,” Angelique continued. “False alarm. Orchid, orchid. It was only a drill.”
“Qu’est ce qui c’est passé?”
“Long story and I’m in the middle of something. Can I call you later?”
“I’m looking at the security records.”
Angelique closed her eyes in a small wince. “Yes,” she said in a beleaguered tone, as though answering an unasked question. “The prince is still here. May I please call you later?”
“One hour,” he directed and they ended the call.
Angelique dropped the phone onto her desktop and let out an exasperated breath.
“Ramon will be next. My other brother,” she provided, nodding as her phone dinged. “There he is. Spanish Inquisition.” She clasped her hands and looked to the ceiling with mock delight. “So fun! Thanks.”
“You’re blaming me?” He hadn’t thought he could be more astonished by all that had just happened.
She shrugged as she acknowledged the text, then dropped the phone again.
Moving to the shelf in the corner, she said, “How about that coffee?”
* * *
Angelique moved to where the French press had been sitting so long it bordered on tepid. She shakily pushed down the plunger and poured two short cups, needing something to calm her nerves.
Yes, let’s not cause a rift with the wedding, Angelique, by having the Prince of Zhamair shot dead in your office.
What had happened to her that she’d let him kiss her like that? From the moment he’d walked in here, he’d been tapping a chisel into her. Now she was fully cracked open, all of her usual defenses and tricks of misdirection useless. It took everything she had not to let him see how thoroughly he’d thrown her off her game.
“Cream and sugar?” she asked, buying time before she had to turn around.
“Black.”
She finished pouring and made herself face him.