jerking it down over the massively aroused shaft, she heard him give a strangled little groan of pleasure.
She felt shy almost as the formidable power of him sprang free—almost too shy to touch him—and was glad when, impatiently, he pushed her hand away to yank off his jeans. He pulled the T-shirt over his head, and with a single scoop peeled off her own baggy nightwear, his eyes scanning her body only briefly—as if he was not content with visual stimulation. As if he couldn’t wait…
But he waited long enough to pull a silver-foil packet from the pocket of his discarded jeans and Melissa flinched as she stared at it.
‘Were you so sure I’d agree to make love with you, Casimiro?’
‘Was I so very wrong, then?’ he mocked.
‘Or do you always come prepared?’ she whispered as he pushed her down onto the soft cushions of the sofa.
‘You are in no position to interrogate me,’ he murmured, his lips against her ear as he placed his hands on either side of her narrow hips and lowered himself down on her. ‘In fact, you are in a position to do one thing and one thing only, mia bella. And that is this…this!’
With an urgent groan, he thrust deep into her body and Melissa gasped with pleasure, clinging to his shoulders as he moved inside her—so hot and so hard that it took her breath away. She could feel the heat building—spiralling out of all control—barely able to believe it was happening so quickly. She hardly had a moment to reacquaint herself with the sweet pleasures of sex, when suddenly the world began to splinter and shatter around her and she cried out in an orgasm that had her vulnerable and helpless and trembling in his arms.
Dimly, she was aware of his own drawn-out moan of completion, and the way his muscular body shuddered inside her as she struggled to hold onto her composure—a strong cocktail of painful feelings threatening to override the warm satiation of her body. And unable to prevent the slow slide of tears down her cheeks as she contemplated what she had just done.
Reality returning with the slowing beats of his heart, Casimiro bent his head and kissed her—his face drawing back a little as he tasted salt on her lips. With a frown, he stared down into her brimming eyes as some rogue thought came drifting into his mind from nowhere. Emerald stars, he thought. But it was gone again in an instant.
‘Tears?’ he murmured as he wiped one away with the tip of his finger. But he could not wipe the smile of satisfaction from his lips. He had her exactly where he wanted her—all warm and soft and sated beneath him. She was greedy for him—and that sexual weakness would allow him to call all the shots. ‘And here was me thinking that sexual pleasure was supposed to make you smile.’
Sexual pleasure? Melissa could have hit him. But how could you hit a man when you were still joined intimately with him—his body still quietly pulsating inside your own? When she’d made herself so vulnerable in front of him that she felt as if he’d torn off a whole layer of skin and exposed her raw heart to the world? And she suspected that any hand she raised to strike him might instead be distracted by the lean musculature of his torso. So that she might be tempted instead to curl her fingers into the whorls of dark hair which arrowed down his chest so enticingly.
Melissa stared up at the shifting shadows of his aristocratic face.
‘Now what?’ she questioned unsteadily.
‘BEN, Ben…’ Too late, Melissa reached for the pot of organic raspberry yoghurt her son was waving in the air—just in time to see it spill in a pink and lumpy cascade onto his dark curls. ‘Oh, Ben!’ she cried in horror.
‘Den!’ came his ecstatic response, because he hadn’t yet got to grips with the letter B, and he fixed his mother with a gappy, happy grin.
Melissa plucked him out of his high chair and sent an agonised glance at the clock which was ticking on the wall. Only fifteen minutes before Casimiro was due to get here and the little boy she’d dressed so carefully was covered in gunge and smelling like a fruit sundae. His woefully inadequate bib was now sodden and she rued her decision to feed him this close to the King’s arrival—but she hadn’t bargained on him deciding that he was hungry and deciding that he was going to have a screaming paddy if he didn’t have some pudding.
And if you hadn’t been gazing at yourself in the mirror—you might have realised that he was about to dress himself in yoghurt.
Trying to calm the worryingly baleful expression in his wide amber eyes, she began to remove the ruined clothing. She’d been having a last minute look at herself only because she’d been so busy—frantically trying to make Ben look like the best-dressed and most well-adjusted baby in the world. So that she’d barely had time to do anything about her own appearance. And realising too late that she looked awful. Just the way she always seemed to look awful when Casimiro was around.
But this wasn’t supposed to be about her!
She stripped Ben off and gave him a rapid bath in a few inches of tepid and soapy water before putting his nappy back on—but by now he had begun to grow furious.
‘Shh, darling. Shh,’ she soothed as he jerked his head away from his second-best T-shirt. But all her pacifying was to no avail and she was soon engaged in a classic mother and baby battle. Normally, she would have given in gracefully—deciding that it wasn’t worth falling out over a different taste in clothes.
The sound of the doorbell stopped her in her tracks and Melissa felt that uncomfortable mixture of excitement and dread begin to grow. Casimiro. When he had telephoned and told her that he was flying to England, she hadn’t really believed it. Hadn’t dared believe it in case it hadn’t happened. For hadn’t there been a part of her which had wondered if he might just try consigning her to oblivion? Waiting to see what she would do next.
Well, it seemed that he was true to his word because he was here. Casimiro was here!
‘This is very important, darling Ben,’ she whispered as she scooped the baby up in her arms. ‘There’s a very important man at the door.’ He’s your Daddy, she thought, her heart thundering as she went to answer it.
From his position on the grubby doorstep, Casimiro waited impatiently for Melissa to let him in—even though he wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the prospect. From the moment the car had pulled up outside the poorly built apartment block—and he’d tapped impatiently on the window and asked the driver if he’d made some kind of mistake—his senses had been shaken to the core.
A letter was missing from the communal sign on the wall and there was a smashed window on the fourth floor, which someone had repaired with a piece of cardboard. Scorched brown earth stood where grass should have been and a wilting tree was the only vegetation in sight. He had seen the two bodyguards accompanying him look around in alarm but he had ignored their repeated requests to drive on.
‘I need to be here,’ he stated resolutely.
‘But, Majesty.’
‘Enough!’ he clipped out. ‘You will wait here in the car until I return—do you understand?’
Clearly they could tell he meant it—though it was equally clear they didn’t like it. He had made sure he’d looked as incognito as possible for this visit to see the boy who Melissa claimed was his flesh and blood, but one thing was for sure—what Casimiro had seen had taken him by surprise.
During his life, he had travelled as much as his role as heir apparent allowed—and his father had seen to it that every summer he had been schooled by tutors from a variety of different countries. Of course he knew that he was immensely privileged and wealthy—and of course he knew that not everyone enjoyed such a rarefied standard of living as he did. But he had never known anyone on a personal level who actually lived like this.
It