She dimly saw a large, Spartan bedroom, utterly masculine, devoid of color. The walls were white. The bed was black. The wide windows had a balcony overlooking the moonlit sea.
He set her down on the bed. Looking down at her, his eyes were dark as night. Dark—and full of hunger.
He was going to kiss her again. She knew it. He was going to kiss her, despite his promise. Promises meant nothing to men. They’d meant nothing to Lars. Now Xerxes would ruthlessly possess her. He would take everything she had once hoped to give her husband in innocence and faith.
Rose no longer had the strength to fight.
He pushed her back against the enormous bed. Slowly, he pulled the fabric of the bodice from her clenched fingers, leaving her silken bra and the bare skin of her belly in clear view. She felt the magnetic force of his body over her own, his powerful strength and size as he stared down at her, pinning her with his dark gaze.
She stared at him numbly. She had to fight. Why couldn’t she fight? She breathed, “I…I hate you.”
His sensual mouth curved as he looked down at her. “I don’t need you to love me. I just need you to obey.”
Rose closed her eyes, waiting for him to rip the wedding dress down her legs and throw his body over hers. Waiting for him to ravish her without hesitation, to ruthlessly and brutally seduce her naked body.
She almost didn’t care. She’d lost herself completely. Just a few hours ago, she’d been idealistic, romantic. Now, she felt—nothing.
Then he touched her.
His fingertips were feather-light, running along her bare collarbone to her shoulder. Strange sensations coursed through her body, an odd tumble of emotions that frightened her. Fear? Yes. But also…something more than fear. Something greater than fear that made her tremble deep inside.
His hands moved slowly down the naked valley between her breasts, causing prickles to spread all over her body. His hands sizzled everywhere he touched. Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples tightening to aching points beneath the silky white bralette that Lars had insisted on ordering for her from Paris. She’d blushed when he’d given it to her. Now, she was wearing it in front of his enemy.
His fingers moved down her bare belly to the tattered wedding gown pulled down around her waist. He gently pulled the layers of lace and tulle down her legs, then dropped it to the floor in a crumpled heap.
“I knew I’d get that off you eventually,” he whispered.
She started to reply, then saw that he’d fallen to his knees at the foot of the bed. The image of him kneeling before her half-naked body was so shocking that she squeezed her eyes shut.
But if anything, the sensation only grew more intense as she felt his hands on her thigh, unhooking a lace garter that held up her white silk stocking. The warmth of his breath curled against her naked belly, and she gasped with the sweet agony of forbidden desire. She shouldn’t feel like this—not for a stranger!
He slowly pulled the stocking down her leg, his fingers brushing her skin from her thigh to her knee. The sensual silk slid slowly down her calf, down her ankle to the sensitive hollow of her foot. And suddenly her leg was bare.
He moved on the mattress, moving up between her legs. With a gasp, she opened her eyes.
He was looking down at her, his dark eyes hungry. Holding her gaze with his own, he tossed the stocking to the floor. Reaching for her other thigh, he unclasped the garter and moved the second stocking down her leg, sliding the silk down her skin like the whisper of a caress.
Heat built inside her, coursing through her body, sizzling her with his every look and every touch. Tension tightened her nipples to aching points, coiling low in her belly. Her breaths came in increasingly quick gasps.
She shouldn’t do this. He was her captor, a criminal, a stranger to her! She shouldn’t let him touch her!
But even as her mind screamed for her to push away, she couldn’t move. She just lay there on the soft cotton sheets, feeling the breeze from the open window, seeing it wave through white translucent curtains. In the distance, she heard the plaintive call of seagulls and her own hoarse breath. Biting her lip until it bruised, she looked up at his brutal face.
But he did not look brutal anymore. He stroked her concave belly with concern. “So thin,” he murmured. “Why so thin?”
It broke the spell. She sat up abruptly.
“Gullible. Clumsy. Skinny,” Rose said bitterly, as her fingers gripped the cotton sheets, pulling them up. “You are cruel. Lars always said I was the most beautiful girl in the world—”
Then her throat choked as she remembered that Lars was a heartless, soulless liar.
Xerxes’s fingers stilled. “Växborg did not lie,” he said quietly. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Rose Linden.”
He pushed her down firmly with his rough hands, and she did not resist. She closed her eyes. When she felt a soft sheet cover her body, she looked at him in shock.
From beside the bed, Xerxes looked down at her with a crooked smile. His rugged face was impossibly handsome in the circle of lamplight. He lifted a white goose-down comforter over the sheet. And suddenly, she realized what he was doing. He wasn’t trying to seduce her.
He was tucking her in for the night.
“You’re leaving me?” she whispered as he turned away. “Just like that?”
He paused at the door, his expression half-hidden by shadow. The dim golden light illuminated the edges of his muscular body as he spoke to her without turning around. “Good night.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you acting like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like a gentleman. Like…like a good person.”
Abruptly, he clicked off the light, and the room fell into darkness. “Don’t think I’m a good person,” he said in a low voice. “If you do, you’ll regret it. ’Til the day you die.”
And he left, closing the door heavily behind him, locking her in—alone.
ROSE woke up the next morning to find sunshine flooding her with white, almost blinding clarity. It refreshed her, washing away the dark nightmares that had troubled her all night.
Yawning, She blinked sleepily. It was a dream, she thought. Thank heaven it was all a dream. She was back in her solitary bedroom at Trollshelm Castle. Today was her wedding day, the day she would pledge herself as Lars’s wife for the rest of her life….
Rose blinked.
She sat up abruptly. Her blankets fell to her waist as she stared around her. This was not her bedroom.
She glanced down at the white silk bra and panties that she’d slept in. A blush heated her cheeks as she remembered Xerxes moving over her on the bed last night, his body so close to hers as he slowly undid her garters and pulled her silk stockings off her legs. She could still feel the intensity of his mouth on hers when he’d kissed her on the plane. She touched her lips as she recalled how his lips had seared her, how he’d crushed her to his chest and taken her in a hard, hungry embrace, his tongue sweeping her own as he—
“Good morning.”
She looked up from the bed with a gasp, yanking her sheets back up to her neck.
Xerxes leaned in the doorway, dressed