And he gave in to the urge. He reached out and cupped her face, groaned as her firm softness filled his palm, as her flesh singed him with that perfect storm of chemistry that had erupted between them.
He barely stopped himself from swooping to claim the lips that spilled such an intoxicating gasp at his touch. He groaned. “You can tell me everything you want...in my suite.”
His hand melted down her neck and shoulder before it closed over a resilient arm as he turned toward the French doors to lead her outside.
At her rooted unresponsiveness, he frowned. “You do know who I am?”
She had to. She wouldn’t have asked what she had from someone else. For who else could she think could thwart a king?
But he was suddenly uncertain she knew. After all, nothing so far had followed any logical projections.
She silently nodded, her eyes still filled with that shell-shocked expression.
He pressed. “You’re not sure you can trust me?”
She shook her head, then squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, they blasted him in an even hotter wave of unconscious sensuality. He barely suppressed a shudder.
But her color had become hectic and her breathing erratic. She swayed unsteadily in his grip.
Suddenly anxious, he asked, “Are you all right?”
She nodded again, then groaned. “Hell, I keep nodding and shaking my head as if I’ve forgotten how to speak.”
His eyes assessed her as he took his hand reluctantly away. “Maybe you don’t want to speak to me anymore.”
Her cough was incredulous. “You’re kidding, right?”
“You tell me. It’s clear I’m...agitating you.”
“Oh, you are. But it has nothing to do with not trusting you. I do trust you.”
He surveyed her expression, not sure if he was reading it right. Because even knowing who he was, such conviction should be premature. And she didn’t strike him as someone given to making such serious claims lightly.
He gritted his teeth. “You don’t need to say what you don’t feel to placate me or to be polite. You have no reason to trust me. Yet. But I will give you any guarantees you demand so you’ll feel safe with me.”
A chuckle burst from her lips. “Oh, you have much to learn about me. When I’m not in my professional mode as a multinational business consultant, I lead with my real opinions first and don’t bother asking questions later.”
This did feel like the truth. This attitude suited her, and everything he felt from her.
His lips relaxed in response to her infectious smile. “I would have nothing less than the whole truth from you.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right person for that.”
“I’ll count on it. I have no tolerance for empty etiquette and pulling punches, either.”
“Yeah, I noticed. You tell it as it is, in the most shockingly direct way possible. Welcome to the club.” She grinned up at him, and he again wondered how he didn’t have her pressed into that column at her back and was all over her. She made his condition even worse when she sighed, the sound caressing his every nerve. “But I do trust you. I just know you’d never harm me in any way. And don’t ask me how I know that. It has nothing to do with anything I know about you. I just do.”
“Then why were you so alarmed about coming to my suite if it didn’t occur to you I’d take advantage of you?”
Again that unfettered chuckle. “As if. I bet you bound over women who pursue you begging to be taken advantage of.”
“You’re not women. You’re you.”
“Even if you consider me different...”
“Not different. Unique.”
Her color heightened again with pleasure at what should have been an exaggeration but was anything but. “Even if you do consider me that, I can’t imagine other men’s weaknesses ever applying to you. You wouldn’t prey on anyone weaker.”
Her opinion of him had something searingly pleasurable swelling inside him. Yet...“I felt your anxiety, your distress. I still feel them.”
Something soft and even more hard-hitting than all her previous expressions came into her eyes as she cocked her head at him, her lips quirking. “Hello? You do realize you’re the most overwhelming man alive, right? As if that wasn’t enough, we broke every rule of personal interaction. Heck, we’ve already progressed to discussing wedding-busting plans. Excuse me if I’m rattled to my core.”
“You don’t need to be. I care nothing about rules. Between us those don’t exist. And you know it.”
“You think I know anything right now? I’m not even sure this is really happening or that you really exist. I only know that nothing has ever come close to hitting me this hard.”
“Another thing we share, then. Even before I saw you, you hit me harder than anything ever had.”
She scrunched her nose at him in adorable teasing. “Don’t you say what you don’t mean to try to tickle my ego.”
His lips twisted, admitting his condition to himself even as he did to her. “I do mean it. Your ego has every right to be rolling on the ground laughing.” Her chuckle tinkled like crystal with such genuine pleasure, he had to fist his hands to keep them from grabbing her. But he also needed to resolve this issue. “So were you just surprised I asked you back to my suite?”
That delightful lopsided grin flashed wider again. “Surprised is the understatement of the century. But seriously, I just needed a moment for a reality check. And to breathe. You, sir, are more breath depleting than the most insane roller-coaster ride.”
Just then another unprecedented thing happened. His own lips spread with a combination of emotions he didn’t recognize. If forced to name them, he’d guess they most approximated delight, indulgence, even tenderness.
His smile had an equal and opposite reaction on her. While everything about her made him hard as steel, she melted against the support of the column at her back.
Her gaze poured hot, glazed reproach over him, making him start to ache, throb. “You should be banned by law from doing that. Everything about you is already overkill. A smile, and that kind, too, can cause widespread damage.”
His smile only widened as triumph revved inside his chest. “No danger of that, as I have no smiles of any kind for anyone. This is exclusively for you.”
“So I’m a target group of one, huh?”
Something tightened in his chest as he heard the word target on her lips. What she’d been to him before he’d seen her. Now it suddenly felt wrong.
Oblivious to his thoughts, she gazed up at him with what he now believed was trust and...was that admiration, too? “I came here tonight thinking I’d run out of luck for life, but because I met you and you’ve offered what you have, no matter what the outcome will be, I’d already revised my opinion. But to be the sole recipient of your smile? Talk about my luck making a total turnaround.”
Giving in to his compulsion, he tugged her to his side. “I’m willing to talk about anything. Just not here. Come with me?”
She nodded, shyness tingeing her gaze, affecting him more because he knew only he elicited such a reaction from her, and it was genuine, like everything else about her. “Just promise me a chance every now and then to catch my breath.”
“Although it’s the last thing I want, I’ll give you all the time you need to feel at total ease with me.”
Her