Princess in the Iron Mask - By Victoria Parker Page 0,39

gawped. Outright glared at him. ‘You’re beginning to scare me, do you know that?’

He smiled. The brute actually smiled. And—oh, boy—her stomach flipped, then fluttered as if filled with white blossom bobbing on a breeze. It was a lopsided sinful smile that was loaded with bad-boy charisma. Just a hint of straight pearly teeth and a dimple in one cheek. Licking her lips, she’d swear she could taste that gorgeous mouth of his.

‘A shield, in whatever form, only hides so much,’ he said, before shifting on his hip and reaching up to where her glasses sat visor-like atop her head. ‘You do not need them for visiting, for shopping, for the breathtaking scenery or as a hairband.’

His husky voice... The slide of his fingers, abrasive on her scalp...

‘Do not deny people the pleasure of seeing your amber fire.’

Amber fire?

‘How do you do it?’ she asked, a little breathless, a whole lot stunned. ‘You soak in every nuance. It’s really intimidating. Am I so easy to read?’

‘No. You have many layers and they are proving hard to strip away.’

Strip? She wished to God he’d strip her right now—or take off his own clothes. She wasn’t picky. Against all logic she wanted to touch him. With one kiss he’d given her a taste of undiluted desire and like a potent drug she craved another shot.

Thought vanished as he pulled her glasses free and the light scrape of his fingers brushed across her cheek. She focused on his eyes. Rich dark blue, hot and intense, pupils dilated.

Claudia held onto the moment and the past forty-eight hours disappeared. She could feel him surrounding her—hard and fiercely passionate. The seductive pull of his mouth. What would his mouth feel like on her neck? Her breasts? Her stomach? What would he feel like deep like inside her?

Something hot and sultry splashed through her midsection and she gripped the edge of the buttery leather seat with one hand and squeezed her thighs together. Oh, God, what was happening to her?

Lucas broke the connection and closed the arms of her glasses in on themselves. Bereft, Claudia watched him plop the frames into the cubbyhole lining the door, delve into the inside pocket of his suave black jacket and pull out a platinum-encased pen. Lowering his eyes to the small table in front of him, where a sheaf of papers lay, he began to scrawl his signature, his long fingers stroking the silver column.

Visions—vividly sensual and achingly explicit—poured into her mind. Where they came from she had no idea, but she couldn’t seem to stop them. Clenching her insides, she wriggled to ease the damp sensation between her legs and pulled at the small window button to douse the sweet bouquet of nature. Only to be ensnared in a whirlwind of musk-drenched pheromones.

Vision blurring, she squeezed her eyes shut. ‘How far?’

‘Ten minutes,’ he said, in a growl she’d come to recognise as Lucas being unhappy with her. ‘Nine.’

He was on a countdown. Nine minutes? Heavens above, she’d be a puddle in the footwell by then. She rubbed her brow, felt the moisture coat her fingertips and tore at the high neck of her tunic.

Lucas reached for the control panel between them and lowered the temperature in the car by four degrees. He might as well have hiked it up, because the sight of his long thick fingers stroking the controls detonated the nuclear bomb in the pit of her stomach and she began to literally quake.

‘Are you car-sick?’ he asked.

Sick? She was sick in the head. This had to stop! Frantic, she dug deep to unearth hate and came up blank. When had that happened? Yesterday, when he’d swept her away from the palace? Or when he’d slanted that hot hard mouth over hers? Or had it been when he’d been so damn wonderful with Bailey?

‘Claudia, did you hear me?’

‘Sick. Yes. Terribly.’

Okay no hate. What else did she have? Well, for starters, he didn’t want her. Wasn’t it mortifying enough that one kiss had put him off? And she didn’t even know him! While he was stripping her bare—somehow with all her clothes still intact—she still had no idea who he was.

Lucas lowered the privacy glass to speak to Armande. ‘I will tell him to pull over.’

Claudia gripped his arm, tugged. ‘No. Not that kind of sick. Just...’ She flicked her shoulder, scrambling for a word. Any word. ‘Nervous. Just nervous. Carry on. Honest.’ The more time they spent in this car, the more chance she had of making