Princess in the Iron Mask - By Victoria Parker Page 0,45

sex!

‘I’ve had enough of going slow and talking nonsense. Come,’ he said, placing his hand at the base of her spine and giving her a good push.

What she needed was a damn chastity belt. Lucas had a sneaking suspicion he had initiated her into the realms of passion, and the thought of someone else touching her made his fists clench, ready and armed to physically hurt. And just the notion that he might be capable of unwarranted violence...

‘You know, Lucas, it occurred to me earlier I know nothing about your personal life,’ she said, breaking through his thoughts with the delicacy of a sledgehammer.

‘I do not have one,’ he said, stiffening against the black twist in his guts.

‘Do your parents live nearby?’

‘Sí. In the graveyard.’ Ordering his body not to react—even as sweat trickled down his spine—he kept to the basics. Information anyone would know should she dig for dirt.

Feet faltering, she stroked her palm over her heart while her eyes brimmed with empathy. ‘I’m so sorry, Lucas.’

Ignoring the dart of annoyance, he shrugged. ‘It is the way it is.’

She smiled ruefully. Knowingly. ‘Do you miss them?’

‘Ah, Claudia, such a tender soul. I was too young. I do not remember if there was anything to miss.’ Years he’d managed to erase must remain in the past. For he knew if the floodgates opened he would surely drown.

Even now, standing here in the town his mother had loved, the town he’d rebuilt, those gates rattled on their hinges and water seeped through the cracks, whispering of hunger so deep his stomach would twist. Walls so thin he could hear every scream, every tear. Blood so thick it clotted his hair.

‘Oh, Lucas.’

Something snapped inside him. ‘Your sympathy is wasted on me, Princesa,’ he said, with satiric bite. ‘Save it for children who deserve it.’

He wanted the fiery spark of her temper—craved it. But the little fool just looked up at him, so damn exquisite, as if she understood. She understood nothing.

For a woman who’d been through so much heartache she was astoundingly naïve. Living in her own little bubble. Which made him beyond resolute to protect her from herself. From him.

She had no idea who he really was, what he was capable of. For he too had walked on the dark side. Yet she wanted him with an incredulous passion that now seemed to ooze from her pores, fashioning her with a warm sensual glow.

Bewitching. Precious.

A warning flare—fierce, deadly accurate—discharged in his mind. Lucas had to keep his distance. No more enclosed spaces. No more touching. No more talking in hushed tones or primed glances that made his body seize with a need so fierce he shook with it.

Ignoring the knife-blade to his chest, he faced facts.

He had to kill her feelings dead.

CHAPTER TEN

CLAUDIA LOUNGED ON heaps of velvet cushions atop her bed and pressed ‘send’ on her latest e-mail to Bailey. The news that the little girl’s father was back from the rigs had been the only moment of bliss in an otherwise wretched three days. Days of awkward lunches with her mother. Days since her gauche attempt at seducing Lucas had failed miserably and he’d plonked a barrier the size of the Great Wall of China between them.

If he walked into a room where she was he walked straight back out again. A seemingly impossible feat in a glasshouse, but he always managed to find some place to go. No doubt his office, which was always locked, or the kitchen, which actually boasted walls.

If he didn’t have a two-million-pound painting hanging on one of them she would think he couldn’t afford plaster divisions at all. Not for the first time she pondered how he was as rich as Croesus. Unless you were the President of the United States no government official could live like this. If he’d ever speak to her in more than one disgustingly polite syllable she would ask him.

Closing her eyes, she banged her head on the silk cushioned headboard. It wasn’t that she missed the man—heavens, no—but at home she worked such long hours and here she was just...plain bored. So he didn’t want to sleep with her? Fine. His version of agony was obviously in a different league to hers. But did that mean they couldn’t talk? God, she missed that. And, truly, what was the harm in taking pleasure from his company while she was here?

Swinging her legs off the bed, she surged to her feet. She was going to find the gorgeous brute,