Princess's Secret Baby Read online

  And concentrate he did.

  ‘Now, you’re perfect,’ James said. ‘Almost.’

  ‘Almost?’

  He went in his pocket and pulled out what Leila thought was another lipstick. ‘What sort of man carries lipstick?’ Leila asked, and he simply smiled as he got to work on her very full mouth.

  ‘It’s lip balm,’ James corrected. ‘If you ski as much as I do, you tend to carry it.’

  She liked the waxy feel of it as he applied it. She ran her tongue over her lips and there was a slight taste of vanilla, but still she could not imagine her father or Zayn carrying such a thing.

  For all her naivety Leila had not been completely shielded from men. She thought of Zayn’s friends of yesteryear. Cocky playboys who used women, yet she did not feel used tonight. There was something else to James—something that made her smile, made her feel warm, made her feel very beautiful indeed, and that was something she had never felt before.

  ‘You are like no one I have ever known,’ Leila said.

  ‘Snap.’

  ‘Snap?’ Leila checked, because even though her English was excellent she didn’t know what that word meant.

  ‘It means that I feel the same about you,’ James said, and then he checked himself, because he didn’t get involved in any one woman. He was saying things to Leila that he didn’t usually say and he didn’t want to give her mixed messages.

  Tomorrow he would be gone.

  ‘For now,’ he amended.

  ‘For now?’

  ‘I’m very, very bad at relationships,’ James said. ‘I tend not to do them.’

  ‘Tend?’ Leila checked, for she did not understand that word also, but James took it that she wanted him to elaborate.

  ‘I’ve had one serious relationship and she chose to go to the press and share every last thing that I’d told her in confidence as well as a lot of salacious details. What about you?’ James asked. ‘Have you ever been seriously involved with anyone?’

  ‘Never,’ Leila said.

  She told the truth; James just never thought that she might mean literally.

  More drinks were on the table, but it was not the liquor that made her giddy and laugh. It was this man who asked questions, who gave of himself, who laughed deeply and who simply could not release her hands save to feed her her drink.

  ‘Do you want dinner?’ James asked, but she shook her head for there was a different sort of hunger in Leila tonight and she told him that.

  ‘I want to know about you.’

  He revealed too much perhaps, but the gold of her eyes mesmerised and, even as he warned himself not to disclose it, James found himself telling Leila, warning her even, that he was a cad, a playboy, a rake. How he lived life his way, and it seemed to be working for he had the Midas touch when it came to the stock markets. How he partied at night, how he threw himself off mountains, how nothing and no one could tame him and how he chose not to impress. ‘I tried behaving and I gave it up at the age of eighteen,’ James said, and revealed how he had strived for perfection, but that nothing he had ever done had been good enough for his father.

  He did not get sympathy from Leila.

  ‘At least you were noticed,’ Leila said. ‘I was ignored.’

  ‘How could anyone ignore you?’ James asked. ‘I don’t believe it could be possible to ignore you.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Leila said. ‘My mother...’ She hesitated. That her mother had never loved her would surely make her unlovable to him. That she had never, ever been wanted was her deepest, darkest shame and so she bent history a little. ‘Since Jasmine, my sister, died, my mother has not been able to look at me,’ Leila said. ‘And I have grown tired of waiting and so now I do as I wish. I live as I want to.’

  ‘They don’t approve of that?’

  ‘Oh, no, they don’t approve,’ Leila answered,

  They never had.

  ‘To two black sheep,’ James said, and raised another glass.

  They were drinking shots now, saluting their failures to measure up in their parents’ eyes. Knees were touching, eyes caressing and, oh, it was the very best night of her life.

  ‘So what,’ Leila asked, for she could not ever get tired of getting to know this man, ‘is your ambition? What do you aim for when everything you touch turns to gold? When you party all the time, when the world is at your feet, what do you strive for? What is it you want that you have never had?’

  ‘You,’ James said, and his mouth neared hers, but she knew that wasn’t the full answer and Leila moved back her head.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand my answer,’ James said.

  ‘I might,’ Leila said, ‘or I might not, but either way I would love to hear it.’

  She just might understand, James thought, and so he told her his truth. ‘I want to know what it is to hit rock bottom,’ James admitted, because maybe then he might feel...something.

  ‘I already have,’ Leila answered. Her life as she knew it was gone. Her family would disown her as surely as the sun would rise in the morning. Everything had sunk around her, but so long as she was here with James it simply did not matter as to the surroundings, for the night was beautiful. She looked to the man who had saved her from hell and his mouth was approaching hers. ‘But I’m on my way up now,’ Leila said.

  Leila had never been kissed, she had really never even imagined being kissed, and yet now here it was—his mouth was soft and warm on hers. She did not move her lips to his at first, just relished the intimate weight, and when she saw that his eyes had closed, so, too, did hers.

  And then her lips started to move and she was kissing him back softly, sliding her mouth over his. His hand captured her cheek and the other moved to her waist. She wanted to get closer to him, wanted to climb onto his lap; she wanted to be held in his arms.

  Her lips parted, for no reason other than she wanted more of something she had never known, and James halted their kiss. Usually he did not care as to surroundings or discretion but she deserved better than his hand moving up her thigh, as it wanted to.

  ‘Dance,’ James said, his mouth just an inch from hers, aching in both of their groins.

  ‘I don’t want to dance,’ Leila said, her eyes opening. ‘I want to keep kissing.’

  ‘Dance,’ James said, for his body yearned for more contact, and so he stood, and offered her his hand.

  ‘I’ve never danced,’ Leila admitted as they headed to the dance floor.

  ‘I thought you said that you loved music.’

  ‘I love to play it,’ she admitted as he took her in her arms. ‘I love to hear it...’

  Now she got to feel it.

  The slow sensual beat of the music was matched by the slow sensual caress of his body moving with hers. His face was in her hair and his arms loosely held her. His fingers stroked her bare arms and the shiver that ran through Leila had nothing to do with the temperature, for she had never been more warm.

  ‘You smell amazing,’ James said to her hair, and he pulled her in just a little closer, but enough that she felt his hardness. The nudge of his erection on her stomach had her giddy, had her damp, had her mouth move to find his.

  ‘Not here,’ James said, denying her another kiss, and he offered what he hoped she would not want. ‘We can go to a bar I know, if you think here is a bit staid...’

  Staid?

  She had never been wilder in her life. She was moving to music, pressed to a man whose body made hers ache with suspense.

  ‘Or,’ James carefully suggested, ‘we could go back to The Chatsfield...’ he offered, for it was where he usually took women. Never back to his penthouse, which made things too personal. But, James decided, if she declined his offer, he might even suggest they go there, so desperate was he to have her, but her
response most pleasantly surprised him.

  ‘Can we go to my suite?’ Leila asked, for she was looking at his mouth, feeling his warmth, and she craved for it to be just the two of them, to finally be alone with him.

  Hearing her ask to retire to her suite now had him wonder if an angel had just fallen from heaven.

  ‘We can,’ James said.

  ‘One more dance though,’ Leila said, for she did not want to leave his arms for even a moment.

  It was music she had never heard before but it was etched to her heart now, for with each sway, with each breath, he brought her to somewhere she did not know existed. Her breasts ached, her thighs at the top ached too, and at her very centre she needed more of him. Her mouth yearned for his and his fingers, now gently exploring her spine through her dress, made her feel naked and produced a sudden tension in her.

  ‘I need your kiss,’ Leila said, and James looked right back at her.

  There was no language barrier to her words; she spoke the truth.

  ‘Now,’ Leila said, and her voice was a touch urgent.

  ‘Don’t you want to dance some more?’ James said, for she was so close he could feel it building in her and so he whispered into the shell of her ear. ‘A musician that’s never danced,’ James murmured. ‘That must have taken some restraint.’

  She was glad, so glad, he was holding her, for without him she would simply sink to her knees. She answered him with a truth that had him lead her from the dance floor.

  ‘I have no restraint tonight.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  THANK GOD THEY WERE alone in the elevator, for they kissed the way a couple should only kiss when alone.

  Their mouths belonged to each other, his hands pressed at her buttocks and he ground his pelvis into her. The ache he procured deepened, his erection something she needed to feel, yet even with it pressed hard into her groin it was not enough.

  They made it halfway along the corridor to her suite, then he kissed her up against the wall. Her hands pressed his head into hers and like conjoined crabs they walked sideways kissing to her door.

  ‘Where’s...?’ James said to her mouth, for he remembered that she did not have a bag with her and they needed the swipe card to her door so badly.

  ‘In my bra,’ Leila mumbled, and his hand slid to the wrong breast and it lingered, stroking her to the edge of orgasm, then moving over to the other. He retrieved the warm card and opened the door and barely registered their surrounds as he shrugged off his jacket. He simply had eyes only for her.

  Leila’s hands went to her back to undo the zip of her dress and, seeing her breasts jut and her struggle to be naked for him, when first he had wanted Leila up against the wall and inside her this moment, James turned her around instead.

  ‘I’m undressing you,’ James said with command, for it could very easily be over in a moment, yet he wanted to take his time.

  Leila’s maid usually undressed her.

  But not like this.

  He placed her palms to the wall and she rested her head on it. With every inch the zip lowered down her spine, her skin was caressed by his tongue. Down, slowly down with the zipper, until, on his knees, he kissed the small of her back and she shivered as his jaw scratched her soft skin and his hand moved up between her legs. Her tiny panties were damp and Leila let out a moan as his fingers slid inside and she gasped as he located a spot that she had never even known existed.

  ‘How do you know...?’ she begged as he continued to bring her to life with his touch. Her thighs were like water and his mouth was leaving her back now, his hold on her easing as he shifted position.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ Leila begged, but he stood and removed her palms from the wall and turned her around.

  ‘We’re not stopping,’ James said, for there were still six hours left of their one night. He discarded her dress and Leila felt free. Free to stand in her underwear and heels and watch him admire her.

  His thumb stroked the red velvet of her bra and she watched her already erect nipples grow under his touch, then bit on her lip as his mouth suckled her through the fabric.

  ‘Please...’ Leila begged. It was the nicest thing she had ever experienced, yet it was still not enough.

  ‘Slow down,’ James said, words he rarely did.

  Were it not Leila he’d have had her by now, would be deep inside her, taking her up against the wall. The temptation to do so was still there, still strong...

  Yes, it was there but instead he was teasing out a dark nipple, caressing it with his mouth, and the moans from Leila were worth his rare restraint. The scent of her hair was the same as her skin—rare, exotic and oiled—and so he lingered.

  She was shocked that a man might suck from her breast, but it was so sublime that she pleaded for more when he stopped.

  ‘James...’ His mouth left her breast and it left it cold, swollen and aching, yet his mouth did not leave her skin. Standing she endured his deep kiss down her stomach. Yes, endure, Leila thought as she stood there almost weeping. It felt like hunger, it felt like sin, it felt delicious what his kiss could do.

  ‘This isn’t sex...’ Leila whimpered as he slid down her panties and he probed her with his tongue. This wasn’t like the pictures in the palace library that she had peeked at a few times and had made her forbidden place feel warm.

  ‘Do you want me to stop?’ James asked, his mouth hovering over her clitoris, his breath warm and tempting.

  Leila answered him with her hand, pressing his head back into her, and for a moment she stared down. One breast was exposed, the other covered by fabric made wet by his mouth. Her stomach was not familiar, for beneath it was his hair, and the noise of his intimate explorations had her moaning.

  ‘James...’ She wanted him to stop, yet she did not. His mouth was soft, yet she had never felt anything more intense. Her thighs were shaking; his hand clamped her buttocks so there was no escape from his relentless tongue and the soft sucking noises he made. When he moaned into her mound, everything gathered, every nerve pointed and shot to her centre. Leila thought she would topple, but instead the wall supported her back and his arms pressed her groin to his face as she came shockingly, wickedly, deliciously.

  The warning that he was close to coming himself had him pull back and look up at her as she slowly opened her eyes and met his.

  ‘My turn now,’ Leila said, and he smiled at her back-to-front way of thinking. ‘I want to see you.’

  His shirt had too many buttons, Leila decided, for she was very bad at undoing buttons when the maids usually did it for her. She tried to kiss his chest as he had her back, but she grew impatient and tore the bottom of his shirt open instead. ‘You are beautiful,’ Leila said, for he was—his pale skin was toned and his nipples were the same dark red of his mouth and deserved tasting. So, too, did his stomach; the snake of hair there as she undid his belt was rough to her mouth. She could feel his erection straining beneath the fabric against her cheek and for a moment she kissed him through it, then she pushed up from her knees to stand.

  Nothing scared her; he only made her curious. The way his cock sprang to greet her as she freed it, the way he moaned as she ran her fingers along its length. She pressed her free hand into his mouth and he suckled on her fingers as he stepped out of trousers and then she stopped touching him, for Leila did not like his socks.

  ‘Take them off,’ Leila instructed, and it was said with such authority and command James half expected her to produce a whip.

  ‘Do you like giving orders, Leila?’ James asked, removing the offending garments.

  ‘It comes very naturally to me.’ Leila nodded.

  ‘Not tonight it doesn’t,’ James said. ‘Take off your bra.’

  It was half off already but she did not comply. ‘Remove it for me.’

  They stood in a de
licious stand-off and with a wry smile he tugged it around and removed the clasp and dropped it to the floor.

  ‘Get on the bed,’ James said.

  She could not breathe, no air would go in and no air would come out. She liked the command of his voice and even though he was stern it did not feel like being told off.

  ‘Get on the bed, Leila...’ James said. ‘It can be your turn tomorrow.’

  What the hell was he talking about tomorrow for? James wondered. He picked up his jacket and took out some condoms as the beguiling beauty finally complied and got on the bed. Naked, Leila lay there; every cell in her body thrummed in anticipation and she told him how she felt. ‘I want to writhe beneath you...’ Then she stopped as she saw he was putting a sheath on. She knew a little and she also knew that she did not like that ugly pink thing.

  ‘Take it off,’ Leila said. ‘I’m on the pill.’

  James stood there; he was the most careful of careful but he’d long since lost his head tonight. When he did not obey her instruction, when he stood by the bed, Leila removed it for him and lowered her head and licked him. ‘I will take away the taste of plastic...’

  She wanted back to the musky scent of him and she licked along his length. Leila licked her tongue around the shaft, working her way to his head, tasting and swallowing the thin stream that came from the delicious tip with a mounting pleasure. She felt his hand on her head as he guided her to take it fully in, but she was enjoying simply licking him. Then suddenly she toppled as James pushed her back onto the bed and as he came over her she felt his impatience and power. His mouth crushed hers and as his thigh parted hers, Leila opened her legs readily. The weight of him on top of her was pure pleasure and the harshness of his kiss and the roughness of his jaw took her higher. The swollen feel of him there at her entrance served as poor warning for the absolute pain as he seared in, tearing her, parting her in one deft thrust, and she arched into him and let out a scream.

  What the...? James stilled. He’d never had a virgin before, but there was no mistaking he was having one now. She was incredibly tight around him and he’d taken her with such force that he’d been unable to halt. ‘I hurt you...’