Page 58 of The Secret of Flirting
She thrust out her chin. “Yes, but this is to help Aurore. And Grand-maman. The other would be wrong.”
Gregory shook his head. She was so refreshingly naïve in some ways.
“Besides,” she said, “what do I know about ruling a country? No, he wouldn’t ask that.”
“Are you sure? Perhaps that was his plan all along—to put you in Aurore’s place.”
The shock on her face made it clear that hadn’t occurred to her. “I would never agree to that!”
“Even to take care of your grandmother?”
A troubled frown knit her brow. “Not even for that.”
He shouldn’t believe her, but he did. She seemed caught between a rock and a hard place. As was he. Because the minute he revealed her identity, it could come out that he’d known all along. She might even admit it herself to save her own skin.
Then everyone would question why he hadn’t acted from the beginning. And all his protests that he hadn’t been sure of who she was would fall on deaf ears.
Damn. He should have exposed her the moment he’d suspected the truth. But he hadn’t, so now he was in a quandary. “How about this?” he said. “The decision won’t be made until we return. So for now, I’ll let you go on with your masquerade while I try to find out if anyone truly is trying to murder your cousin, and why. By then we should know if Princess Aurore has survived, and we can move on from there.”
He was stalling, giving himself time to think his way out of this mess.
But judging from the way her face brightened, he had just given her the keys to the kingdom. “Oh, Gregory!” she cried, and threw her arms about his neck. She kissed both his cheeks. “Thank you, thank you,thank you.”
“Hmph,” he grumbled. “I know I’m going to regret this.”
“You won’t, I swear,” she told him. Then she kissed his mouth. Sweetly. Tenderly.
His pulse broke into a stampede. “What are you doing?” he growled as he jerked back from her.
She stared up at him with eyes as luminous as the setting sun shining through the window behind her. “Making sure you don’t regret this.”
“Monique—”
She cut him off with a kiss that set his body afire. No woman had done that to him in a very long time. He was always too conscious of his position and what it would cost him to have a dalliance with someone he couldn’t trust.
But she made him want things...needthings...
Clasping her close, he kissed her with all the fervent longing in his blood. And she gave as good as she got, twining her tongue with his, pressing her breasts against him, and making him ache down deep where he never ached. Not for anyone.
What did it matter if she did it out of gratitude, really?
But the rational part of him knew it mattered. It protested this lapse in his conscience. Yet the part of him that desired her stifled all protests, reminding him that she was no young virgin, that she could be his for the taking. That she was soft and giving in his arms, her mouth a wonder and her body eager for him. He wanted her so badly, he could hardly think.
So he abandoned thought and, without looking back, plunged in where angels feared to swim.
Fourteen
Gregory’s eager response heartened Monique. She truly did want to show him her gratitude, so he wouldn’t regret this. So he would think twice before confronting her great-uncle.
It wasn’t because she wanted to banish his ghosts. Or because this secluded spot made her yearn to explore the attraction between them. Or because every time he kissed and caressed her, it unwound a little more the coiled rope of past longings and urges and needs that she’d spent years ignoring. Years suppressing.
With him, she wanted to suppress nothing.
Taking her by surprise, he swept some books off the chaise longue behind them, sat down, and then dragged her onto his lap. Men had tried to pull her onto their laps before, and she’d fought them.
She didn’t fight Gregory. She looped her arms about his neck again, eager to let him do as he would with her.
“From the moment I saw you on the stage,” he whispered against her cheek, “I wanted to touch you. Explore you.” He trailed kisses down her jaw. “To have you in my arms like this.” He covered one breast and kneaded it through her gown and undergarments. “To have you at my mercy.”
