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Some time soon his common sense was going to return, Aksel assured himself as he gave the taxi driver the name of his hotel and leaned back against the seat. He glanced at Mina and was shocked by how out of control she made him feel. He wanted to kiss her again. Hell, he wanted to do a lot more than kiss her, he acknowledged derisively. His body throbbed with desire, and only the knowledge that the taxi driver was watching them in the rear-view mirror stopped him from drawing her into his arms and running his hands over the soft contours of her body that she had pressed against him when they had kissed in the alleyway.
The taxi driver’s curiosity reminded Aksel that he had not thought things through when he had invited Mina to dinner. Journalists from Storvhal had accompanied the trade delegation to London and they would jump at the chance to report that the prince had entertained a beautiful actress at his hotel. It was the kind of story his enemies would seize on to fuel rumours that he was turning into a playboy like his father had been.
Scandal had followed Prince Geir like a bad smell, Aksel remembered grimly. During his reign there had even been a move by some of the population to overthrow the monarchy. The protest groups had grown quiet since Aksel had become Prince of Storvhal, but he was conscious of the necessity to conduct his private life with absolute discretion.
While he was debating what to do, his phone rang and presented him with a solution to the problem. Aksel knew that his personal assistant was completely trustworthy, and he instructed Benedict to arrange a private dinner for him and a guest.
Mina did not recognise the language Aksel was speaking when he answered his phone, but she guessed it was Storvhalian. It was a more guttural sound than Italian, which she had learned to speak a little when she had spent a month in Sicily with her sister Darcey.
Listening to Aksel talking in an unfamiliar language reminded Mina that she knew nothing about him other than that he worked as some kind of advisor for his government. She had also discovered that he was an amazing kisser, which suggested he’d had plenty of practice at kissing women, she thought ruefully. She glanced at his chiselled profile and acknowledged that with his stunning looks he was likely to be very sexually experienced. Maybe he had a girlfriend in Storvhal. She stiffened as another thought struck her. Maybe he had a wife.
He finished his phone conversation and must have mistaken the reason for her tension because he said softly, ‘Forgive my rudeness. I am used to speaking to my PA in my own language.’
‘It’s late to be talking to a member of your staff.’ Mina hesitated. ‘I wondered if it was a girlfriend who called you...or your wife.’
His brows lifted. ‘I’m not married. Do you think I would have asked you to dinner—hell, do you think I would have kissed you if I was in a relationship?’
Mina held her ground. ‘Some men would.’
‘I’m not one of them.’
The quiet implacability of his tone convinced her. Perhaps she was a fool to trust him, but Mina sensed that Aksel had a strong code of honour. He had a curious, almost regal air about him that made her wonder if his role in the Storvhalian government was more important that he had led her to believe. Perhaps he was actually a member of the government rather than an advisor.
But would a government minister have kissed her with such fierce passion? Why not? she mused. Not all politicians were crusty old men. Aksel was an incredibly handsome, sexy, unmarried man who was free to kiss her, just as she was free to kiss him. Heat flooded through her as she recalled the firm pressure of his lips on hers, the hunger that had exploded in her belly when he had pushed his tongue into her mouth.
‘You spoke as if you have personal experience of the type of man who would cheat on his wife.’
Mina shrugged. ‘I was just making a general comment.’ She sensed from the assessing look Aksel gave her that he wasn’t convinced, but to her relief he did not pursue the subject as the taxi came to a halt outside one of London’s most exclusive hotels.
‘You didn’t say you were staying at The Erskine,’ she muttered, panic creeping into her voice as she watched a doorman dressed in a top hat and tailcoat usher a group of people into the hotel. The men were in tuxedos and the women were all wearing evening gowns. Mina glanced doubtfully at her gypsy skirt and flat ballet pumps. ‘I’m definitely not wearing the right clothes for a place like this.’
‘I’d forgotten that there’s a charity function being held at the hotel this evening.’ Aksel frowned as a flashbulb went off and he saw a pack of press photographers outside the hotel, telescopic lenses extended to snap pictures of celebrities attending the event. The last thing he wanted was to be photographed entering the hotel with a beautiful and very noticeable actress. It was the kind of thing that would trigger frantic speculation about his love-life back in Storvhal. He leaned forwards and spoke to the taxi driver, and seconds later the car pulled away from the kerb.
‘There’s another entrance we can use,’ he told Mina. ‘I’ve arranged for us to have dinner privately,’ he explained as she slipped his leather jacket from her shoulders and handed it back to him. ‘I’m not dressed for a black-tie event either.’
As the taxi turned down a narrow side street Mina checked her phone and read a text message from Kat, reminding her that Joshua Hart had asked the cast to meet at the Globe Theatre at nine a.m. the following day. After quickly texting a reply, she scrambled out of the taxi after Aksel. She stumbled on the uneven pavement and he shot an arm around her waist to steady her. The contact with his body made her catch her breath, and her pulse accelerated when he pulled her close. Keeping his arm around her, Aksel escorted her through an unremarkable-looking door into the hotel. Neither of them noticed the car that had pulled up behind the taxi.
Although they had entered the hotel via a back entrance, they still had to walk across the lobby: an oasis of marble and gold-leaf décor, which this evening was filled with sophisticated guests attending the charity function. Mina felt like a street urchin in her casual clothes and was glad that Aksel whisked her over to the lifts, away from the haughty glances of the reception staff.
As the doors closed she was intensely aware of him in the confined space and her heart lurched when he reached out a hand and brushed her hair back from her face. She tensed. Her hearing aids were tiny but they were fitted into the outer shell of her ears and were visible to someone standing close to her. There seemed no point telling him about her hearing loss when she would not see him again after this evening. He had already told her that he was returning to Storvhal tomorrow. She did not understand why he had asked her to have dinner with him, or why she had agreed, and she suddenly felt out of her depth. What on earth was she doing in a luxurious five-star hotel with a man she did not know?
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked softly. ‘If you’ve changed your mind about dinner I can arrange for you to be taken home.’ He paused, and his husky voice sent a shiver across Mina’s skin. ‘But I hope you’ll stay.’
She could feel her blood pounding in her ears, echoing her erratic heartbeat. It terrified her that he had such a devastating effect on her. ‘It’s ridiculous for two strangers to have dinner,’ she blurted out. ‘I don’t know anything about you.’
‘You know that I am a fan of Shakespeare—and chocolate mousse.’ His blue eyes glinted as bright as diamonds. ‘And I have discovered that you have an incredible talent for acting, and kissing.’
Her breath caught in her throat. ‘You shouldn’t say that,’ she whispered.
‘Do you want me to say you’re bad at kissing?’ His lips twitched with amusement but the expression in his eyes was serious. ‘I can’t lie, angel, you are amazing, and all I can think of is how much I want to kiss you again.’
Mina did not know if she was relieved or disappointed when the lift stopped and the doors slid smoothly apart. As she followed Aksel along a carpeted corridor the voice of caution inside her head told her to race back to the lift. Her eyes widened when he opened a set of double doors into an exquisitely decorated room where a polished dining table set with silver cutlery and candles reflected the ornate chandelier suspended above it. Vases of oriental lilies placed around the room filled the air with their sweet perfume, and the lamps were dimmed to create an ambiance that was unsettlingly intimate.
Aksel strolled over to the bar and picked up a bottle of champagne from an ice bucket. He popped the cork with a deftness that suggested he was no stranger to champagne, filled two tall flutes and handed one to Mina.
‘We’ll have a drink while we look at the menu.’
Mina watched his throat move as he swallowed a mouthful of champagne. His dark blond hair had fallen forwards onto his brow again and she longed to run her fingers through it. Conscious that she was staring at him, she took a gulp of her drink and belatedly realised that champagne on an empty stomach was not a good idea. The bubbles hit the back of her throat and seemed to instantly enter her bloodstream, making her head spin.
‘Come and sit down.’ Aksel draped his jacket over the arm of a sofa and sat down, patting the empty space beside him. He hooked his ankle over his thigh and stretched one arm along the back of the sofa, causing his black silk shirt to strain across his broad chest. He looked indolent and so dangerously sexy that the thought of joining him on the sofa made Mina’s heart hammer.
‘Um...I’d like to use the bathroom before we eat.’
‘The first door on your left along the corridor,’ he advised.
Get a grip, Mina told herself sternly a few moments later as she stared at her flushed face in the bathroom mirror. She looked different, more alive, as if a lightbulb had been switched on inside her. Even her hair seemed to crackle with electricity, and her eyes looked enormous, the pupils dilated, reflecting the wild excitement that she could not control. She traced her tongue over her lips, remembering how the firm pressure of Aksel’s mouth had forced them apart when he had kissed her.
She held her wrists under the cold tap, hoping to lower her temperature that seemed in danger of boiling over. Maybe if she took her jacket off she would cool down—but the sight of her pebble-hard nipples jutting provocatively beneath her thin shirt put paid to that idea. The jacket would have to stay on. It was better to look hot than desperate!
Oh, hell! Tempting though it was to hide in the bathroom, she had to go out and face him. You’re an actress, she reminded herself. You can play cool and collected if you pretend he’s in the audience and don’t make eye contact with him.
Taking a deep breath, she returned to the dining room and to avoid looking at Aksel she picked up her glass and finished her champagne. He was standing by the window, but turned when she came in and walked towards her.
‘I’d love to know what thoughts are going on behind those mysterious deep green eyes,’ he murmured as she swept her long eyelashes down.
‘Actually, I was wondering why someone who can afford to stay at a five-star hotel would choose to buy the cheapest ticket at the theatre and stand for a two-hour performance, not just once, but on three evenings. But I suppose,’ Mina voiced her thoughts, ‘as you are in London on a business trip, your employer would pay for your hotel. You must be very good at your job for your government to put you up at The Erskine.’
Aksel hesitated. Although Mina had heard of Storvhal, she clearly had no idea of his identity, and he did not feel obliged to reveal that he was the ruling monarch of the principality. For one night he wanted to forget his royal responsibilities.
‘It’s true that my accommodation was arranged for me,’ he murmured. ‘The first evening when I visited the Globe the only tickets available were for the yard in front of the stage. I probably could have booked a seat in the gallery on the second and third night, but I’ll admit I chose to stand so that I had a clear view of you.’
His voice roughened. ‘The first time I saw you walk onto the stage you blew me away.’
Mina felt as if the air had been sucked out of her lungs. She understood what he meant because she had felt exactly the same when she had seen him in the audience: utterly blown away by his raw sexuality. Her eyes flew to his face, and the primitive hunger in his gaze mirrored the inexplicable, inescapable need that was flowing like a wild river through her body.
‘Aksel...’ She had meant it to sound like a remonstration but his name left her lips on a breathy whisper, an invitation, a plea.
‘Angel.’ He moved towards her, or maybe she moved first. Mina did not know how she came to be in his arms, only that they felt like bands of steel around her as he pulled her into the hard, warm strength of his body and bent his head to capture her mouth in a kiss that set her on fire.
CHAPTER THREE
MINA REMEMBERED HOW she had run into Aksel’s arms when she had fled from the youths in the alleyway. Her instincts had told her she would be safe with him, and she felt that same sense of security now, as if—ridiculous as it seemed—she belonged with him.
He kissed her with increasing passion until she trembled with the intensity of need he was arousing in her. When he eventually lifted his mouth from hers she pressed her lips to his cheek. The blond stubble on his jaw scraped against her skin, heightening her awareness of his raw masculinity. She arched her neck as he traced his lips down her throat, but when he smoothed her hair back behind her ear she quickly turned her head so that he did not see her hearing aids.
He moved his hands over her body, shaping her shoulders, tracing the length of her spine and finally cupping her bottom. She gasped when he jerked her against his pelvis and she felt the unmistakable hard ridge of his arousal. Perhaps she should have felt shocked, or pulled away from him, but she had no control over the molten warmth of her own desire.
‘You have no idea how many times in the last three days I have imagined doing this—holding you, kissing you—’ Aksel’s voice lowered to a husky growl ‘—making love to you.’
Mina’s heart turned over at the thought of where this was leading. Was she really contemplating making love with a man she had only spoken to for the first time a few hours ago? It was madness—and yet hadn’t she thought of him constantly since she had spotted him in the audience three nights ago? She had tried to tell herself that she had become too absorbed in the role of Juliet, and had been looking for a real-life Romeo. Fantasising about the blond man in the audience had been just that—a fantasy. But being here with Aksel was real, and so was the urgent, all-consuming desire that was making her heart pound in her chest.
A tiny shred of her sanity still remained and she said almost desperately, ‘I don’t do things like this. I don’t go back to strangers’ hotels...’ She broke off helplessly as he gave her a crooked smile.
‘Will you believe that this is a new experience for me too, angel?’ Aksel raked his hair back from his brow with an unsteady hand. The restrictions of being a prince meant that he had rarely had the opportunity, and never the inclination, to pick up a woman in a bar. He assured himself that he’d had no ulterior motive when he had invited Mina to his hotel other than that he wanted to get to know her a little better. But the minute they had been alone and he had looked into her deep green eyes his usual restraint had been swept away by a storm surge of desire, and now the situation was rapidly getting out of hand.
‘I’ve never felt like this before,’ he admitted rawly. ‘I have never wanted any woman as desperately as I want you.’
They were supposed to be having dinner, Aksel reminded himself. Perhaps if they sat down at the table and studied the menu the madness that was making him behave so out of character would pass.
‘Are you hungry?’
Aksel spoke in such a low tone that Mina struggled to hear him, but as she watched his lips shape the question she remembered that she had not eaten anything since breakfast. She felt light-headed, probably from the effects of the champagne, she acknowledged ruefully. But hunger seemed to heighten her other senses and evoked a different physical need inside her. Just the thought of Aksel making love to her made her gut twist with desire.
‘Yes, I’m hungry,’ she replied in a husky, sensual voice that did not sound like her own.
‘Do you want to order some food?’
She hesitated for a heartbeat. ‘It’s not food I want,’ she whispered.
He said something in his own language. Mina did not understand the words but the glitter in his eyes was unmistakable as he hauled her against him and brought his mouth down on hers in a kiss that plundered her soul. She did not protest when he lifted her into his arms and strode through a door at the far end of the dining room. With her hands linked at his nape and her face pressed against his throat she was barely aware of her surroundings until he set her on her feet and she saw that they were in a huge bedroom dominated by an enormous bed.
It occurred to her vaguely that he must have a very good job for his country’s government to have arranged for him to stay in such a luxurious room. But then he placed his mouth over hers once more and she instantly succumbed to the sensual mastery of his kiss. She was barely aware of him removing her jacket or unbuttoning her shirt and sliding it off her shoulders. Her sheer white bra decorated with tiny lace flowers pushed her breasts high and her dark pink nipples tilted provocatively beneath the semi-transparent material.
Aksel made a harsh sound in his throat as he lifted his hand and traced a finger lightly over her breasts. ‘You are even more beautiful than I imagined. You take my breath away.’
Mina’s heart gave a jolt as he reached behind her and undid her bra, but she made no attempt to stop him. Not even his ragged groan pierced the mist of unreality that had descended over her, and she gave a little shiver of excitement as her bra cups fell away and her breasts spilled into his palms. She lifted her eyes to his face and saw dull colour streak along his high cheekbones. His reaction to her, the feral glitter in his eyes, made her feel intensely aware of her femininity and her sexual allure. After what had happened with Dexter she had deliberately kept her body hidden beneath shapeless clothes, unwilling to risk attracting any man’s attention. But the past and all its humiliating horror seemed far away.
Her sense of unreality deepened. It seemed incredible that her fantasies about the man in the audience were coming true. She had imagined him kissing her, undressing her, and now, as Aksel unzipped her skirt and it fluttered to the floor, Mina allowed herself to sink deeper into the dream.
‘Sweet Juliet,’ he murmured as he bent his head and closed his lips around the tight bud of her nipple. The sensation was so exquisite that she cried out and arched her body like a slender bow, offering him her breasts and gasping with pleasure when he suckled her nipples in turn until they were swollen and tender.
She wanted to touch him as he was touching her and tore open his shirt buttons, parting the edges of his black silk shirt to reveal his golden tanned body. His skin gleamed like satin stretched taut over the defined ridges of his abdominal muscles. Dark blond hairs covered his chest and arrowed down over his flat stomach. Mina traced the fuzzy path with her fingers, but hesitated when she reached the waistband of his trousers as a voice of caution inside her head reminded her that her last sexual experience had been three years ago with a boyfriend she had dated for over a year.
Her heart-rate slowed and thudded painfully beneath her ribs. She must be crazy to think of having sex with a stranger. Aksel had proved that she could trust him when he had rescued her from the youths in the alleyway, and she was certain that if she called a halt now he would accept her decision. The sensible thing to do would be to tell him that she had changed her mind, but as she stared at his sculpted face with its slashing cheekbones and sensual mouth she could not formulate the words. The fire in his ice-blue eyes melted her resolve to walk away from him, and desire pooled hotly between her thighs when he stroked the bare strip of skin above the lace band of her hold-up stockings.
He held her gaze as he eased her panties aside and ran a finger up and down her moist opening until he felt her relax, allowing him to gently part her and slide deep into her silken heat.
‘Beautiful,’ he murmured when he discovered how aroused she was. He kissed her again with a blatant sensuality that drugged her senses so that she was barely aware of him removing the rest of her underwear before stripping out of his own clothes. He moved away from her for a moment, and she drew a shaky breath as she watched him take a protective sheath from the bedside drawer and slide it over his erection.
‘I’m sure you agree that we don’t want to take any risks,’ he murmured.
Mina nodded mutely, shocked to realise that she was so caught up in the heat of sexual excitement she had not given a thought to contraception. Luckily Aksel was thinking clearly, but the fact that he was prepared for sex emphasised that his level of experience was far greater than hers. Doubt crept into her mind and she hoped he would not find her disappointing.
Her thoughts were distracted as he drew her into his arms once more. His powerful, muscular body reminded Mina of a golden-haired Norse god, but although he looked as formidable as a Viking warrior his hands were gentle as he cupped her bottom and lifted her against him.
She caught her breath when she felt the solid length of his erection jab into her belly.
‘Wrap your legs around me,’ he bade her tautly.
Trembling with anticipation, she gripped his shoulders for support and locked her ankles behind his back. Carefully he guided his thick shaft between her thighs and Mina buried her face against his neck to muffle her soft moan as he possessed her with a devastating powerful thrust. Her internal muscles stretched as he filled her. He withdrew slowly and then drove into her again, each thrust harder than the last so that her excitement swiftly mounted to fever pitch.
His shoulder muscles rippled beneath her hands as he supported her, making her aware of his immense strength. The sensation of him moving inside her was amazing, incredible, and indescribably beautiful. The world was spinning faster and faster, drawing her into a vortex of pleasure that grew more intense as he increased his pace. It was all happening too quickly. She gasped, feeling overwhelmed by Aksel’s urgent passion and her equally urgent response to him.
‘Angel, I’m sorry, I can’t wait,’ he groaned. He tightened his grip on her bottom and thrust so deeply into her that Mina wondered how much more she could take before her body shattered. She looked into his brilliant blue eyes and saw her need reflected in his burning gaze. His expression was almost tortured and she sensed he was fighting for control. He tipped his head back so that the veins on his neck stood out, and at the moment he exploded inside her Mina felt the first powerful ripples of her orgasm radiate out from her central core, and she gave a keening cry as she fell with him into ecstasy.
* * *
It was a long time before the world settled back on its axis, but eventually reality returned, bringing with it a tidal wave of guilt.
‘I...I should go,’ Mina whispered. She could taste tears at the back of her throat and forced herself to swallow them. There would be time for recriminations later, but her immediate aim was to slide off the bed where Aksel had laid her a few moments ago, and get dressed with as much dignity as possible—given the circumstances.