Princess by Gaelen Foley Page B

rippling all down his chiseled belly, Darius reached over and lifted the second basin of now-tepid water from the low table nearby. He set the basin on her lap, his fingertips brushing her knee. She steadied the basin with her right hand as he picked up the soap and let it float in the water.
    “Let’s get this off you.”
    “It’s stuck.”
    “We’ll see about that,” he growled. Taking her left hand gently between both of his, he dunked her hand in the basin all the way up to her wrist. He held it under the water for a moment.
    Both staring down at their joined hands, neither of them spoke.
    Next, he took the small oval of soap, smoothing it back and forth across her palm with his thumb until tiny bubbles appeared. He massaged the bubbles gently all over her hand, up the tapered length of each finger and her thumb. She could have groaned aloud with the pleasure of his touch, tingling all the way up her arm. Her heartbeat quickened with each caress of skin on wet, slick skin.
    When he had coated her hand in the pearly sheen of the suds, he took the gold band of the ring between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing it hard, but with precision. She kept her head down, biting her lip against the pain, but she watched the powerful muscles leap all the way up his arm with his careful exertion. Then he changed his grip, holding the gold band with all four fingers and thumb, and began working it off of her finger.
    “Am I hurting you?” he murmured.
    She shook her head, her voice captured in her throat.
    The ring was still bent too much to fit over her swollen middle knuckle.
    “A little more,” he said.
    Again, he soaped her hand, sliding his wet forefinger slowly into the V between each of her fingers. She watched the play of muscle across his hard chest, gazed longingly at the small, tawny circles of his nipples, and the silver medal shining against his gold, gleaming skin.
    So beautiful, she thought with a soul-deep ache, for he would never be hers. Her longing for him filled her with self-directed anger and misery. Would she never get over this man? Had she no pride? She had tried to hate him but could not.
    She stared sorrowfully at his downswept lashes and high cheekbones and the intent look on his finely sculpted face as he squeezed the gold band back into a rough circle and tried to pull it off her. Again, it didn’t work.
    “I think there is no getting rid of it,” she whispered.
    Under his forelock, he looked up, meeting her gaze with a directness that nearly knocked the breath from her. His voice was soft but ferocious. “I will free you from it. Trust me.”
    She stared at him, taken aback.
    He lowered his head again. Carefully he eased the ring over her knuckle at last and removed it from her finger. When he looked up and met her gaze, the fiery intensity glowed in his eyes, this time with dark satisfaction.
    “You did it,” she breathed.
    “Leave it off.”
    “A-all right,” she stammered, wide-eyed.
    He rinsed the suds from her skin very tenderly. Placing the broken ring in her hand, he curled her fingers around it in his own. The curved scar on his lip tilted as he gave her his rarest, truest smile. He had a smile like molasses, dark and rich and bittersweet, and it melted her completely.
    “Get dressed, Princesa, then we’ll go see your father,” he murmured, but before he let her go, he lifted her hand to his lips.
    She stared in amazement as he closed his eyes, bent his head, and pressed to her injured knuckle a single, ardent kiss.
    Serafina had gone into the dressing room to put on a fresh gown while Darius slipped his damp, bloodied shirt back on and went out into the hallway, where he ordered a footman to fetch his aide, Lieutenant Alec Giroux. He instructed the servant to have Alec meet him at his suite in the royal block as soon as possible.
    Shirt flowing open down his chest, Darius paced in the sitting room while Serafina dressed in the adjoining compartment.
    Those moments with her