The Rebel King

Chapter 6

The shower was primitive by American plumbing standards, obviously a late-though not recent-addition to the old stone farmhouse. It consisted, as so many European showers do, of a handheld device that had a tendency to snake out of control and spray tepid water in unintended directions, usually. Rhia found, when her eyes were tightly shut and her face covered with shampoo. So it wasn't the sensual pleasure of it that made her linger much longer than she should have.

She needed to think. She did some of her best thinking in the shower; something about the gentle drumming on her scalp, the relaxing massage and caress of the water, the shushing sounds that drowned out all distractions. Sometimes she thought it seemed as though the water actually loosened up her mind…washed away clutter…made things clearer. And she desperately needed to think clearly-about many things, but mostly about Nikolas Donovan.

Thoughts of Nikolas were dangerous. Even painful. But she forced herself to think of him anyway, like pressing on a bruise to assure herself that it really did hurt. The attraction she felt for him that had seemed so entertaining at first-daring…a little wicked, but ultimately harmless-had begun to feel instead like being caught in a flood. The water had risen before she'd realized it. and now she was being swept away by the torrent. Sometimes swimming hard and still fighting it. tme. Sometimes, for a moment, giving in and letting the current cany her. Those times, the giving-in times, the letting go of the struggle times, were beginning to feel like such a relief to her. and every second the temptation grew to simply…let go. Stop fighting it. Stop trying to cling to what remained of her sanity and good sense, which were as useless anyway against the rising tide of her feelings as grabbing for twigs in a flood.

She could not fall for Nikolas Donovan. She could not. She could see no good outcome for herself if she did.

He wasn't making it easy for her to resist him. Damn him. Of course, he would probably have been irresistible without one particle of effort on his part, but he seemed determined to indulge himself in this lighthearted pursuit of her, as if… as if, she thought, shivering with sudden anger under the shower's cooling spray, it were some sort of game.

Though actually, if it were a game she could probably handle that; she'd played them herself, from time to time. Enjoyed them as much as anyone.

But what if it's not a game?

Oh, yeah, admit it, Rhee. That's what's really worrying you, isn't it? That this doesn't feel like a game. Not to you, anyway. Games don't make you feel like you're riding a torrent. Like you 're not in control.

Rhia really hated not being in control, which was probably why she'd never allowed herself to fall in love before. But suppose…just suppose…that was what was happening to her now?

The thought caused a swooping sensation in her midsection, which in turn made her drop the shower wand for the sixth or seventh time. She picked it up and aimed the spray full in her face, head bowed, eyes closed and breathing hard through her mouth, and after a moment was able to make herself face the awful possibility that she might be falling in love with Nikolas Donovan.

Falling in love with a prince. The heir to the crown of Silvershire.

Okay. Suppose she was. The way she saw it, there were two possible outcomes.

One, it's just a game to Nikolas, and Rhia completes her mission, delivers him to his father the king and returns to her job with the Lazlo Group with a few bruises on her heart. Not a happy prospect, but she'd survive.

Or two, it's not a game for Nikolas, either. But the prospect of that didn't bear thinking about.

She emerged from the shower physically refreshed and more emotionally exhausted than when she'd stepped into it. She hurriedly toweled her hair and left it to dry in its own way, dressed in the only clean clothes she had in her backpack-khaki walking shorts and a red tank top-and slipped on her dusty running shoes and went to find Nikolas and. she hoped, some food.

She found both waiting for her in the small shaded courtyard off the kitchen. And something else.

"What's this?" she asked, nodding at the bright yellow scooter standing at the ready between Nikolas's outstretched jeans-clad legs.

His eyebrow lifted. "This? Strangely, it's a Honda-evidently, they're quite the thing in Europe these days. Phillipe's, not mine. He's been kind enough to lend it to me. though. Hop on-I want to show you something."

She sauntered toward him. arms folded across her middle, where her stomach had begun to growl uncontrollably. "Is there food in there?" She nodded at the cooler lashed to a small metal ledge on the back of the scooter.

"There is. A repast fit for a-do pardon the expression- king." He held out his hand, waiting with supreme and annoying confidence and a smile tugging irresistibly at his lips.

How could she resist? But she did, finger-combing her damp hair back from her face as she replied coolly, "Only if I get to drive."

His smile blossomed and his eyes grew smoky behind sleepy black lashes. Bracing the scooter with his feet, he pushed himself back and up onto the pillion seat and lifted his hands from the handlebars. "She's all yours," he murmured, laughing softly.

'"There was a young lady from Niger…who smiled as she rode with a tiger…'" Rhia muttered under her breath as she settled onto the front part of the seat. A seat which seemed very small, suddenly, altogether too small for two people to sit on at the same time. At least, not without a great deal of body contact.

"What's that?" His voice was a furry growl so close to the nape of her neck that it made shivers cascade in rivers down her back.

"Nothing," she breathed. She tested the reach and the foot pedals, then started up the motor and clicked into gear.

"That's right, you do like to be on top, don't you?" Nikolas murmured in her ear as she guided the scooter skillfully out of the courtyard. "I'll have to keep that in mind."

What had she been thinking? Thoughts that made her scalp sizzle. With him sitting so close behind her, she felt as if she'd been wrapped in a Nikolas-cocoon, steeped in Essence of Donovan. His heartbeat thumped against her back, his body heat melded with hers, his scent filled her head with sultry, sweaty images of tangled bodies… hers and his in wicked disarray…

Her jaws locked and her eyes squinted as she fought to keep her attention focused on the operation of the scooter as it grumbled impatiently through the farmhouse grounds. It whined with excitement as she accelerated down the lane, and came to a purring stop where the dirt lane met the paved road. "Where to?" she asked in a voice that held strange vibrations not caused by the scooter.

"Left." Nikolas said.

"Right," she said, and pushed off, accelerating into the turn. And felt his arms come around her and hold on tight.

"Watch it," she muttered desperately between clenched teeth. "Do you want us to have an accident?"

His laughter rippled down her spine. "My love, it's precisely in anticipation of that possibility that I'm hanging on to you for dear life."

"That had better not be a criticism of my driving, Donovan." With a grim smile she shifted gears and the scooter leaped forward. The wind snatched the breath from her lungs and forced Nikolas to reply in a shout.

"Not at all. I'm more than impressed, actually."

"I had one of these things when I was in high school," she shouted back. "Well, not a Honda-a Vespa, oddly enough. My father bought it for me for my sixteenth birthday Oh, hell-" She broke off as her rapidly drying hair began to whip in the wind, lashing her neck and, she was sure, Nikolas's face as well.

Good-serves him right, she thought as she slowed the scooter for an approaching crossroads. Serves him right…for what? Being too damned attractive? You're the one who insisted on driving.

She let go of one handlebar to try to corral her hair, and felt his hands there already. Felt his hands, both of them, gather her hair and gently twist it…lift it away from her neck.

"Mmm, your hair smells good," he murmured. Something-his lips, his mouth, his breath-brushed her nape.

Her spine contracted involuntarily; shivers shot through her like Fourth of July sparks. And to her embarrassment, the scooter's idling engine chose that moment to sputter and die.

"Dammit, Nik." She'd intended more anger, more force behind it. Why did it have to sound so feeble?

For a long moment, Nikolas didn't reply. Something in her voice… How could he have made this confident, capable woman sound so desperate? So vulnerable? What was driving him. lately, that he kept behaving in ways so out of character for him-or. for the Nikolas Donovan he'd always thought himself to be?

Blame it on my bad angel, I guess.

The thought made him smile. It was what Phillipe's maman had called it. on those rare occasions when he'd gotten into mischief during his stays with Phillipe's family. You have been listening to your Bad Angel, Nikki. You must not listen to him. Listen only to your Good Angel. He will never make you do things you will later regret.

He let out a short gust of laughter and lifted his arms away from Rhia. shifted so there was space between his body and hers. As if he'd released a switch of some kind, the scooter's engine immediately snarled to life, and as it shot forward, this time he held on to the scooter instead of its driver.

Listening to his good angel, he managed to maintain the distance and keep his hands away from Rhia for the rest of the trip, leaning close only to make his voice heard as he guided her along the familiar route. Strange, though…the more space he put between his body and hers, the more he felt himself drawn to her. compelled by that same odd magnetism he'd felt first in the kitchen of Phillipe's flat in Paris. An attraction he felt certain even now had very little to do with sex-although it did affect him in some of the same ways…

At Nik's direction, Rhia turned the scooter off the paved road and onto a dirt lane that soon dwindled to a rock-studded track. The track wound downhill through thickets of oak trees and pines and around and between outcroppings of granite boulders through which, now and then, she caught glimpses of a meandering river. Finally, obeying another tap on the shoulder and hand gesture from Nikolas, she pulled the scooter into a little clearing of hard-packed earth and turned off the motor.

Still straddling the bike and trying without much success to finger-comb her hair into order, she said. "What is this, the local make-out spot?" It was very quiet, and in the stillness she could hear no sounds of people or vehicles, only the rush and chatter of the river.

Nikolas, who was unbuckling the cooler from the rear of the scooter, didn't look up but merely smiled. "Patience, luv. You'll see in a minute." He lifted the cooler and beckoned with his head. "Coming?"

She drew a shuddering breath, pocketed the key and followed him. Her shoes crunched over a carpet of oak leaves, acorns and pine needles. The air was warm and smelled of pine and earth and…something else. Something that tugged dusty memories from half-forgotten shelves. River bottoms… bayous…hot sticky summers.

She nudged the memories to the back of her mind and kept her eyes on Nikolas as he walked ahead of her down the bumpy but well-trodden path. It gave her such pleasure to watch him. He moved with the effortless grace of a leopard-a black leopard, she thought, as the wisp of a breeze lifted and toyed with his glossy black hair. A strange excite-ment shimmered all through her, and at the same time there was a heaviness in her heart. Which, she reflected, was the way she always felt now, being around him-or even just thinking about him-this terrible mixture of joy and despair, pleasure and pain. And she thought that if this was what falling in love was like, she was glad she'd managed to avoid it for so long.

Up ahead where the path curved around a pile of boulders, Nikolas had paused to wait for her, smiling with a touch of an odd eagerness and endearing self-consciousness. As she caught up with him he tilted his head toward the vista that had come into view just beyond the rocks.

The question hovering on her lips died there, and she said. "Oh, wow," instead.

Ahead of them the river ran wide and shallow, chuckling over rocky patches and lying quiet and leaf-dappled beneath trailing branches of the weeping willows that lined its banks. It would have been a lovely spot even without the towering structure that spanned the river's width a hundred yards or so upstream-a stone bridge, it appeared to be. consisting of two tiers of magnificent arches.

"It's Roman, of course-not as impressive as the Pont du Gard," Nikolas said with a modest shrug as he led the way down to the water's edge. "But also not as well-known, and therefore-" he smiled in a way that made her heart quicken "-less apt to be overrun with tourists."

"It looks as if it enjoys its share of visitors, though." Rhia said, glancing around at the hard-packed pathways and areas worn bare of grass by picnickers. Or lovers?

"Kayakers and fishermen, mostly." He nodded toward a small group of the former farther up the river beyond the bridge's arches, their brightly colored kayaks looking, from that distance, like petals of gaudy tropical flowers strewn on the waters. He glanced at Rhia and his smile tilted. "And lovers, of course."

"And which of those were you?" She asked it lightly, her heart tappity-tapping behind her ribs as she followed Nikolas across boulders and through thickets of trees and shrubs, following a pathway only he could see.

"What's that?" He paused to look back at her. "Oh-you mean, when I've come here before? All of the above, I suppose, over the years. Though more of the first two than the third, I'm afraid," he added wryly.

"Oh, come now."

"Sad, but true. I was a studious lad, you see. No time for the lassies." He held out his hand to help her down the last treacherous steps, and his grin, as he looked up at her, seemed to belie that claim. It might have been only because she knew from his dossier that the words were in fact true that Rhia was able to find the regret in his cool gray eyes.

Thinking of that Nikolas, the quiet, studious, lonely schoolboy Nikolas, she put her hand in his. The warmth of it seemed to spread all through her body. She felt his hand tighten around hers as she slipped on a gravelly patch and for a second pulled hard against the strength in his taut muscles. Then, as she regained her footing, instead of releasing her he drew her to him in a motion as fluid and easy as a dance movement between longtime partners.

For Rhia, time seemed to stand still in that moment before he kissed her. All her perceptions seemed heightened…honed. She heard music all around her, in the trickle and chatter of the water and in the songs of birds calling to each other in the trees, in the whisper of leaves falling and the hum of insects, and even in the bass growl of a vehicle of some sort passing on a nearby road. She saw sunlight sparkling on wet rocks and the edges of leaves turning gold and a spider's web hanging between two trees, catching the light and shining like spun silk. She felt the warm breeze on her bare arms and legs, her cheeks and hair like a gentle caress…and it all felt to her like summer saying good-bye. The beauty of that moment seemed unbearably sweet to her. achingly sweet, as though she knew it would never come again, not in just this way. and she knew she would leave a piece of herself behind in this moment forever.

She felt the kiss before he kissed her, as if all the nerves and cells in her body were springing eagerly to meet him. And she knew then that she'd been wanting this, needing this, and that it had been inevitable from the moment he'd lunged for her across a Paris balcony and she'd stood unmoving and let him take her down when she could so easily have eluded him.

When his lips met hers she lifted a wondering hand and touched his face, and the textures-his textures-on her fingertips…the softness of skin contrasted with the roughness of emerging beard, the delicate play of muscles over the granite hardness of jawbone…the incredible intimacy of that… made it intensely real.

And at the same time it seemed an impossible forbidden miracle, and the pain of that contradiction made her lips tremble and tears etch the backs of her eyes.

She felt his hand on her back, firm between her shoulder-blades, and another on the nape of her neck, fingers spread wide to burrow through her sweat-damp hair as he brought his mouth to hers, took her lips with a tenderness that made her ache. It was a giving, not a taking kiss, and she held herself still, breath suspended, and let it fill her with all the sweetness and goodness and light and joy she could possibly hold, until she quivered with the surfeit of those things, utterly overwhelmed.

He withdrew from her slowly, still holding her. and she let her head lie in the cradle of his hand as she gazed up at him. seeing him through a haze of light, like fog lit by sunshine. He seemed impossibly beautiful to her then. His hard features had blurred edges and his keen eyes a soft sheen of confusion, and the lock of hair curving down across his forehead made him look like a gentle saint.

His forehead creased suddenly with a frown, and he said in a voice gravelly with awe. "My God, Rhee. I can't believe how desperately I want to make love to you. It's quite extraordinary. Unprecedented, really."

Thus did Nikolas, feeling himself teetering on the edge of a vast unknown, manage once again to pull himself back just in time.

There was a suspenseful moment, though, before she began to laugh, to his profound relief-and laughed until tears glistened in her eyes like tiny jewels. At least, he hoped they were laughter's tears…

"Unprecedented?" she sputtered, wiping her eyes. "That's as bad as Serendipity/"

"Yes, I suppose it is." He caught a lifting breath and turned her neatly into the curve of one arm while every muscle and nerve in his body cramped in disappointed protest, then picked up the cooler and hiked it under the other arm. "I don't do my best work on an empty stomach. I'm afraid." He let his glance skim over her hair, the glossy strands so close to his cheek he could smell its elusive but familiar fragrance, and added lightly. "The sentiment's dead-on, though." And quickly, before she could respond, took his arm from her shoulders and caught up her hand instead. "Come-let me show you my private rock."

"If that's a variation on 'Come see my etchings.' I'd say you get honorable mention for originality, at least." Rhia muttered drily.

He chuckled, and after a moment began to sing lustily the line of a song that had been taunting him for the past twenty-four hours or so. "'Come let's be lovers…'"

"Simon and Garfunkel," he said when she looked at him curiously. "Come, come-you should know them, they're American. Very popular in the sixties-your mum's era, probably."

She was watching her feet, but he caught the wry tilt to her smile anyway. "During the sixties I think my 'mum' was more into John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly."

"Ah," he said, "of course. Jazz saxophonists, both of them, right?"

"Right." He felt her head turn and her sharp green gaze touch his face. "Is there anything that wide-ranging education of yours didn't cover?"

"I doubt it," he said, striving for lightness but somehow unable to keep an edge of bitterness out of his voice.

What had it all been for, he wondered, that education of his? Had he been lied to and groomed all his life for…this? To become the one thing he despised above all others? A king?

What a joke that would be, he thought, if it were true.

They ate sitting on a flat rock that jutted out over the water, in the dappled, constantly moving shade of the giant weeping willows nearby. The meal Nik had prepared for them was simple-crusty bread drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with garlic and herbs, topped with a delicious mixture of ripe tomatoes, olives, eggplant, anchovies and capers; a variety of goat cheeses, and wine-rose, of course.

He cut a slice of the bread and showed her the proper way to anoint it with olive oil and toppings, then offered it to her with a reticence that bordered on shyness and seemed to her almost unbearably sweet. This was a new side of Nikolas Donovan, one the Lazlo Group's extensive dossier had evidently overlooked, and she didn't know what to do with the feelings it roused in her. Tender, nurturing feelings, alien to her nature. Or so she had always believed.

Was that why, instead of taking the piece of bread from him. she opened her mouth and let him feed her the first succulent bite, knowing what a seductive and dangerous thing it was? Or was she simply caught in the golden web of that magical afternoon, and unable-or unwilling-to claw her way out?

So she laughed self-consciously when bits of the vegetable topping escaped and fell onto her shirtfront. and the seasoned oil oozed onto her lips and down her chin. And when Nik flicked away the crumbs, she let herself wallow shamelessly in the pleasure of that casual touch. When his finger deftly caught the riverlet of oil. before she even thought about it, she licked it from his fingers.

His touch was like some sort of magic wand that turned her skin to shimmering fire in an instant. Something thumped in the bottom of her stomach, and her eyes opened wide and looked straight into his. And she wondered if the soft haze of confusion she saw there was only a reflection of what he saw in her eyes. She licked her lips and waited, tense and heavy with wanting, for him to kiss her again, and was bitterly disappointed when he leaned away from her instead, and picked up the loaf of bread, whittled off a slice and handed it to her with a smile, then cut another for himself.

And so they ate, sitting at angles across from each other, almost but not quite facing, almost but not quite touching, making little in the way of conversation beyond murmurs of pleasure and muttered requests to pass something or other. A pair of doves fluttered down and waddled shyly about on the fringes of the picnic, hoping for handouts which both Rhia and Nikolas readily provided. The sun came and went, burning hot on their faces sometimes, playing peekaboo with the waving branches of the willows on its slow descent into evening.

When she had eaten all she could hold, Rhia brushed off her hands, picked up her wineglass and gave herself up to the sheer pleasure of watching the man beside her…and wondered how and when it had come to this, that just the sight of him could make her ache with that terrible combination of joy and sadness.

He was sitting relaxed now. one leg outstretched, one arm propped on a drawn-up knee, lips curved in a little half smile as he tossed bits of bread crusts to the doves. As if he'd felt her eyes on him. he spoke for the first time in a while. "This was one of my favorite places when I was growing up. I'm sure you've guessed. Still is, I suppose."

"I never would've guessed that," Rhia said drily, not letting him hear a trace of softness in her voice.

He gave a short, gentle laugh that reminded her of the chuckling sound of the river. "I always felt good here, you see-didn't seem to matter what I was doing or who I was with-fishing with Phillipe, canoeing with a bunch of his friends, or…"

"Necking with a girl?"

"Once or twice." He flicked her a glance, then shrugged. "First time I've been here with a woman, though."

"Oh, my," Rhia murmured, "should I be honored?"

"Oh, definitely," he said, and his smile grew in a slow and sensual way. "After all, I've brought you to my special place."

She studied him for a long, simmering moment before asking, with solemn curiosity. "Why did you, Nikolas?"

His forehead crinkled in that puzzled little frown that told her he was about to tease her again, which she was beginning to realize was his way of easing back when things threatened to become too intense.

"I'm not quite sure, actually. I suppose there's something primitive involved-caveman-ish, you know? Some sort of male imperative where I show you, the female of my choice…" he trailed a finger lightly down her bare thigh as his eyes drifted over her face "…that I am capable of providing you with a safe, secure and lovely place in which to consummate-what?" She was laughing and shaking her head.

What else could she do?

His eyes slipped downward to study the movement of his finger on her thigh, as if fascinated by the goose bumps its stroking had raised there. When they lifted again to hers there was a softness in them, like the sky before it rains. "We are going to be lovers," he said softly. "I know it, and so do you."

She turned her head quickly to hide the tears that had sprung unexpectedly to her eyes. Her throat ached.

"The idea doesn't appear to make you happy. Why is that, Rhee?"

She swallowed…shook her head, tried to laugh. Then, instead of answering him. heard herself say in a husky Cajun accent. "I had a place like this when I was growing up. A place where I always felt good, no matter what I was doing or who I was with."

He didn't speak, and his hand lay quiet on her thigh, waiting…as if he knew there was more to what she was telling him than reminiscence.