His Pregnant Princess Read Online Free PDF Page A

couldn’t control or understand. “You wanted me to risk myself? Alys, you foolish girl, I risked myself the first time I ever thought of touching you. Do you have any idea of the risk? Of what your father could have done to me? I grant you we don’t live in medieval times, but it would not be a stretch to prove that I had somehow taken advantage of my position of authority.”
    “I’m a princess,” she said stiffly. “I have the authority.”
    “No, you don’t. And you know that. That is the part of this relationship, bodyguard and client, that becomes tricky. Because if you do not do what I say in a dangerous moment, it could be the end for both of us. That’s why when it comes down to it, though your family may pay my bills, in so many ways I call the shots. I am the man you must look to in situations where threats are involved, and that makes it... It makes it inappropriate for me to have touched you as I have. It was more than a risk. It was against my honor. Against the code I live my life by. It was disrespectful to you, as we both knew nothing could come of it.”
    “I wanted it—how was it disrespectful?”
    “You might have wanted it, but did you want the consequences? I should have been the one making sure we were safe, and I did not.”
    “We weren’t planning on having sex that night, not with anyone. I think we both happily blocked the existence of condoms from our minds so we could have what we wanted.”
    “You were a virgin,” he said.
    “So? I know what a condom is. Prevents pregnancy and STDs. I may be able to claim innocence, as such, but not ignorance.”
    Yet again, she made him laugh when it felt as if nothing at all was funny. “No matter, I suppose. What happened happened.”
    “And...I would like for it to happen again,” she said, the words rushed.
    “Again?”
    “Yes. For heaven’s sake, I’m already pregnant. I’m already miserable and sick at the thought of having to be with another man when you’re the one that I want. I might as well have you now. Until it’s impossible. Until I can never have you again, because right now there’s no marriage vow stopping me and until the moment there is...”
    “You’re engaged, Alys,” he said, his voice soft.
    She shook her head. “I know. And I’m pregnant with your baby. So...so what wins there? This engagement that has no feelings in it. No desire, no love...or this?” She got up from the bed and wrapped her arms around his neck, brushing her lips against his.
    The touch of her mouth on his sent a bolt of lightning through him, a shock of electric need that raced from his lips to his heart, and down lower.
    Just a kiss. So soft, so innocent, really, and it had the power to undo him.
    That was Alys in a nutshell. The surface of her was softness, innocence and beauty. But it was the core of steel that ran through her, the strength, the cleverness, the determination, that defined her. That made her a force he couldn’t deny or resist. A force even he couldn’t stand strong against. Bullets were one thing, but Alys on a mission was another.
    Of course, the bullet he’d taken had been for her. Perhaps that was why the decision had been easy. Perhaps he had wanted her even then.
    Wrong to admit. She’d been sixteen at the time. And he’d gone on to marry someone else.
    He’d also divorced that someone else because Alys had remained his priority. Professionally only, of course. He had never violated his marriage vows and never would have, although...although now he wondered if Alys had owned more of his heart than he’d ever realized.
    It had never been half so much about duty as he’d imagined.
    Certainly now, with her soft lips against his, it wasn’t about duty. It was about this great and terrible need that seemed to pull at him from every direction. That demanded he give up every part of himself. To this. To her.
    And he surrendered to it.
    He let himself feel it. That this was what he’d wanted for years. That