Royal Affair Read Online Free PDF Page B

together. From wanting to needing to giving and
taking. She held his face between her palms to fit her mouth
against his as he reached to her buttocks and kneaded them. When
her belly pressed against his growing hardness, she could have sung
out with joy. This was really happening. Not some dream that would
fade when she woke from a fantasy. She really would have him.
Friedrich VonRamsberg would really make love with her.
    “I must ask,” she said. “Your heart…”
    “Ah, that episode from a while ago,” he
said. “It was no more than a scare, but the doctors made me give up
the cigars, and my sons limit my brandy.”
    “Not very successfully that I’ve
noticed.”
    “I’m fine for whatever you have in store for
me.”
    “Good.”
    After reaching behind her to take his hands,
she backed away. “It’s time.”
    “Past time, rather.” He stared at her with
such a look of awe she forgot to breathe for a second. Then heat
entered his gaze—an expression she’d only witnessed on a few men,
but one you couldn’t fail to recognize. A man who knows his lover
is eager for him and is all the more aroused for the knowledge.
    Still holding one of his hands, she led him
from the morning room to the staircase that led to the master
bedrooms above. Hilde would have removed herself to the kitchen or
somewhere equally distant from Marta’s bedroom. They passed
portraits of Alexander’s ancestors as they climbed the stairs. On
the second floor, they walked the length of an oriental carpet with
no more sound than the ticking of the grandfather clock at the end
of the corridor.
    When they got to the door leading to the
rooms she’d shared with her husband, she gave Friedrich no
indication of the importance of the boundary they’d passed but
continued on to the suite she’d moved into after Alexander’s
death.
    Neither did she stop in her sitting room but
took her lover directly into her bedroom. She’d left the door to
the balcony open so the warm breeze could make the floor-length
curtains billow. After dropping his hand, she went to the windows
and closed them. No sound from what would happen could escape this
room. Finally, she turned, kicked out of her shoes and began to
open the tiny buttons on the sleeves of her blouse.
    “Let me.” He went to her and took over
working on her sleeves. “Undressing a woman is like opening a
present.”
    “I’ve never heard it put like that.”
    “You have to peel away layers and layers of
tissue, but eventually you get to the treasure underneath.” His
large fingers might have appeared clumsy against the buttons, but
he made quick work of them. His hands on her shoulders, he turned
her around so he could unfasten the back of the blouse. Once he
had, he tugged the garment free of the waistband of her skirt and
pulled it over her head. The silk whispered into a pile at her
feet.
    Instead of undressing her further, he
nibbled on the bare skin of her shoulder, then along her neck,
finally taking her earlobe between his teeth. His breath grazed her
ear and slipped inside. So incredibly sexy, her knees almost gave
way. When she wavered, he caught her shoulders in his hands and
continued his assault on the other side. So good, and just a
prelude for everything still to come.
    Then he turned her to face him and went back
to undressing her. First her skirt, pulling down the zipper and
pushing it over her hips. Kicking out of it, she added it to the
blouse. Then he pulled her slip over her head and tossed it
somewhere. When he worked the front fastening of her bra, her
breasts fell free into his hands.
    “Perfect,” he murmured as he palmed them,
massaging and then tugging gently at the nipples.
    For a moment, tears burned at the backs of
her eyes. How many years since a man had touched her this way? Even
before he’d died Alexander had been too ill for lovemaking. Nothing
had marked the last time they’d lain together as momentous when it
had happened. She hadn’t stored away