For the first time since I’d left his brother’s house, I got a really good look at Vasile, not by moonlight but by the warm light of the glass gassier. His eyes were locked right on me, and he worked his jaw back and forth making the muscles of his jaw flutter.
“It’s like summer in here,” I said, saying the first thing that came to mind. “I barely remember the last one.”
“A needless indulgence, my father would say. He’s used to this cold. But I’ve spent so long away from here, living in warmth, that I missed it when I returned.”
Taking a step toward him, I mustered up my courage. “What is it, exactly, you plan to do with me?”
He shook his head, then looked me up and down, once and again. An ever-so-brief flare of his nostrils reminded me of some big animal in the rut. “You don’t want to know.”
But oh, how I did want to know. So much. And yet, I was so nervous that I could hardly summon up a thought, let alone a word.
Don’t just stand there, you silly girl, I told myself. Do something.
I bit my lip and blinked up at him.
Driven by desire and instinct alone, I threw off the blankets he’d wrapped me in. As I took hold of the hem of my nightdress, he gave me a warning glare to say watch it. But I felt no fear from him, no danger.
I felt nothing but heat and want.
Emboldened by that look in his eye, I slowly dragged the hem of the nightdress up, from my knees, over my thighs, until it barely hid my secret lips.
Do I dare?
I felt almost childlike there, dressed like that, with him so brawny and burly in his heavy, rugged clothes. All felted wool and leather.
I felt one last flicker of doubt, that is, until on a single deep breath, I dragged the nightdress up over my head and dropped it to the floor then reached down and removed my wet slippers.
I then stood, tall and proud, naked before him.
“Fuck,” he growled, sounding irritated with me, frustrated by me.
A rush of warmth invaded my muscles, my bones, my very being. I felt so powerful.
Rarely in my life had I felt like a princess at all. But, standing before him, he made me feel every inch the princess at last. What irony—finding such power in vulnerability.
I raised up on my tiptoes and spun around for him, watching him watch me over my lifted shoulder. Then I raised my hands up above my head in a V, overlaying my fingertips, before sucking in a deep breath… and diving into the pool.
The water was warm, heated perhaps by the gas furnaces of the house deep below, and I was enveloped in a silky safety that let me shake off the chill of our long ride in the night. I reemerged just in time to see him kick off his boots, throw his coat on the floor and yank his shirt over his head.
It was all I could do to stop myself from moaning out loud. His torso every inch that of a Greek god's; his broad shoulders led down into a narrow, sculpted waist.
My eyes were immediately drawn to the line of hair that went down from his belly button and into his pants. But he didn’t give me the satisfaction of seeing everything, and he dove into the pool with his pants on.
He was a powerful swimmer and he vanished into the warm, dark water. I turned this way and that to see where he might reemerge, but I’d lost sight of him.
Suddenly a strong, bare arm looped around my waist and he pushed me up against the wall, reemerging in front of me, pressing his groin up against my hips.
I felt him there, hard against me, and my heart leapt into my chest. Pressing me up against the pool edge, the cool marble against the back of my neck. Rivulets of water trickled from his thick dark hair down his muscular throat.
Almost automatically, I spread my legs for him and hooked my ankles together around his waist. He slid his hand down my back far enough to dig his huge fingers into my ass and shifted me slightly, gently moving me through the water toward the underwater steps.
Once there, he caged me in with one hand on the railing above me, and pinned me tightly up against the wall of the pool. My plan was working, I just needed to be seductive yet coy an draw him in deeper.
I studied him, every detail of his beautiful face, willing him to lean in and kiss me again.
But instead, he pulled back. The look in his eyes hardened, and with a powerful thrust he pulled me into him and lifted me right up out of the pool. I dropped my legs and went stiff, trying to make it as difficult as possible for him to carry me, but it was no use.
He scooped up my clothes in his other arm and then dragged me along down the wooden hallways, with my wet feet squeaking, drenched hair dripping down my face and back.
“I wasn’t done swimming.” I squirmed and felt my naked flesh against him.
“Looks like you are.”
I huffed and decided to let it go. So sure and yet unsure of what I was doing, the thoughts tangling in my mind, making me doubt myself.
Before I knew it, he’d opened the door to a bedroom and shoved both me and my things inside. For one instant, he eyed me up and down as if trying to make some important decision.
“You’re a royal pain in the ass, Princess,” he said, and then closed the door, locking it from the outside as he went.
I stood there, naked and dripping, flabbergasted and fuming. Glancing around, I saw that I was in a comfortable enough prison. The bed was large and freshly
