She wondered if her face could get any redder. "Yes, Sir."

  Douglas continued to play with her breasts, loving the way she danced in place and groaned in pleasure. "Look at me, honey." The command was given in just the right husky tone.

  She did as she was told immediately, but when he began to twist and pull on her engorged nipples, Charlotte gasped and bit back what would have been an embarrassing moan.

  "Did I say that you could stop looking at me?"

  Her eyes found his immediately again. "No, Sir."

  She received two sharp slaps, one to either nipple. They hurt terribly, causing the painful throbbing of her nipples to eclipse how he had been making them feel. She would almost rather be spanked by him, but she wasn't sure about that, either.

  Without warning, he leaned down and kissed her, hands abandoning her breasts in favor of cradling her head with exquisite tenderness. His kiss was gentle but hot, avidly dueling with her tongue as his mouth slanted across hers.

  When he moved away, she had a hard time not trying to follow him with her mouth open like some lunatic. His kisses were so potent that she wanted more of them. She really could feel herself dripping down her own leg.

  With one masterful tug, he relieved her of her robe and nightgown, leaving her standing naked in the middle of the room, but not for long. He took her hand and led her to the bed as if they were in a nineteenth century ballroom and he was leading her onto the floor for a dance.

  "On your tummy, please," he asked politely. "Whatever way is most comfortable for you to lie is fine with me. I just want you to feel good."

  If she felt any better, she was likely to die of it! She could hear him squat down and felt his warm breath on her feet, which were inches from the end of the bed. Surely, he remembered that she hated to be tickled? But that wasn't at all what he wanted to do. Instead, he took her foot in his big hands and began to massage, using just the right pressure with his knuckles and his thumb and the entirety of his hands, paying attention to each toe, the sole, the top and even the sides.

  She'd never had anyone touch her like that, and it was yet another form of Heaven that he was showing her. Each foot was given the same treatment. He'd apparently commandeered a tube of moisturizer—she knew because she'd recognized the scent—to slicken his way as his strong hands moved up to work the muscles of her calves into the backs of her thighs, then moving slowly up to her thighs while releasing a ton of tension and leaving her feeling amazing. The tension that she'd been carrying for so long ebbed away from her with his every touch. When he'd finished with the backs of her thighs, Douglas straddled her legs and began to cup her backside—one that he was pleased to note still bore the evidence of just how much he cared about her.

  He kept his fingers together but moved his thumb as far away from them as he could, then used them to cup her cheeks and begin to almost dig into them. He was ever alert for any sounds that might come from her that didn't indicate total bliss, and Douglas was very aware of the need to temper his strength with her, lest he accidentally hurt her unintentionally. That was the last thing he wanted to do when he had her like this.

  As it was one of his most favorite places on her body, he spent a good amount of time there, kneading and rubbing and digging his thumbs slightly into those beautiful muscles before he moved to her back, feeling her stiffen suddenly, as if she thought he was going to hurt her.

  If he recalled correctly, though—and he did—she had a very sensitive lower back that was prone to hurt when touched, so he used only the lightest pressure there, with his fingertips at first, knowing from experience that once he got her used to being touched there, he would be able to massage her a bit more thoroughly, but he would always be on guard against pushing her over that pleasure/pain line to the wrong side.

  When he got to her mid-back, where she often had pain because of an injury when she was younger, he was again very mindful of not using too much force, and this time she didn't stiffen in the least as he began to massage that area.

  Still, seconds after he started, he was horrified to realize that she was bawling.

  Chapter 6

  He practically jumped off her, lying beside her to absorb her into his safe, warm arms. "Honey, I'm so sorry. Did I hurt you?"

  Douglas was flooded with relief when she shook her head slowly back and forth, and he was glad to know that he hadn't been the one who had made her dissolve into tears, but that didn't tell him what the problem was. So, he simply held her tight for a long while, letting her cry it out in his arms, where he wanted her to be anytime she felt like this. The idea that she had spent so many years after William had died crying alone in the house that she had shared with him caused his chest to constrict with such a sharp pain that it took his breath away. He squeezed his arms that much more tightly around her, so much so that she squeaked a little, and he was horrified to have to be reminded to watch his strength.

  When she'd quieted some but was still sobbing, he moved her a little bit away from him. "What happened, sweetie? Were you not enjoying the massage?"

  She shook her head again. Her, "That's not it," was watery. She pulled away from him a bit more, staring first down at the bed, then up to meet his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

  Her tone was so plaintive that it made his stomach flip. "What?" he asked, almost on a chuckle, but not quite. He was totally surprised by her question.

  "What are you doing here?" she repeated, tears still streaming down her cheeks. "After what I did to you, I would expect that you—rightfully—would never want to see me again. And I get that you felt you had to undertake a mission, maybe you thought that our previous relationship would give you some kind of advantage in your arguments. I don't know. But I get the distinct feeling that it's more than just a job to you. And I know you've never seen your position in my sister's court as a job—it's much more a calling or avocation. You do it because you have a sense of honor and duty. But I'm not a part of either of those things—I would hope, anyway. So, again, why are you here?"

  Douglas drew a deep breath and hugged her tight for a second, then cradled her face in his hands, his tone full of warmth and sincerity. "Well, I hadn't necessarily planned on confessing this to you so early on, but the reason I'm here is because I still love you. I've never stopped loving you, not once, even when I was hurt and angry at you for leaving me."

  Charlotte pressed her face into his chest, still sobbing softly.

  "The truth is that I came here, not only hoping to do what needed to be done and bring you back with me for the good of the country—your country, too—but because I was hoping that I might, maybe, get a second chance with you."

  "E-even after I left you h-high and dry?"

  "It took me a while to forgive you—I'm no saint—but I have. I'm probably going to take it out on your backside at some point, but I'm not angry at you anymore." He found her eyes. "I have an important question to ask you, since turnabout is fair play."

  She stiffened a little but still said, "Go ahead."

  She'd never heard him be so diffident before. He was a man of high passions—neutrality was, generally, anathema to him. "Why did you choose him over me?

  Charlotte sighed and wiggled a little within his embrace. "Let me up, please."

  Although he wasn't fond of doing it, he let her go, and she sat up, facing him, tailor fashion. "How much do you know about William?"

  "Almost nothing, except that there must have been something about him that attracted you to him more so than me."

  She rubbed her hand over her face, and without looking at him, she said, "Well, he's been dead for a while now, I suppose I can tell you, but still, I want you to promise that you'll never pass on to anyone else what I'm about to say to you. I won't have his memory besmirched in any way."

  "Of course," he agreed. Douglas had no idea what she was going to say to him.

  "William was a homosexual. In fact, back in Anterre, the town of Ryder was after him on sodomy charges, which if they proved them to be true, meant he could spend quite a while in jail—where he would very likely be killed."

  Stunned, all he could manage was an underwhelming, "Oh." That was something that would never have come to his mind.

  "I married him—platonically—and in doing so, because he had a legal wife, they agreed to drop the charges, as long as he left the country. That was kind of a happy accident, since my sister had already let me know that my presence in the country would not be tolerated if I married him. So, we left and came here."

  His ears had perked up at one particular word she'd used. "Platonically?"

  "Oh, yes. He had absolutely no interest in me physically. We slept in this bed together, and the closest we ever got was cuddling, which was wonderful." Her shoulders sagged and her words became hard to say again through the tears. "He was a great man—smart and funny and generous and empathetic and easy going."

  "I'm sorry to dwell on this, but I just need to hear you say it out loud. You never had sex with him, in all of those years?"

  "I never had sex with William, Douglas," she repeated with her eyes on his and utterly without hesitation.

  And he absolutely believed her. "So, you chose him because you didn't want him to go to jail?"

  "Sort of, but it was a lot more than that. A charge like that would have ruined his life. He was a professional photographer, and if that kind of thing had gotten around about him, no one would have hired him." She shrugged. "I already liked him a lot, and he'd confessed his problem to me. It was kind of a two stones situation. I was chafing under all of the restrictions of being a Princess Royal, too."

  No wonder there were so many amazing pictures of her displayed around the house. "Would you even have considered marrying me if I had asked? Would you have stayed for me?"

  Her eyes flicked up to his from where they'd been watching her own hands twist the material of the comforter in her fingers nervously. "I-I don't know, but probably not, for several reasons."

  "And those are?" he shot back.

  She had thought it would be hardest to confess William's intimate plight, but this was considerably worse, somehow. "Well, I was rebelling against my sister trying to control my life. She was used to having everyone toadying to her because she was the queen, and I decided that for once in my life, I wasn't going to do that. I was going to show her that I could be perfectly happy elsewhere, without all of the things she swore to me I could never live without, which was an eye-opening character assessment, frankly. She pushed me into his arms, when she could have been aiming for you, but she didn't know that."

  "I know that. And?"

  She began to twist her fingers into knots and pick at the pills on the comforter with obvious reluctance.

  "Charlotte, tell me. I won't ask again."

  She took him at his word, clearing her throat before she began again. "William was pretty much your direct opposite in every way. You're tall and broad, he was short and thin, you're not classically handsome, but you're still quite good looking. William still had spots on his face, and he was a ginger with wiry hair that he could never quite tame and glasses that always slid down his nose. He was quiet and bookish and studious and wouldn't hurt a fly."

  "Sounds like a thrilling man to spend your life with." Sarcasm dripped from every word.

  It was a rare opportunity for her to scold him. "Douglas, that was unkind and uncalled for, and I know that you are a much better person than to stoop so low. That man was my husband, who is now dead. We might not have had a lot of money, or servants, or titles, but he treated me at least as well as you would have, and he never once spanked me!"

  He did look abashed. "All right, I take it back. But if he wasn't spanking you, and he wasn't making love to you, then he wasn't treating you anywhere near as well as I would have."

  Her head was down, and she deliberately mumbled her response the first time she said it, and he didn't quite catch it.

  "What did you say?"

  Finally, she sucked it up and looked directly into his eyes as she repeated, "And that is the other reason why I didn't choose you."

  His eyes went wide, and his complexion paled. "But you enjoyed both of those pursuits—I practically had you fainting in my arms when I made love to you! You gave me your virginity, Charlotte."

  "Douglas, I was much younger when I left, and you were really my first adult romance. I don't count William in that category because ours was never a romance, but was always a deep, loving friendship. When I said he was your exact opposite, he was."

  She sighed and swallowed hard before saying quietly, "I was never afraid… of William."

  Again, he looked utterly gob smacked, physically slumping away from her, then in a hesitant tone that she'd rarely heard from him, he asked incredulously, "You were afraid of me? Is that true?" He sounded as if he couldn't possibly believe that.

  "Well, perhaps that wasn't the right word. I was in awe of you. You're a big guy and you have a booming voice when you want to. You were already working your way up the ladder of courtiers, you were a war hero—you were a larger-than-life figure to me. You bowled me over without even trying. You're a very… dominant and masculine man. You overwhelmed me. I couldn't believe that a man like you was paying attention to me. I had an enormous crush on you, as did all the girls in the kingdom of my age—hell, all the women, too—and I was incredibly attracted to you." She sounded almost wistful when she continued while staring at nothing, "I've never been so attracted to a man in my life."

  He felt at least a little bit better at the last thing she'd said, but Douglas really hated the idea that she might have been scared of him ever, for any reason.

  "You were older than I was, you'd accomplished so much, you had experience with women when I had none with men—less than none. I was so cloistered and kept so innocent that I had no idea what to do with you."

  He smiled rakishly. "I always knew exactly what I wanted to do with you, from the moment I returned from the war and saw how beautiful you were."

  "Then? I was in my mid-teens when the war ended!"

  "I know, and I deliberately hung back for a while, until you were of an eligible age, but I always had my eye on you. I'll bet you don't remember it, but at your coming out ball, I saved you from that fool—Harding—when he'd tried to grope you on the dance floor that time."

  Her eyebrows rose. "Oh, my word! That was you, wasn't it? I just knew that some tall, handsome man had cut in rather forcefully then whirled me expertly around the floor until that dance was over. Then you brought me back to the sidelines, and my sister, and disappeared."

  "Yes, I had to. To stay around and chat with you, would have revealed the highly embarrassing condition in which dancing with you had left me. I went to the gents' and splashed some cold water on my face." He grinned at her. "It didn't help. I think I had a permanent hard-on from that night until I was finally able to convince you to let me make love to you that first time."

  She actually laughed at that. "That's ridiculous. Of course, you didn't. You would have had to see a doctor about it if it had lasted that long."

  "Why go to a doctor? I knew the cause already. And the solution was exactly what I ended up doing—to court and bed you, and eventually, marry you, so that I could slake my painfully neglected desires on you any time I wanted to."

  Charlotte giggled at his extravagant telling of it, although every word of it had come true—at least until the marriage part.

  He sat up, his eyes never leaving her face. "So. Now you know my nefarious plans. I want to get you back home to see your sister before you lose her forever, marry you, hand fast with you, go steady with you, essentially do anything and everything I can to bind you to me in what will hopefully be ways from which you'll never succeed in extricating yourself. Then put your well-paddled ass on the throne, and as your loving husband, I can make certain that your bottom is never not throbbing and stinging when you're sitting in on a council meeting, or having your weekly meeting with the First Lord, or cutting a ribbon to open a business, or on parade."

  She was absolutely cackling at his little speech. "You want to go steady with me? How old are you?"

  "Well, it was just an example." He lifted her onto his lap again, tilting her head back and kissing her tenderly. "I want to marry you, Matilda Anne Charlotte Eleanor Sophia Chamberlain, as soon as is possible. We've lost a lot of time together, and I aim to make it all up and then some."

  "You realize that you didn't ask me to marry you, you told me to marry you?"

  Douglas grinned down at her. "Absolutely. If I asked you, I would have been giving you the chance to say no, and I'm not in favor of giving you the opportunity to say no to me very often." Another slow, romantic kiss. "And in case you don't remember what I've already confessed to, I'll say it again. I love you, Charlotte. I'll absolutely understand if you don't feel that way about me at the moment—I will. And I will do everything I can to try to get you to love me back, but if you don't, then I will still do everything in my power to make you happy, even if it's not with me."

  He'd given her a lot to think about, but she really didn't want to discuss things any further right now. So instead, she stretched herself out on her stomach again and didn't so much as have to say a word to him to get him to reclaim the spot he'd been in before. Only this time, he was sitting on her bum in order to get access to her back.

  "Am I too heavy for you?" he asked solicitously.

  "No, I love your weight, remember? I always slept better when I was with you and you were half on me."

  She could hear him chortle as his hands began to work her tense muscles into goo again. "I do, but I really think the sleeping better could be put down to you being well-punished and well-sated much more so than having me lying all over you."

  "I like my explanation better than yours, thank you."

  At that, he reached behind himself and gave her a sharp swat on the back of one thigh.