“What time is it?” she asked, trembling, although she wasn’t sure if it was because of her desire for him to continue, or her fear that he would. Both, probably.
The bed sheets rustled slightly and she felt him shift, but couldn’t see what he was looking at. She supposed it was his cell phone, but since that strong, muscled arm was now in her line of sight, she was more focused on…well, the muscles…than on what he looked at. Priorities, she thought.
And then her thoughts shifted. No, her priorities shouldn’t be admiring those muscles. She’d done enough of that last night. Time to…she had something she needed to do today. Didn’t she? A memory jangled in her mind, just out of reach.
“It’s about seven thirty,” he told her, his voice still deep and husky from sleep. Or was that desire? Tamara wasn’t sure but the hard thing pressing against her bottom warned her that it was probably desire.
Then the memory came back to her. “Willow!” she gasped and sat up…or tried to sit up. Jurid’s strong arm stopped her.
“She’s not here,” he teased, and Tamara felt his lips caress her spine, moving higher along that sensitive skin and she shivered, groaning as she closed her eyes.
“I know she’s not here,” Tamara moaned. “I’m supposed to meet her for breakfast. I have to go.”
“Cancel,” he ordered, ignoring her grip on his wrist as his fingers moved higher, cupping her breasts as his thumb slid over her nipple.
“No!” Tamara gasped, her body tightening. With need? Shaking her head, she pulled away from him and slipped out of the bed. She figured the only reason she was successful in her escape was because he still wasn’t fully awake combined with his surprise that she would leave the bed during what promised to be another delightful interlude.
Tamara stared down at him, shocked at the expanse of his chest revealed by the sheet. It barely covered the man and it definitely didn’t hide the shockingly large erection. Well, she couldn’t actually see it because of the sheet draped over the lower half of his body, but it was very obvious what was going on underneath there.
“Sorry,” she told him when he looked up at her with a strange light in his eyes. Tamara realized that she didn’t know him well enough to determine if his look was anger or amusement. Or something else completely. He was a mysterious man – and that wasn’t a good thing in her mind.
“What’s going on, Tamara?”
“I’m supposed to meet my friend for breakfast. I need to go,” she said and grabbed his shirt, pulling it over her nakedness. “I need to hurry and get ready.”
Without looking back at him, Tamara rushed out of the bedroom, padding barefoot down the hallway to the other bedroom where her suitcase had been stored. She certainly hoped that none of the hotel staff had been in the room and noticed that she hadn’t slept in the bed. Just to cover herself, not wanting any news of her night’s transgressions to reach her father, she mussed the bed. If any of the cleaning staff came in now, they’d think she slept here. At least, Tamara hoped that they’d make that assumption. Glancing at the clock, she realized that she didn’t have much time to worry about the cleaning crew’s assumptions. She had to shower and get downstairs to meet Willow.
Jumping into the shower, she washed hurriedly, ignoring the need to pause under the warm spray of water to let her muscles relax. Strange parts of her felt tight and sore. And darn it, she was alone in her shower but her mind drifted back to the things that she’d done with Jurid last night. He was a very demanding lover, and a very thorough one!
She’d never thought that touching him, or the way he’d touched her last night, could be so…shockingly amazing! In her mind, sex had always seemed a bit routine. She’d thought that sex would be more obligatory than enjoyable.
Not so with Jurid! He was a sensualist in the truest sense of the word.
Pulling on a pair of jeans and another well-worn tee shirt, she pulled her hair back in a ponytail and secured it with a band. Perhaps her appearance now was a bit of a rebellion against Jurid’s sense of formality, but Tamara was in the mood to be rebellious.
Or more specifically, she was in the mood to get away from Jurid. After last night, she was fairly certain that he would demand that they set a wedding date.
Not something she was willing to concede just yet!
Looking around, she stuffed her clothes into her suitcase. Tamara wasn’t sure where the lavender dress was, but a glance at her cell phone told her she had to hurry. She was already a few minutes late meeting Willow.
Grabbing the handle of her suitcase, she rolled it out of the room with one hand while typing a message to Willow that she was on her way with her other hand. When she slipped her cell phone back into her purse, Tamara nervously glanced around, worried that Jurid or one of his guards would see her rolling her suitcase out of the penthouse suite and stop her.
That wasn’t going to happen, she thought attempting not to look as if she were trying to be stealthy. But she was definitely trying to be stealthy. Avoiding the main rooms where she heard voices, and keeping to the back hallways, she made her way to the elevators.
From there, it was easy to call the elevator and ride back down to the lobby.
Stepping out of the private elevator, she was startled to see two guards standing sentry. In fact, they were just as startled to see her. But she simply lifted her chin and smiled politely at them, pulling her rolling suitcase behind her as if this was expected. She’d learned early in life that appearing as if she were doing nothing wrong caused people to assume she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She, Willow, and Lana had gotten away with quite a few pranks during their years at boarding school by feigning innocence.
Walking over to the concierge desk, she smiled at the man.
“Yes, Your Highness,” he bowed and Tamara groaned. How could he know who she was? “How may I assist you?”
Then again, at these high end hotels, the concierge had to be on top of every member of all the royal families. And Tamara had been in the tabloids a few times over the past several years. Those had been minor attempts to convince Jurid that she wasn’t marriage material, but she hadn’t really put her heart into the effort. She and Mike had been trying to start their business at the time, so she’d only been photographed in the nightclubs with different men a few times. There wasn’t any way that Jurid could have known that the men she’d been dancing with had been gay, all good friends of Mike’s.
Even so, she didn’t want her title bandied about. She preferred traveling anonymously.
“I was hoping you could store my suitcase away for an hour or two? My flight doesn’t leave for a while.”
The man looked confused, probably wondering why Tamara hadn’t simply left the suitcase up in the penthouse suite. Or her own hotel room, for that matter. Checkout for normal rooms, which she had checked in under, wasn’t for another few hours. And for anyone staying in the penthouse suite, there was no check out time. When one paid the extravagant amounts of money for a penthouse suite, one had the luxury of leaving pretty much whenever one was ready to leave. In addition, a bellhop would be sent up to collect one’s luggage. In the real world, royalty did not carry one’s own bags!
But the man must be used to the oddities of the hotel’s clientele and didn’t blink an eye at Tamara’s request. “Of course, Your Highness. I will secure it in a private closet for you. Whenever you need it again, please just let me or my staff know.”