ANDREAS PULLED THE CAR into the underground garage at the palace, his excited pulse a deafening rage in his ears. He was only flesh and blood, and having Clara close enough to touch but still out of reach while he drove had tested his limits to the max.
‘Are you sure no one saw me?’ she asked from the passenger seat, still ducked down, out of sight.
‘Positive,’ he said, turning off the engine. ‘The windows are tinted.’
He didn’t add that he’d asked Nils to do a dry run of their route to ensure there’d be no hidden surprises. Clara was skittish enough without knowing that, since the press release confirming his father’s diagnosis, media interest in Andreas had tripled. There was nothing like bad news to fuel speculation about Varborg’s future ruler. He’d resolutely avoided watching the news, but he’d been told that several international newspapers were running stories on the tragedy-struck Cronstedt family, rehashing the death of Andreas’s mother and Oscar as entertainment for the masses.
He understood Clara’s caution. The idea of her facing the kind of public and media interest he’d experienced these past few days, left him chilled to the bone. He’d do everything in his power to safeguard her privacy. He’d vowed to protect her and he wouldn’t let her down.
Andreas unclipped his seatbelt. ‘Come here.’
He leaned over the centre console, cupping Clara’s face to give her the proper kiss he’d had to hold inside for eight endless days. He pressed kisses to her closed eyelids, the tip of her nose, the angle of her jaw and that sensitive place on her neck.
‘I missed you so much,’ he mumbled against her soft lips, his heart thudding with urgency.
Why had he ever taken his previous freedom and relative privacy for granted? Soon his life would be unrecognisable—every second of his time scheduled, people constantly surrounding him, public appearances and interviews to be done, like this afternoon’s. His grip on his old life was slipping, and Clara was the one thing that made his situation tolerable.
He held her tighter. ‘I’m adding a new condition—we can’t leave it that long again.’
His time for indulging in flings, his time for working alongside Clara, was running out. Every second with her felt precious.
‘We’ve been busy,’ she said, pulling him closer so the gear stick jabbed his ribs. ‘And we need to be careful at the hospital. No more steamy gropes in the treatment room, although Sister might not let anyone else near you.’
‘Right now, I can’t think of anything more important than kissing you.’ Andreas groaned; she was too far away, had too many clothes on, was talking too much.
But Clara’s words had struck a nerve. Constitutionally, he belonged to Varborg. He was obliged to marry, produce an heir, and secure the next generation of Cronstedt princes and princesses. He’d always known it would take an exceptional woman to walk at his side through the circus that would be his life from here on out. But, since meeting Clara, his desires had solidified. He didn’t want a cardboard cut-out for a wife. He wanted something real with someone who understood him beyond the public role he played. Someone to grow at his side. Someone he could respect, love and care for.
But right now he only cared about one woman. He breathed in the scent of her skin and slid his hand along her thigh, which was covered in thick black stockings that disappeared under a tight woollen skirt.
She gripped his tie, pulling his mouth back to hers.
‘I like you all dressed up,’ she said. ‘You look extremely hot in an untouchable kind of way. Is this what you wore for the interview?’
‘You can touch all you want, sötnos.’ Andreas grinned, his hand locating an inch of bare skin at her waist. ‘But, yes, I wore this for part of the filming. They also had me dress in scrubs and examine a few people at the hospital—make Varborg’s heir relatable to the masses.’
Clara slid her fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his face, staring up at him thoughtfully. ‘You are relatable; you don’t have to try.’
‘Maybe you should be on my PR team.’ Andreas gripped her hand and kissed her knuckles one by one. She saw things in him no one else saw; believed in him without agenda.
‘If we don’t move right now,’ he said, reaching for the door handle at his back, ‘You’ll be riding me in this seat with the steering wheel at your back.’
Spurred into action by Clara’s nervous squawk and the desire pounding through his blood, Andreas exited the vehicle and rushed her towards the lift to the guest suite he was still using.
She kissed him again, driving him wild with delicate darts of her tongue against his. ‘You won’t be able to smuggle me in like this much longer,’ she said as they tumbled out of the lift, tugging at each other’s clothes, pausing every few steps to kiss. ‘Especially when you move into your own suite.’
She shoved at his suit jacket and he tossed it on the floor. ‘I’ll build a secret tunnel from your house to mine,’ he said, only half-joking, ‘So you can come to me any time you want.’
He refused to think of them ending when every other aspect of his life was so uncertain.
He needed her. She laughed but a shadow crossed her eyes. There was something hesitant about her tonight, more than her fear of discovery. It was making him jittery.
‘Why are we wasting time talking,’ he said, ‘When that’s been all we could do for eight excruciating days?’
He reached for her, losing himself in her kisses, gripping her waist and guiding her into the bedroom. Clara pulled the hem of his shirt free of his trousers and slid her hands up his back, restlessly pressing her body against his. He removed her sweater and popped open her bra, his hands greedily caressing her beautiful breasts as they spilled free.
‘Because I’ve missed you,’ she said simply, honestly, perfectly.
That was his Clara...
The possessive direction of his thoughts caught him off-guard. She wasn’t his. This was a fling; even if he wanted something more permanent, that wasn’t what she wanted. He didn’t want to hurt her, disappoint her or let her down, and his father’s diagnosis had curtailed his freedoms. Just as Oscar had done, he must put duty first. He couldn’t drag someone as unique and guileless as Clara into his world of ancient protocol and public service. She cherished her independence and her career. He wouldn’t change a single thing about her.
Right here, right now, this was all they had because he couldn’t fail another person he cared about.
Unease compounded his desperation for her. He quickly peeled the remaining clothes from her body, taking one indulgent second to rake his gaze over her nakedness, his hands skimming her skin as if committing the softness, every dip and swell to memory.
‘You’re so beautiful; you steal my breath.’ He tugged her close, the heat of her burning through his clothes. ‘Later, I’m taking you in my giant bath, the scene of our first meeting. But first... I need you.’
He thumbed her nipples erect, smiling when she moaned his name and dropped her head back so he could ravage her neck with kisses.
‘I need you too,’ she said on a sigh, taking hold of his tie once more and tugging him by the neck towards the bed. She sat down and hurriedly undid his belt and fly, looking up at him with wicked intent. He’d barely survived the last time she put her gorgeous mouth on him. And he was strung so taut, the tick-tock of the clock flooding his body with a sense of panic, that this time he might actually fracture apart.
With a look of thrilling determination, Clara encircled his erection, licked up the length of him and then took him inside her mouth. She hummed a satisfied sound of delight. He closed his eyes, a surge of arousal filling him to bursting point. How could she do this to him—render him unstable with her touch and that look that said she saw him exactly as he was? Just a man.
But there was something wild about her tonight. Had she reached her limit in the eight days they’d been forced apart by work schedules and life? Or was she too hungrily preparing for future famine when they’d be once more forced apart, maybe for good. No; he couldn’t think about that.
Spurred into action, he yanked back his hips. He tossed off his clothes and prosthesis and prowled over her naked body. He kissed her lips, her breasts, her stomach and then dived between her legs to kiss and lick her into a sobbing frenzy. He was addicted to her taste. Addicted to everything, from the stud in her nose to the sharp wit of her tongue and the sound of her moans when she climaxed.
She cried out his name now, her hands twisting in his hair. He teased her sensitive nipples to hard peaks so she was writhing, needy for him, her hands restless and grabby.
‘We won’t be sleeping tonight,’ he said, settling his weight over her. ‘I want to make up for those eight days with as many orgasms as is humanly possible.’
He slid his hand to the slick heat between her legs, watching her eyes darken with need.
‘Yes...’ She dug her nails into his shoulders and spread her thighs wide so their hips aligned.
On fire from within, his heartbeat banged, dangerously high.
‘I can’t get enough of you,’ he panted, tearing his mouth away from her kisses. He cupped her thigh, his hips grinding between her parted legs as if out of his control. He’d never been this hot for a woman. The deprivation had sharpened the ache for her, only her, and one look at her passion-dazed expression told him she felt the same way.
Clara held his face and brought their lips back together in a rush of frantic and deep kisses. She cupped his buttocks, urging him closer, tilting her hips to meet him and shrouding him in her scalding heat as he pushed inside her with a groan of profound relief.
‘Andreas!’ she cried.
He reared up on his elbows and captured one nipple with his mouth. She crossed her ankles in the small of his back so he sank deeper inside her. Their bodies moved together in a frenzied rhythm as they tried to quench the need riding them both so hard.
How would he ever find the strength to let her go, having taken his entire adult life to find someone so remarkable? In that moment, he could have sworn that Clara was as essential as the very air he breathed.
He rolled them, holding her hips so they stayed locked together. She sat astride him and rode him, her hair a wild tumble around her flushed face. He cupped her pert breasts and stroked her nipples with his thumbs. She shattered, her stare locked to his, her cries ringing out around the room, until he jack-knifed into a sitting position and kissed them up.
With one final roar, he crushed her to his chest and spilled himself inside her, a part of his soul surely branded hers for all eternity.
Clara relaxed back against Andreas’s hard chest, so languid in the warm scented bubble bath that she might have fallen asleep if she hadn’t been so attuned to every subtle shift of Andreas’s touch. They’d lit what seemed like a hundred candles around the bath and left the blinds open so they could look out at the view of the snow-capped mountains and inky night sky.
Her skin tingled with awareness, the throbbing pulse between her legs barely satiated, even after that incredible orgasm. How would she survive the loss of such pleasure when this fling came to an end? And end it must. Clara was an ordinary woman, too cynical for relationships. Even if she’d wanted more from Andreas, it would be an impossible fairy tale. He would rule Varborg, marry his princess and produce his own heirs, and Clara would watch from the side-lines. Although, she had no clue how she would see pictures of him in the media and not want him with this all-encompassing need...
‘I’m sorry about the condom, sötnos,’ he said, pressing his lips to the side of her neck so she shivered with delight.
‘I’m sorry too. But, despite having only one previous partner, I’m still on birth control.’
They’d been so wild for each other after their eight days apart, they’d forgotten all about protection.
‘I’m normally very sexually responsible,’ he said, his hands sliding up and down her thighs under the water. ‘You just make me...insatiable.’
‘Insatiable, huh?’ Clara smiled like the cat that had stolen the cream, the flutters in her chest telling her just how much she trusted Andreas.
Now that they were finally alone, she should tell him about her father’s prison sentence. But she was so relaxed, his touch so hypnotic, it was hard to think about anything but him. And, once her secret was out, she’d have nowhere left to hide. That most vulnerable part of herself, the part she’d always protected from hurt by avoiding relationships, would be exposed. He’d know everything.
His lips skimmed the sensitive place on her neck, distracting her once more. ‘Will you watch my interview when it airs? Let me know how badly it comes across?’
‘Of course, but I doubt it will be bad. You’re a prince and a doctor, and you’re single. Half of Varborg will be in love with you before the show ends.’
Now it was his turn to chuckle, while spikes of jealousy pricked Clara’s skin. But he didn’t belong to her.
‘Did they ask you any questions you didn’t want to answer?’ she asked to detract from the helpless, jittery feeling in the pit of her stomach.
‘I’d already vetoed any questions relating to Oscar’s death,’ he said. ‘But they asked if I’m currently seeking a princess to marry—only to be expected in my position. My personal life is considered public property.’
Clara flinched. Wasn’t she temporarily part of his personal life? Because she’d rather have run naked out into the snow than know if Andreas was officially courting some foreign princess or lucky aristocrat closer to home, she latched onto another topic.
‘Will you tell me about Oscar?’ she whispered, resting her head on his shoulder so his next kiss landed on her cheek. ‘I’d love to know what he was like.’
Andreas took a deep breath, his chest expanding at her back.
‘It’s so hard to paint one picture,’ he said on a sigh. ‘He was so many things.’
‘Like you, then,’ Clara said, lifting his hand to press a kiss to his fingers.
‘He was good at everything.’ His voice lightened with admiration. ‘But somehow humble too. He could ski like a champion, speak five languages and he always had a joke up his sleeve, ready to drop it into conversation if and when appropriate.’
Clara smiled, pressing a breathy kiss to his lips. ‘Very useful skills for a statesman. How many languages do you speak?’
‘Only three, I’m afraid.’
‘What a dreadful under-achiever,’ she teased, and he laughed. ‘Hot and intelligent and kind—the palace may need to ramp up security once that interview airs.’ But her teasing cost her another jealous roll of her stomach.
He chuckled. After a few seconds, he stiffened. ‘Oscar’s death was a great loss for the future of Varborg. He had big plans to modernise the principality. We discussed it often—how things would be different for our children.’
‘What kind of plans?’ Clara didn’t want to imagine Andreas’s fair-haired children.
He shrugged, sending out ripples of bathwater. ‘Ways to challenge the old guard traditionalists, a more equal distribution of duties between royal siblings, that kind of thing.’
‘Things you can still implement yourself, if you choose.’ She entwined her fingers with his, cautious of making him withdraw, the way he had at the cabin when she’d pushed too hard.
‘I guess. We didn’t discuss it until we were adults, but we were both lonely growing up so...segregated. We needed to develop our own interests and be independent, but when it came to our royal life we could have acted as a team rather than being divided. Not that it matters now.’
Clara stilled, aware of the thud of his heart at her back and the matching rhythm in her chest. Every second of their time was precious, but Andreas’s past issues with his place in the Cronstedt family were holding him back from being his wonderfully authentic self. He’d made it clear that he wouldn’t be addressing those issues with his father. But, if she could get him talking, maybe it would help him to believe in his ability to rule.
‘Will you tell me about the accident?’ she whispered. ‘I promise I’ll never speak of it to another soul.’
‘I know you won’t, sötnos.’ Andreas pressed his lips to her temple. ‘You and I share a sense of loyalty. I trust you.’
Clara swallowed, her eyes stinging with longing. He trusted her but she was hiding something from him: her most shameful family secret. She needed to tell him, and soon.
‘Oscar and I were both in the army, in different regiments,’ he said, staring ahead as if staring into the past. ‘We were attending the same training exercise. It was all perfectly standard until it wasn’t. Oscar was in a vehicle crossing rough terrain when it hit a concealed ditch and rolled.’
Clara sat frozen, a shiver running through her, although the water was still warm.
‘I heard it on the radio,’ he continued. ‘The medical corps were training nearby, so we rushed to help. We managed to free the driver, but Oscar was unconscious in the passenger seat, the crushed cab of the vehicle trapping him.’
His heart thudded against her back and Clara gripped his hand tighter, wishing she could undo his pain and loss.
‘We cleared the shattered windscreen,’ he continued, ‘And I half-climbed in so I could preserve Oscar’s airway while we waited for the cutting crew. I could tell it looked bad for him. He had an obvious head injury, and a scalp wound that was bleeding profusely, but all I could do in that position was stabilise his neck, pressure-dress the wound and protect his airway.’
Tears tracked down Clara’s cheeks. He must have felt so scared and helpless.
‘I was too emotionally attached to be objective,’ Andreas said. ‘But I refused to leave him, even when he went into cardiac arrest. I performed CPR, even when I was ordered to step down by my superior officer so someone else could take over. Even when someone noticed the petrol leaking, I refused to leave my brother.’
Clara turned to face him, the full horror of what must have happened hitting her like a blow.
He nodded, his face pale with grief, as if he was reliving the accident. ‘The wreck burst into flames. I was thrown clear, but I broke both my legs.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, pressing her lips to his in silent apology. Why had she asked him? Because she just selfishly wanted to know everything about him, for her own insatiable needs.
‘They saved the right leg, but the left was fractured and badly burned, and became infected. They had to amputate three days before Oscar’s funeral.’
‘Andreas...’ She sat astride his lap, holding onto both his hands as if she’d never let go. ‘You could have died too.’
He shook his head, dismissing her concern. ‘He was my brother, my senior in rank, my country’s heir to the throne and I couldn’t save him.’
Clara’s vision blurred with sadness. She gripped his face. ‘No one could have saved him. You did everything humanly possible. It was a terrible accident.’
‘A part of me knows that.’ A sad smile tugged his lips; he didn’t believe her. ‘But the rest of me just feels guilty. I’m a doctor. I let him down. And why was it me to survive and not him?’
‘You know why.’ Clara rested her forehead against his. ‘Life is random and sometimes unfair.’
She didn’t need to tell Andreas that. He was an intelligent man of the world, a leader, who’d had more than his fair share of family tragedy.
‘He should be here now,’ Andreas said as if he hadn’t heard, as he gripped her upper arms so they were locked together in this horrible moment of grief and heartache. ‘He was meant to be the one to succeed Prince Henrik.’
Clara shook her head violently. The idea of never having met Andreas was too horrible to contemplate.
‘You feel responsible because of your profession,’ she said passionately. ‘Because he was your big brother, a man you loved and respected; because the family you were born into has a hereditary hierarchy most families don’t have. But it wasn’t your fault.’
He stared up at her, pain shifting across his beautiful eyes. And something else—need. His arms came around her waist and he held her so close, burying his face against the erratic thud of her heart. It was as if their connection, this wild storm of desire that never seemed to lessen, went way beyond physical in that moment.
But it couldn’t. She wouldn’t let it mean more. She was strong. She would be there for him, embrace their intimacies until it was time for them to part and then she’d deal with the fallout once it was over.
Clara stroked his hair and held him to her heart as if she could fix the broken pieces of him. His life was in turmoil. He was grieving for the past and the future. He was hurting, carrying unnecessary guilt over Oscar’s death and feeling that he was second best to a dead man because of his family’s succession, and because he had unresolved issues with Prince Henrik. If what he’d told her the day at the cabin was true, he and Prince Henrik had never really spoken about Oscar’s death. Perhaps if Andreas knew that no one else blamed him, including his father, he could start to forgive himself. It might ease his struggles with the royal role he felt he didn’t deserve.
But, just like Andreas hadn’t been able to save Oscar, Clara couldn’t save Andreas. He needed to do that himself.
‘What can I do to help you?’ she asked, aching for him.
His arms tightened around her waist. ‘You help me simply by being here. Things make sense when I’m with you. You understand me. You see me, the real me. You always have.’
Clara held him while he crushed her to him.
Right now, while the rest of his life was tugging him in all directions, he might feel as if he needed her, but she couldn’t forget her reality. Her valued independence, her own shameful past and her determination for equality in any future relationship.
‘I know you think I should talk to the prince about the past, about Oscar,’ he continued. ‘And maybe you’re right. But, what with my crash course on ruling Varborg, stepping in to fulfil most of my father’s engagements and planning a state funeral in minute detail, the prince and I already have many things on our minds.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’ Her voice sounded sickeningly small, the feeling she’d been dismissed once more causing a hot ache in her throat. It made memories of her final phone call to her father resurface, when he’d trivialised her concerns and refused to make her any promises.
But she didn’t need promises from Andreas. This was just sex.
‘And I didn’t mean to offload.’ He dragged her lips to his. ‘Let’s forgive each other.’
Clara nodded and smiled, because he’d done nothing wrong. He was just dealing with his lot in life in the best way he knew how. It wasn’t Andreas’s fault that she’d learned from her own regrets or that she would hate to see him miss his chance to heal some of the scars holding him back before his father died. But she needed to accept that sometimes she just couldn’t fix what was broken.
‘I’ve handed in my notice at Nordic Care,’ he said, looking up at her with such grief and vulnerability, she shoved aside her selfish thoughts on what that would mean for her.
‘That’s good.’ She pressed her lips to his. ‘You have a lot going on.’
But she understood his reluctance to end his locum job. He was clinging to the one thing he could control, the one thing he could ensure he was good at—his career.
But he had so much more to give.
‘You’re like your brother, Andreas,’ she said imploringly. ‘You’ll be good at anything you set your mind to, including ruling this nation of ours.’
His expression shifted from despair to bewilderment. ‘You asked how you could help...and my answer is just be yourself. Don’t ever change, sötnos.’
He brushed her lips with his on a ragged sigh, pulling back to search her stare. ‘You are the only good thing I can hold onto right now.’ His hands restlessly skimmed her back and her shoulders, his fingers tunnelling into her hair. ‘I need you, Clara. I want you.’
Gripping the back of her neck, he dragged her mouth back to his. His kiss grew deeper, his hands roaming her body as if he was committing the shape of her to memory.
Clara surrendered, kissing him back, losing herself again. Every time she veered away from the passion and connection they found in each other’s arms, she came unstuck, her mind spinning out, searching for answers and solutions that were right there in front of her.
For, however long they had left, this was all that mattered.
His hands gripped her hips under the water, drawing her close. He was hard between her legs. Rising up on her knees, she guided him inside her body, each of them sighing with relief as they stared into each other’s eyes.
For now, he was hers—her wild mountain-man, her Viking.
As she rocked above him and he moved inside her, passion spiralling as they clung to each other, and Clara clinging to the only part of him she could have, she promised herself she would hold something back.
She would protect her heart the way she’d always done because, of all men, Andreas had the power to do the most damage.