The Throne He Must Take. Chantelle Shaw

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       CHAPTER THREE

      JAREK FOUND AN outlet for his restless energy in the chalet’s gym. He could think of other, more enjoyable ways to get hot and sweaty than pounding his fists into a punch-bag. But he had promised his brother-in-law there would be no more scandalous stories about his personal life in the tabloids—which meant that until Elin’s baby was born he had to keep away from bars and airhead blondes who were attracted to his multi-millionaire status and bad-boy image.

      The truth was he’d never cared about what was printed about him—which was mostly lies. Any publicity, good or bad, was publicity for Lorna’s Gift, and he seized every opportunity to promote the vital work of the charity.

      But Elin’s husband Cortez took a different view.

      ‘Elin gets upset when she sees your name in newspaper headlines or on the pages of gossip magazines, invariably with intimate details of your sex-life,’ Cortez had warned him. ‘She has gestational high blood pressure, which could lead to more serious complications with her pregnancy, and her obstetrician says it is crucial she doesn’t suffer any stress that could cause her blood pressure to rise even higher.’

      Jarek shared his brother-in-law’s concern. Elin and Cortez had not been together when Elin had nearly died giving birth to their first child, and it had been Jarek who had sat by her bed in ITU, willing her to pull through for the sake of her baby son in the hospital nursery.

      There were worse places to spend the next few weeks than the spectacular Austrian Alps, he mused. Chalet Soline offered six-star luxury, and next to the well-equipped gym there was a sauna room while outside on the decked area stood a hot tub. He would find it relaxing after his punishing workout to lie in a bubbling hot tub and look up at the snow-covered mountains, or count the stars that glittered diamond-bright in the night sky.

      But when he glanced at his watch he realised he did not have time before Professor Heppel arrived.

      About to head back to his room, to shower before dinner, he glanced out of a window and noticed that the lights had been switched on around the hot tub. Steam was curling up from the surface of the water, forming wispy white clouds against the black night sky.

      Jarek stopped dead and stared at the figure of a woman rising out of the steam like a mystical goddess. And what a figure! He swallowed as he watched Holly wade across to the edge of the pool. It was no exaggeration to say that she was a goddess, with an hourglass figure that was reminiscent of the silver screen sirens from a previous era, like Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor.

      She was wearing a one-piece swimsuit with cut-out sections at the sides that drew attention to her slender waist. Jarek wanted to explore the tantalising areas of her bare skin on display with his hands. He lifted his eyes higher to her voluptuous breasts, barely contained within the tiny triangles of gold material that formed the bra cups of the swimsuit, and felt himself harden. He was fascinated by her daring choice of swimwear, which was such a contrast to the unexciting clothes she’d worn earlier.

      Moving his gaze lower, he followed the rounded curves of her hips and her toned thighs, exposed by the swimsuit’s high-cut legs.

      Who was the real Holly? he wondered. The serious psychologist, or the sizzling sex bomb who made the blood thunder in his veins? His body felt taut and energised after his gym workout and he wanted—quite possibly more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, he discovered—to pull Holly beneath him and ease her stretchy swimsuit aside so that he could thrust his rock-solid erection home.

      It was lucky he had worn loose sweatpants for his session in the gym, Jarek thought derisively. He was so turned on by the sight of Holly in her barely there swimsuit that he felt he might explode.

      His common sense told him to head back to his room. But he rarely heeded good advice.

      The temperature outside the chalet was way below zero, and as the icy air hit his heated skin every nerve-ending in his body tingled.

      Jarek allowed the door to thud closed behind him as he stepped outside onto the wooden decking. The sound caused Holly to jerk her head round, and she gave a startled cry when she saw him, followed by a curse when she dropped the towel that she had just picked up from the deck into the water.

      ‘You startled me. I thought you were working in the study,’ she muttered in an embarrassed voice, as if he had caught her naked—which she very nearly was, Jarek mused as he roamed his eyes over her insubstantial swimsuit and felt the ache in his groin clamour to be appeased.

      He did not reply, for the simple reason that he could not think of anything to say—couldn’t think of anything at all but how utterly perfect she was with her skin flushed pink from the heat of the hot tub and a deeper flush on her pretty face.

      Her hair was piled on top of her head and loose tendrils curled about her cheeks. She was a luscious goddess, and he wanted nothing more than to drop to his knees in front of her to worship her bounteous beauty with his mouth and explore every secret place on her body with his tongue.

      He was jolted from his sexual haze by the sound of her clipped voice.

      ‘Would you please pass me another towel? There’s a pile of clean towels on the shelf outside the sauna room,’ she said when he didn’t move, just stared at her while he tried to control the conflagration of lust that burned down to his bones.

      ‘Jarek, СКАЧАТЬ