Free The Pleasure King's Bride by Emma Darcy

into blissful chaos as he climaxed in a series of violent tremors. Her beautiful breasts brushed his chest as she leaned over, and the soft curtain of her hair enveloped them as she loved his mouth with long, avid kisses.
    Jared lost all track of the questions he’d wanted answered about Christabel. For the rest of the night they wallowed in a feast of sensuality, moving around each other, exploring and discovering, indulging an ever-increasing appetite for every possible intimacy, entranced by their connections, stimulated by their almost constant capacity for arousal, their desire to feel all that could be felt between them.
    They didn’t talk. Speech seemed irrelevant. There was a deeper, more elemental communion happening between them, a bonding that was more satisfying, more fulfilling than words could possibly express. This was Jared’s instinctive belief, and his instincts had not been wrong about Christabel. She was the woman for him, just as certainly as he was the man for her.
    When languor finally overtook them, energy completely spent, Jared drifted into sleep, never doubting that the woman he held in his arms would still be there when he stirred again. It didn’t occur to him that when the night ended, Christabel would leave him. What she had stipulated earlier was forgotten, overlaid by a sense of unbreakable togetherness.
    He simply didn’t comprehend—couldn’t comprehend—had no way of even beginning to comprehend—that for her, it had to remain...
    Only one night.
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Something felt wrong.
    Jared was barely conscious, swimming out of deep sleep, yet he was instinctively reaching out, expecting, wanting and...there was only empty space!
    It jolted him awake. Daylight hit his eyes. He was alone in his bed. Had Christabel gone to check on her daughter? How late in the morning was it?
    His gaze darted to the clock radio on the bedside table, already thinking it was set to switch on at seven o’clock. It showed twelve minutes short of that. Still early, but the child was probably awake. Christabel would be very conscious of Alicia waking in a strange house, probably wanting to find her mother. Maybe she had come looking.
    Jared frowned at that thought, then dismissed it. Like most old people, Vikki Chan slept lightly. She would have heard Alicia stirring, would have reassured the child, looked after her. It had to be Christabel’s strong protective instincts making her act.
    He rolled out of bed, wanting to be with her, wanting to forge a good relationship with her daughter, as well. He was striding towards his en suite bathroom for a quick shower and shave when the thought struck him—Christabel would not have gone to her daughter naked. They’d left their clothes on the veranda. Had she retrieved them?
    He turned towards the French doors, then paused, noticing his white shorts and shirt draped over the armrest of the chair nearest the doors. Christabel had tidied up. He walked over to the chair and checked his shirt pocket looking for the G-string he’d tucked into it last night. The pocket was empty. As empty as his bed.
    An unease slid into his mind...an unease he couldn’t shake. He strode to his wardrobe, took out a yukata, quickly wrapped himself in the handy cotton robe, and with his heart hammering, took the swiftest route through the house to the shell room.
    No Christabel.
    No Alicia.
    He made straight for the kitchen. Vikki Chan was measuring coffee grounds into the percolator. “When did they leave?” he asked, not bothering with any preamble. The need to know was too urgent, too vitally important.
    “At first light,” she answered, looking at him with eyes that understood his frustration.
    “Did you speak to her?’’
    “No. I’d left the door to the shell room open so I could hear the child if she woke. She didn’t wake. Her mother came and took her at first light. I heard the Cherokee she drives start up and leave.”
    Jared expelled a long hissing breath