Royal Bastard (Instantly Royal 1)

“So why don’t you come out here

and watch this with me and tell me what’s driving you nuts and making you so tense that you started banging your head on the wall.” Oh yeah, definitely closer and deeper and hotter than he should be.

“I’m not tense.” Hello, Fibber McFibberpants.

“You can’t lie to me,” he said with a snort. “I figure out puzzles for a living.”

She couldn’t look away from the doorknob, half hoping and half dreading that it would start to turn. God. She was in trouble. “I thought you invented things.”

“Same thing. I figure out ways to make things easier for people.”

“What if what’s making me mental is you?” Okay, that was truer than it was false, but it wasn’t her place to tell tales about the state of Dallinger Park’s finances.

He chuckled. “Not gonna buy it, since you’ve been avoiding me for days.”

“You noticed that, did you now?” Chicken? Her? Oh yeah. She was the girl who ran from Manchester with her tail tucked between her legs in the dead of night to avoid the reporters and the photographers who’d set up across from her flat.

Nick rapped softly on the door. “Can I come in?”

Hello, temptation, it’s me, Brooke. “Letting you in isn’t a good idea.”

“Probably not.”

That he agreed didn’t make her want to open the door any less—which was exactly why she stayed on the bed with her back pressed to the post and the duvet clutched to her chest, her body going melty like a Dinky Deckers left out in the sun. The silence stretched, filling the room with expectations that couldn’t be met. Not for a woman like her with a man like him.

Still, she stared at the door, practically willing it to open on its own. “Good night, Mr. Vane.”

“Say it.”

It wasn’t a request. It was a demand that set off a warm, liquid wave of desire through her, and she didn’t have to ask what he meant.

“Nick.”

“God, I love the sound of my name on your lips.”

She brushed her fingertips along her lips because they buzzed as if she’d just kissed him, and despite the nearly overwhelming urge to open the connecting door, she made her way back up to her pillows at the head of the bed and lay down, knowing her dreams would be far from restful tonight.

Chapter Seventeen

The incessant buzzing of his phone in the pitch-dark of three in the morning woke Nick from a dream that had his cock aching. Smacking a palm against the nightstand while keeping his eyes closed, he finally made contact and managed to get a look at the caller ID as he swiped his thumb across the screen and answered the call.

“Mace, do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Oh shit,” his friend said with a groan. “I didn’t think about the time difference. It’s eight at night here in L.A. Did I wake you up?”

Nick cracked his eyes open and surveyed the large bed, empty except for him. “It’s three in the morning. What do you think?”

“If I didn’t wake you up, then I interrupted something fun, but I promise I wouldn’t have called so late if it wasn’t an emergency.”

The fact that Mace was willing to use the E-word meant something. He’d known Mace since they both walked into a new group home with less than six months to go in their state-sponsored supervised life. Wiry with a smart mouth and a quick brain, the other man had made enemies quickly, but unlike his enemies had expected, he hadn’t been easy to knock down. The guy was a stone-cold scrapper, so if he needed help, then it was an all-hands-on-deck moment.

Nick sat up, eyes open, totally awake, and flipped on the lamp on the bedside table. “What’s up?”

“You know how I was hoping to come visit while we were shooting Zombie Fried?”

“Please tell me this is leading somewhere.” Because even in the midst of a crisis, Mace could go on a tangent. There was a reason why he never brought up the fact that he hated fried pickles to him.

“Didn’t you tell me that you were at Dallinger Park in Yorkshire?” Mason asked.