A Royal Without Rules

There was a slight movement behind her, a small shift against the mattress.

She was not alone in the bed.

Adriana froze. Then, very slowly, her heart pounding, she turned to look, somehow knowing what she would see even as she prayed she was mistaken.

Please not him. Please not him. Please—

Prince Pato lay sprawled out on his back, the sheets kicked off, naked save for a pair of tight navy blue briefs that clung to his narrow hips. The light from the skylights bathed him in shades of gold, and she couldn’t quite take in that perfect, hard-packed flesh of his, so close beside her she could almost feel the heat he generated, and could see the rough shadow of his beard on his jaw. She couldn’t make sense of all his fine masculine beauty, much less the picture of sheer abandon he made, sun-kissed and golden and stretched out so carelessly against the crisp white sheets.

She was in bed with Pato.

Her mouth was too dry; her eyes felt scraped and hollow. She felt fragile and broken, and had no idea how to pull herself together enough to handle this. Adriana was afraid she might be sick.

In a panic, she whipped her head around, yanked back the sheet and looked down at herself, not sure whether to be horrified or relieved to discover that while she wasn’t naked, she wore only the matching cranberry hip-slung panties and bra she’d had on beneath her gown at the charity ball.

The ball. Adriana fought to keep breathing as images from the night before began to flood her head. Those strange, intense moments with Pato. His hand on her arm. The way he’d looked at her, as if he could see straight into her. Then Lenz’s voice, so disgusted, so appalled.

She couldn’t think about Lenz. She couldn’t.

Had she really done this? Had she decided to become what she’d always been so proud she wasn’t? With the one person in all the world best suited to debauch her—or anyone, come to that—completely? He did it by rote, no doubt. He could do it in his sleep. No wonder she couldn’t recall it.

Adriana turned to look at him again, as if she might see her own actions tattooed on his smooth skin, and she jolted in shock.

Pato was awake. And watching her.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. She pulled the sheets up to her neck, fought the urge to burst into tears, and stared at him in horror.

Pato’s golden eyes were sleepy, his hair a thick, careless mess, and still he fairly oozed the same sensual menace he had the night before, when he’d been dressed so elegantly. He studied her for a long moment, and the great, wide bed felt like a tiny little cot, suddenly. Like a trap. Adriana’s pulse beat at her, and she forgot about her headache.

“I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I made to your modesty,” Pato said in that drawling way of his, as if he was too lazy to bother enunciating properly. He waved at the form-fitting briefs he wore. At that flat abdomen of his, the crisp dark hair that disappeared beneath the fabric. She jerked her eyes away, and his mouth curved. “I think you know very well I prefer to sleep naked.”

Adriana felt dizzy, and part of her welcomed it. Encouraged it. It would be such a relief to simply faint dead away. To escape whatever morning-after this was. She lifted a hand to her head, only belatedly realizing that her hair had tumbled down from its chignon, and was hanging around her face in a wild mess that rivaled Pato’s.

Somehow, that made it worse. It made her feel like the wanton slut she must have become last night. Was it possible to share a bed with Prince Pato and not be a wanton slut? Her chest felt tight.

He watched her as she pushed the mass of blond waves behind her shoulders, his golden gaze like a flame as it touched her. More images from the previous night flashed through her head then, as if the heat of his gaze triggered her memory, and she frowned at him.

“You got me drunk,” she accused him.

Blaming him felt good. Clean. Far better to concentrate on that and not the images flickering in her head. Some dark-paneled pub, or possibly the kind of rich man’s club a prince might frequent, thick with reds and woods and the shots of strong spirits Pato slid in front of her, one after the next, his golden gaze never leaving her face. His elegant hands brushing hers. That wicked mouth of his much too close.

“You got you drunk,” he corrected, shifting over to his side and propping his head up on one hand as he continued to regard her with that lazy intent that made her belly fold in on itself. “Who was I to stand in your way?”

A dark street, laughter. Her laughter, and the wicked current of his voice beneath it. Her arm around Pato’s waist and his lean, hard arm around her shoulders. Then being held high against his chest as he moved through some kind of lobby...

This was awful, Adriana thought then, her chest aching with the sobs, the screams, she refused to let out. This was beyond awful.