Royal Pain (His Royal Hotness 1)

So, so ravenous that it brings my own hunger to the fore.

I press against him with a moan, tangle my fingers in the cool black silk of his hair and let him in.

He feels my acquiescence—I know he does—because he takes instant advantage, his tongue sliding between my lips.

He feels so good, tastes so good—like the scotch he had at the bar mixed with the sweet and wild ocean wind that likes to whip through this town with the least provocation.

“Kian.” His name is a prayer, a plea, a cry of desperation and desire. I wrap his hair around my fingers and tug hard enough to have him groaning in his throat.

“Fuck, Savvy,” is his only answer, and I revel in the gravel and the greed of it even as he sweeps his tongue along the seam of my lips, as he explores the corners of my mouth and the curves of my lower lip. “I love the way you taste.”

I start to answer him, to tell him I feel exactly the same way, but then he’s sucking my lower lip between his teeth, biting down softly, and any thoughts I have scatter like grains of sand in a windstorm.

Heat slams through me and I gasp, hands curling into fists. Fingers tugging at his hair, pulling sharply. He groans low in his throat and then his free hand is on my hip, his fingers digging into my ass. Not hard enough to hurt, but definitely enough to remind me that there’s a real live man behind the prince.

The reminder only makes me hotter, and I can’t stop myself from moving restlessly against him. I want more than he’s giving me. Need more than I ever imagined I would from anyone.

But Kian is having none of it. He nips sharply at my lip, but it only pulls me under. Even the gentle strokes of his tongue that follow the bite—strokes meant to soothe away the small hurt—do nothing but drag me under.

Drag me deeper, until nothing matters but Kian and this moment and the sweet heat flowing like honey through my whole body until I nearly drown in it.

And still it’s not enough for him. Still he pushes for more.

Sliding his hand up my throat to my chin, he tilts my head up and back a little more. And then he takes me over, his tongue sweeping inside my mouth to slide against my own. To stroke over the roof of my mouth, down the side of my cheek. To tease and taunt and torment me until all I can think of is him.

Until all I want is him.

I tug at his hair again, even more sharply this time, and he responds by slamming his hips against my own. It feels good, so good, and I want nothing more than to stay right here, like this, with him. But as he wrests his mouth from mine, as he skims his lips across my cheek, my jaw, the sensitive spot beneath my ear, I know that I have to stop this before it gets much farther. Before I lose myself completely in him and forget why we’re here. Forget what he wants to know and what I have to tell him.

With that thought in the front of my mind, I turn my head away—then nearly whimper as he buries his face in the bend between my neck and shoulder. For long seconds I’m spellbound, held captive by the shivers running up and down my spine and the pleasure skating along my every nerve.

But as he whispers my name again, as his hands move to cup my ass, to hold me closer, I know it’s now or never. And while there’s a part of me—a big part—that wants nothing more than to lead Kian to my bed, that wants nothing more than to make him feel good and let him do the same to me—I can’t let it happen. Not yet.

And so I bring my hands down to rest on his shoulders and then I press forward, pushing him away.

Chapter 12

To his credit, Kian stops immediately. He lifts his head from where he’s kissing at the hollow of my throat, takes a step back. And just looks at me.

It’s disconcerting, how completely he does it—like, in that moment, I am his complete and total focus and priority. It’s not a reaction I’ve ever had to deal with before, and for long seconds I don’t know what to do or what to say. But it’s clear he’s waiting for me to do something, so in the end, I do.

“Why don’t we have that coffee?” I suggest, after clearing my throat. “I think I still have some cookies, if you’d like.”

“Not quite the treat I was hoping for,” he says with a wicked grin, “but beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Like you’ve ever had to beg for anything in your life,” I tell him with a laugh. “I’m pretty sure if your title doesn’t get it for you, then your charm will.”

I start toward the back of the house.

“So, you think I’m charming?” he asks as he follows me into the kitchen.

“You know exactly how charming you are, Your Royal Hotness. You don’t need me to stroke your ego.”

His eyes go dark and intense at that and, as my breath catches in my throat, I have the feeling we’re both imagining me stroking something that very definitely isn’t his ego.

He walks over to the hutch I’ve got between the French doors that line the back wall of the kitchen and looks over the array of framed pictures resting between my tiny piles of dishes.

“If you’re looking for one of me and Garrett, you’ll be disappointed,” I tell him as I get the coffee beans out of the freezer. “Your brother was pretty reclusive when we were a couple, making sure that only a few photographs were taken.”