“Bullshit. You were looking at my abs.”
“Actually, I was looking at your V-cut and thinking about how much I really want to lick it. But your abs are nice, too.”
His eyes go that crazy shade of neon that gets me every time. “I can probably free up some room in my schedule if you want to make that fantasy a reality. I mean, if it means that much to you, far be it from me to deny you.”
“Wow. Look at you.” I reach out and pat his cheek. “Always putting somebody else before yourself.”
“What can I say? I’m a giver like that.”
“Now that, I won’t deny,” I say, my voice dropping a little as I think of just how many orgasms Kian gave me last night.
“You keep looking at me like that,” he says, his voice dropping right along with mine, “and I’m going to forget all about being self-sacrificing and take you right here on your kitchen table.”
“Promise?”
“Oh, I promise.” He stands, and in one fluid motion grabs my hand, pulls me up and then twirls me around so that my back is pressed against his front. “And I always keep my promises.”
One of his hands sneaks up to cup my breast while the other delves between my thighs. I gasp at the first touch of his thumb against my clit, then moan a little as he grinds the heel of his hand against my mons.
“This isn’t what you promised,” I say, barely able to speak through the pleasure.
“Is that a complaint?” He squeezes my nipple between his thumb and forefinger for emphasis.
“No complaint,” I tell him. “Just—” I break off as he slips two fingers inside me.
“Just what?” he asks, his breath hot against my ear.
“Just trying to keep you honest.”
This time when he laughs, he sounds anything but happy. “If you’re looking for honest, I’m pretty sure you’ve got the wrong brother.”
“I don’t,” I tell him, as I move to capture his mouth in a kiss that makes us both sweat. “Besides, even if I did, I’ve got the only brother I want.”
—
“What flavor would you like?” Kian asks me hours later, as we wait our turn at an ice cream shop on the beach.
We’re in disguise—or I should say, Kian’s in disguise as no one knows who I am. He’s wearing board shorts and a surfing T-shirt in shades of hot pink and aqua, a pair of the goofiest sunglasses I’ve ever seen and a big, floppy brimmed white hat the likes of which you normally only see on old women trying to avoid the sun. He looks ridiculous, but the pièces de résistance are the stripes of pink and yellow zinc sunscreen he’s drawn across his cheeks and down his nose.
He doesn’t blend in by any stretch of the imagination, but he looks so outrageous and nerdy that people are to
o busy looking at all the separate pieces to pay attention to who is under them.
“That’s the key,” he’d told me when Lucas showed up at my house this morning with all of this in a bag. “To hide in plain sight. No one would ever imagine Prince Kian wearing something like this in public, so as long as I keep my head down and don’t make eye contact with anyone, I’m golden.”
“No one would imagine His Royal Hotness wearing that anywhere,” I’d answered. “And why do you need a disguise, anyway?”
“Because I want to take you out. And the last thing I want is for us to be hassled while I do it.”
I’d be lying if I said that hadn’t given me a moment’s pause. It was so like something Garrett would say that for a moment I felt like I was back there with him, a dirty little secret that no one was supposed to know about. But Kian isn’t Garrett, something I keep reminding myself of when doubts creep in.
Besides, it’s been a good day. We rode bikes along one of the big nature trails in Avignon, then had a picnic on the beach that ended up with us spending a ridiculous amount of time playing tag with the waves and each other.
At one point Kian bought a dragon kite off a kid—and while I don’t even want to know what the kid told his parents when he showed up at home sans kite and with the Wildemar equivalent of a hundred dollar bill—it was a crazy amount of fun to fly the thing.
It was even more fun to watch Lucas (dressed in street clothes meant to help him blend in) climbing a tree to get it down after I got it stuck up there. Kian had planned on getting it, but Lucas, Malik and Avi (new bodyguards that I met for the first time today) were having no part of that. I guess the idea of His Royal Hotness falling out of a tree and breaking his neck was too much for their security oriented souls to handle.
And now, apparently, it’s ice cream time, only Kian’s doing it all wrong—something I’m going to have to correct.