Royal Pain (His Royal Hotness 1)

I don’t stop, though. There’s something quite refreshing about being manhandled by a woman who doesn’t seem all that impressed with my title.

We wind our way down a small hallway, where she drops the tray she’s still carrying on a large banquet server. Then she picks up a few more cloth napkins and continues pulling me along.

“I usually make a habit of learning a woman’s name before I let her abscond with me,” I say, as we make our way down a second hallway.

“No, you don’t.” She shoots another amused look over her shoulder, this one complete with a little eyebrow raise that has my cock all kinds of interested.

And can you blame it—or me? The woman is hot with a capital H-O-T.

Long black hair that looks like any second it’s going to tumble down from the updo she’s got it twisted into.

Big brown eyes framed with dark lashes that put Mariella’s fake ones to shame.

Add full pink lips, that husky voice and a body that’s all lush curves and smooth olive skin, and what’s not to love? The old Kian would already be trying to talk her out of her black work pants and onto his dick.

Hell, who am I kidding? Once we get somewhere private, the new Kian is going to be doing the same damn thing.

We finally come to a door and she stops just long enough to swipe her badge through the reader. Then she pushes the door open and we’re on a small, half moon–shaped balcony—one that has a cooler on one side and a small table with two chairs on the other.

“Breakroom?” I ask as I turn to shut the door in Lucas’s face. He looks furious, but he’s just going to have to suck it up. Normally I don’t mind audiences when I fuck, but there’s something about this woman that makes me want to keep whatever happens next just between us.

“Something like that.” She drops my hand and I try not to miss the warmth of her palm against mine. Then she walks over to the cooler and lifts the lid. Pulls out a small bottle of club soda and brandishes it triumphantly.

“You keep club soda out here on the off chance you might drop a drink on someone?” I ask, a little incredulous. “Or is this a nightly thing for you?”

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed. I thought the club soda thing was just a ruse.

She laughs then, a rich, warm sound that shoots straight through my bloodstream to my dick. I shift a little, trying to disguise the fact that I’m suddenly rock-hard and raring to go.

“I keep the club soda out here because this is where the scotch is.” She pulls out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label and sets it on the table. Then takes two red plastic cups from a sleeve sitting next to the cooler. “Want a drink?”

“You brought me out here for a drink?” I ask, relaxing a little as all the pieces fall into place. She’s not the first star-fucker I’ve run across at one of these things, and she won’t be the last. Suddenly the night is looking waaaaay up. At least my cock will be happy for the rest of the night, even if the rest of me dies of boredom.

“I brought you out here because that barracuda looked like she was going to eat you for a midnight snack—and not in a good way.”

“Mariella?” That surprises a laugh out of me. “I could have handled her.”

“You looked like a virgin sacrifice about to be tossed into a volcano,” she says with a snort. “I figured it was my patriotic duty to rescue you.”

“Oh, yeah? And what else do you consider your patriotic duty?” As soon as the words are out, I want to kick my own ass. Shit. Three months as crown prince and apparently I’ve lost every ounce of my game. Goddamn it.

But she just laughs as she pours a healthy amount of scotch into both cups and then tops it off with club soda. “Not sucking your cock, if that’s what you’re getting at.” She holds one of the cups out to me, waits for me to take it. Then clinks the plastic glasses together and says “Cheers.”

I start to take a sip, but she barks out, “Wait!” at the last second.

“What’s wrong?”

“Aren’t you afraid I poisoned it? Shouldn’t you wait for me to drink first?”

I settle a shoulder against the stone wall, surprised at just how much I’m enjoying myself. Normally, sex is the only thing that feels this good—or gets me this relaxed. “Did you poison it?”

“No.” She takes a long, deliberate sip of her drink. “But you didn’t know that.”

I follow suit, draining the cup in one long swallow. “Sure, I did.”

“Oh, yeah? How?”

“Because that shit only happens in James Bond movies and Shakespearean tragedies.” Even as I say it, I try not to think about my brother. Or about how his three bodyguards were found lying in pools of their own blood.