Steel Princess (Royal Elite 2)

I shake my head. “We can talk in here.”

I don’t get a warning.

One second I’m sitting in the car and the next, Aiden is releasing the seatbelt and pulling me out. He places an arm under my legs, the other at my back, and effortlessly throws me over his shoulder.

I’m so impressed by his strength and the confident ease he carries me with that I spend a few seconds speechless. All I can do is watch the ground moving under our feet.

It’s like I weigh nothing.

My head bumps against his back, pulling me out from my stupefaction. Blood rushes to my face from the upside-down position.

I hit his back with closed fists. “Put me down!”

It doesn’t faze him. Not one bit.

So I do it again.

I hit him with everything I have, screaming profanities at him.

He doesn’t get to act like an actual caveman after everything that’s happened. He doesn’t get to take me to his cave as if I always belonged there.

“Let me go!”

Smack.

I freeze, the sting heating my arse.

Did he just… spank me?

My cheeks heat in humiliation and something else I can’t put my finger on.

I try to squirm free. He smacks me again — harder this time.

I jolt, crying out in something a lot more different than pain.

What the…?

“Stay still or we can do this all day.” His hand caresses the flesh he just smacked, slowly, too slowly.

Tingles erupt on my skin, and an unintelligible sound escapes my lips.

“Hmm. Or would you like that, sweetheart?”

I clamp my lips shut because whatever I’ll say will only make my situation worse.

He doesn’t remove his hand from my arse as if it’s some sort of a threat. I remain still, not ready to experience those strange sensations again.

Once in front of the house, Aiden enters the combination — which means that this place belongs to him or his father.

Automatic light goes on as we walk down the hall.

He puts me to my feet in the middle of a medium-sized lounge area with grey sofas and a kitchen bar in sight.

Designer lamps hang from the ceiling giving the cottage a modern look that I didn’t notice from the outside. There’s a billiard table at the corner and a chessboard with an unfinished game on the coffee table.

It seems so much cosier than the King mansion. Homier, too.

When my gaze strays back to Aiden. He’s watching me watch the space with those drawn brows as if he’s trying to crack a code.