A Royal Without Rules

And yet she’d come with him, anyway. She’d barely hesitated.

Maybe, like the Righetti women who came before her, it was time she loved what she had for as long as she had it, instead of mourning what she might have had, were she braver. Pato had told her this was passion, this thing that flared between them. She wanted to explore it. She wanted to know what he meant. She wanted him.

It didn’t feel like surrender to admit that. There was no shame. It felt like a hard-won victory.

“You weren’t what I expected,” Pato said, as if the words were pulled from him, urgent and dark. Serious. “I’ve been hiding in plain sight for fifteen years and no one’s ever seen me, any hint of me at all, until—”

Adriana turned to him and put her hand over his mouth, that beautiful mouth of his she’d felt devouring her very core, wicked and insinuating and warm to the touch. She felt his lips against her palm now, and the familiar punch of heat that roared through her and connected with that pulsing fire low in her belly.

She didn’t want his secrets. Secrets came at too high a price, and she knew she’d pay a hefty one already. She wanted him. She wanted to throw herself in this fire at last, and who cared what burned?

“Don’t,” she whispered, and smiled at him. His gaze was dark on hers for a breath, and another. Then his lips curved against her palm.

Adriana pushed up on her toes, pressed her body flush against his at last, and took his mouth with hers. Claiming him here, now. While she could.

Pato met her instantly. He buried one hand in her hair and hauled her against him, and this time she was ready for him. She wrapped herself around him, shameless and abandoned, and let herself glory in it. He let out a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a curse, and then he was sweeping her up into his arms and heading toward the cottage.

“But—” she protested, though she went quiet when he looked down at her, his golden eyes hot and wild, making her shiver in anticipation as she hooked an arm around his hard shoulders.

“Rule number six,” he growled, leaning down to nip at her nose. “Don’t ever put on a sex show in the yard. Unless it’s planned.” He shifted her against his chest, holding her with one arm while he worked the door of the cottage with his free hand. “And if it’s planned, there should be paparazzi at the ready, not horrified tourists out for a bit of pleasure boating.”

Adriana frowned at him as he ducked into the cottage, barely taking notice of the place as he kicked the door closed behind him and carried her inside. She saw high beams and white walls, cozy furniture in bold colors. But she was far more interested in what he’d said.

“Exactly how many ‘sex shows’ have you participated in?” she demanded. “Planned or unplanned?”

“I don’t think you really want me to answer that,” he replied, laughter gleaming in those eyes of his now, mixing with all the fire and coiling inside her, tighter and tighter.

“More than five?” she asked, pushing it. Poking at him. Flirting, she understood now. She’d been flirting all this time. From the moment he’d opened his eyes and offered her a space in his crowded bed. “Ten? I imagine there would have to be quite a few to justify the making of rules and regulations.”

Pato only laughed, and set her down on her feet slowly, letting her body slide down the length of his. Adriana melted against him, almost unable to stand on her own when he let go of her. She swayed slightly, and she didn’t care that he could see how he affected her. She wanted him to see it.

“A gentleman doesn’t count such things,” he said, with a wicked quirk of his mouth. “That would be indelicate.”

“Happily, you are no gentleman,” she pointed out. “A prince, yes. But never a gentleman.”

“Lucky you,” he murmured, and then slid his hands under the hem of her whisper-soft sweater, directly onto the bare skin beneath.

Adriana’s breath left her in a rush. Pato moved one hand around to the small of her back, and left the other where it was, big and delicious on her abdomen. Then he simply held her there, as if basking in the feel of her skin against his palms, her body between in his grasp.

“Listen to me,” he said, and it took her a moment to pull herself out of her feverish little haze and focus on him again. When she did, his expression was serious. “I can’t seem to resist you. But I don’t think you’re a whore, Adriana. I never did.”

She felt gloriously free with his hands on her, with that fire burning so bright in her. With need lighting her up, making her pulse and glow.

“I don’t care.”