Princely Passions

“Oh no, I’m fine.” I unconsciously parrot his words back to him. Moment of truth: I’m mostly telling him no ‘cause I don’t know if my legs will carry me somewhere else to go buy coffee. Walking seems to have become a questionable pursuit right now.

His hand brushes up against my neck and I jerk up from the fridge and spin around just as he looms over me, placing a hand above my head and leaning in to whisper, “I noticed.”

Okay, also something that I’d never normally go for—cheesy pickup lines. I’d had them used on my entire life, thankyouverymuch. I don’t need some guy who can’t be more original than some of the most-used pick-up lines in the singles world.

Except…Chase is sexy as fuck.

And he’s staring down at me.

And I swear to god, my knees are going to give out if this trembling keeps up.

And it turns out that if Chase the Sexy Cowboy God is saying the cheesy pick-up lines, I don’t mind them as much. Or at all. Weird how that happens.

He reaches up with his free hand to stroke me up my arm. “Are you okay?” he rumbles. “You’re trembling like a leaf.”

“I…yeah. I just…I’m not around cowboys very often,” I say lamely.

If his pick-up lines are cheesy, my witty repartee is also sorely lacking.

“Truthfully, I didn’t even know there were cowboys around anymore. Didn’t you guys die out in the 1800s or something?”

“Something like that,” he said with a laconic grin. “Maybe us cowboys just live for a real long time.”

I roll my eyes at that. Vampire cowboys. As if. Even I knew there was no such thing.

Right?

He did look like he was going to start nibbling on my neck...

I tilt my head to the side as an invitation. If I’m going to go all Bella Swan on his ass, I might as well enjoy it.

“And you live in the country, right?” There was a big swath of the country that everyone likes to call the Flyover States but even I knew better than to call it that to his face. “On like a ranch or something?”

His breath gets warmer as he gets closer. My eyes drift shut. “Something like that,” he whispers, right before his lips touch my neck.

Oh god, oh god, oh god, I can’t breathe.

“Ohhhhh…” I squeal incoherently, feeling his warm lips on my skin and then his tongue is flicking out and touching my skin and I can feel myself growing more moist by the second. There's a very good chance there's going to be a puddle on the floor before this is over.

“I own a ranch in Texas,” he murmurs as he runs his mouth down my collarbone, across the hollow of my neck, and across the other side.

I’m panting, fucking panting.

“Texas? God, uh,” pant, pant, breathe deep, “you might as well be in Jersey, that’s so fucking far away.”

“Actually,” he’s nibbling his way up the other side of my neck, “I think Texas is farther away from New Jersey.”

Right. A small part of me tries to pull up my geography lessons from fifth grade but I quickly give up. That was a long time ago and I just don’t care that much right now.

I feel my legs give way beneath me and I begin an unplanned descent down the front of the fridge. Chase, lightning fast, grabs my arms and stops me mid-slide.

We stand there for a moment, staring at each other, and then he slides his arm underneath me and scoops me up into his arms.

“I think it’s about time we test out the strength of the couch, don’t you think?” he asks, carrying me over to it.

Sounds like a damn good idea to me.

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