Royal Pain

  I turn to look at her so fast I nearly get whiplash. “What did you say?” I ask hoarsely.

  “It was one of the crystal ones, from the Imperial Collection, if I remember correctly? You were home from boarding school for the summer and he was kicking around a hacky sack in your mom’s office, trying to keep it up as long as you could. But he wasn’t anywhere near as good as you were. He kept messing up and then, because he was mad, he kicked it too hard and it bounced off a lamp, straight into your mother’s favorite Fabergé egg. Which then crashed to the ground in a very ignominious heap.

  “And you, being a good brother and the son most likely to get into trouble, took the blame for him so that he wouldn’t miss Wildemar’s tennis championship, which was being played the next day. Instead, he let you miss it, and he let you take all the heat with your parents.”

  I’m reeling, the bottom dropping out of my stomach as she pulls the car to a stop. It’s not that I didn’t believe she knew Garrett—I saw the photos, after all—but that story is a long way from a few silly photos in a photo booth, no matter how cozy they looked.

  That story has always been just between Garrett and me. Anastasia doesn’t even know the truth about what happened, and neither does my father, even now. So if Savvy knows it, her relationship with Garrett was a lot deeper than I originally thought it was.

  Fuck. Shit. Damn. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  She told me she was in love with him, but lots of women have been in love with him through the years. That’s nothing new. The fact that he told her something so personal, however, the fact that he let her in? That means he probably loved her, too.

  The thought makes me want to punch a hole through the dashboard.

  Makes me want to burn down the whole damn block.

  Makes me want to pound my chest and yell that I saw her first.

  But that’s not true. Garrett saw her first. Garrett kissed her first. And it’s only been a couple days, a couple short conversations. I could pick up my phone and have a dozen women waiting for me by the time I get back to the palace. This mess shouldn’t matter to me at all.

  It does, though. It really does, and I don’t know why. Savvy’s not the first woman I’ve wanted. She certainly won’t be the last. Hell, she’s not even the first woman Garrett and I have both been attracted to—though he usually tends toward the delicate red-headed types, a beautiful woman is a beautiful woman.

  And Savvy is very definitely beautiful.

  “You were together six months,” I say as she pulls into her driveway.

  “Yes,” she answers, though it wasn’t a question.

  “He obviously cared about you quite a bit.”

  “Yes.” She turns the car off, but keeps staring straight ahead.

  “And you cared about him?” This time it is a question even though I know what the answer’s going to be.

  This time, when she answers, it’s barely a whisper. “Yes.”

  Finally, finally, she turns her head to look at me. Her eyes are wide and shimmery, like she’s trying not to cry, and she’s worrying her lower lip between her teeth. She looks beautiful and fragile and I’m not sure what it says about me that I still want her, even now, in the midst of this discussion about her relationship with my twin.

  But her voice is steady when she says, “Just say whatever it is you want to say.”

  “You obviously had a relationship with my brother, one that was important to both of you. So why have I never met you? Why did I never even hear about you? And what the hell would have happened if you hadn’t decided that I needed rescuing the other night? If you hadn’t dropped those glasses of champagne on me, would I ever even know that you existed?”

  Chapter 11

  Savvy

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to all that,” I tell Kian after he finishes questioning me.

  “You’re supposed to tell me the truth. If you’d asked me last night, I would have said I was closer to my brother than any other person on the planet. And that goes both ways. But now, here you are, and I don’t know what that means.”

  He looks so bewildered, so lost, that I can’t help reaching out and taking his hands in my own. As I do, a jolt of electricity races through me—the same jolt that comes every time we touch.

  The same jolt that sent me running from him that first night when I realized he was stirring up things in me that had never been stirred. Stirring up things that were better left dormant.

  “What Garrett and I had…it wasn’t for public consumption.”

  “I get that. I do,” he insists, when I raise a brow at him. “But I’m not the public. I’m his brother.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  I roll my eyes. “The resemblance makes it hard to miss—you’re not identical but no one can deny that you’re brothers. Even if you are the wild-haired, tattooed type and he isn’t.”

  Even as I mention them, I try not to stare at the tattoos in question, but it’s hard when his left arm is decorated with one of the most gorgeous sleeves I’ve ever seen. Done in shades of black and gray, it starts with a beautiful, deconstructed steam punk–type pocket watch on his shoulder while the sands of time wind down his arm, interspersed with roses and the scales of justice.

  I probably shouldn’t admit that I’ve wanted to lick them ever since I first saw them on the cover of Time magazine a couple years ago, after they’d named him Person of the Year for his philanthropic work.

  “So, why didn’t he tell me?” Kian’s plaintive question draws my attention back to the matter at hand, no matter how much I want to ignore it.

  I buy time by slowly reaching into the backseat to get my purse as I try to figure out what to say. I finally settle on, “Want to come inside, maybe have a cup of coffee or another drink?”

  There’s a part of me that hopes he says no. After all, talking about this aspect of my relationship with Garrett is completely humiliating and it’s the last thing I want to do after a long night working the bar. At the same time, though, I’d rather get it over with now, instead of having it hanging over my head for God knows how long.

  And it will be hanging over my head like a shoe waiting to drop. Someone else might let it go, but nothing I’ve learned about Kian these last two days makes me think he’s the kind of guy to let anything go if it matters to him.

  And this obviously matters to him. A lot.

  “I’d love a cup of coffee,” he says, slowly disentangling his other hand from mine.

  I feel the loss keenly, which is ridiculous considering we’re sitting here talking about my long dead relationship with his brother.

  “But,” he says, stroking a hand down my cheek, “I know you’re tired. It can wait.”

  I almost take the out. I want to take it, so badly I can almost taste it. But if I have to do this, I might as well rip the bandage off with one swift tug. “No, I’m good. Come on, let’s go inside.”

  He climbs out of the car, then walks around to my side to shut the door for me. Then he loops an arm around my shoulder and walks me toward my front door.

  With the moon high in the sky and the stars twinkling so brightly, it might have been romantic—except for the subject hanging over our heads. And the six-man security detail slowly trailing behind us.

  “They’re going to have to check your place out before I can go in,” Kian says apologetically. “With you not being in there for so many hours—”

  “I know the drill,” I answer. And just that quickly things get awkward again.

  We wait on the porch while the three men clear my tiny cottage. I want to say something to break the uncomfortable silence but my brain is frozen. I can’t think of anything that won’t make things even more awkward.

  Kian must be having the same trouble, though, because he’s looking anywhere but at me as the tension grows and grows and grows.

  Lucas and the others finally come back out and I breathe a sigh of relief as they nod to us before heading back t
oward the SUV parked at the curb. At least now I can get in my kitchen and make coffee. It might not give me anything to say, but at least I won’t be standing around like an idiot who can’t formulate a complete sentence.

  Except I never make it to the kitchen. Hell, I never even make it out of the foyer, because the second I close the door behind us, Kian is there. Cupping my face, pushing my back against the door, lowering his mouth slowly, slowly, slowly, to mine.

  I know I can stop him, know he’s giving me a choice on whether I want to kiss him or not. On whether I want to let him touch me. I shouldn’t want it, but I do. My God, I really do.

  Leaning forward, I cover his hands with my own. Then, caught in the blazing green fire of his eyes, I press my lips to his. Softly, sweetly. Once, twice, a third time as I wait for him, wait for—

  He breaks so suddenly it shocks me, has my heart fluttering in my chest and my breath trapped in my throat. “Savvy,” he whispers moments before his mouth slams down on mine, open and wet and ravenous against my own.

  So, so ravenous that it brings my own hunger to the fore.

  I press against him with a moan, tangle my fingers in the cool black silk of his hair and let him in.

  He feels my acquiescence—I know he does—because he takes instant advantage, his tongue sliding between my lips.

  He feels so good, tastes so good—like the scotch he had at the bar mixed with the sweet and wild ocean wind that likes to whip through this town with the least provocation.

  “Kian.” His name is a prayer, a plea, a cry of desperation and desire. I wrap his hair around my fingers and tug hard enough to have him groaning in his throat.

  “Fuck, Savvy,” is his only answer, and I revel in the gravel and the greed of it even as he sweeps his tongue along the seam of my lips, as he explores the corners of my mouth and the curves of my lower lip. “I love the way you taste.”

  I start to answer him, to tell him I feel exactly the same way, but then he’s sucking my lower lip between his teeth, biting down softly, and any thoughts I have scatter like grains of sand in a windstorm.

  Heat slams through me and I gasp, hands curling into fists. Fingers tugging at his hair, pulling sharply. He groans low in his throat and then his free hand is on my hip, his fingers digging into my ass. Not hard enough to hurt, but definitely enough to remind me that there’s a real live man behind the prince.

  The reminder only makes me hotter, and I can’t stop myself from moving restlessly against him. I want more than he’s giving me. Need more than I ever imagined I would from anyone.

  But Kian is having none of it. He nips sharply at my lip, but it only pulls me under. Even the gentle strokes of his tongue that follow the bite—strokes meant to soothe away the small hurt—do nothing but drag me under.

  Drag me deeper, until nothing matters but Kian and this moment and the sweet heat flowing like honey through my whole body until I nearly drown in it.

  And still it’s not enough for him. Still he pushes for more.

  Sliding his hand up my throat to my chin, he tilts my head up and back a little more. And then he takes me over, his tongue sweeping inside my mouth to slide against my own. To stroke over the roof of my mouth, down the side of my cheek. To tease and taunt and torment me until all I can think of is him.

  Until all I want is him.

  I tug at his hair again, even more sharply this time, and he responds by slamming his hips against my own. It feels good, so good, and I want nothing more than to stay right here, like this, with him. But as he wrests his mouth from mine, as he skims his lips across my cheek, my jaw, the sensitive spot beneath my ear, I know that I have to stop this before it gets much farther. Before I lose myself completely in him and forget why we’re here. Forget what he wants to know and what I have to tell him.

  With that thought in the front of my mind, I turn my head away—then nearly whimper as he buries his face in the bend between my neck and shoulder. For long seconds I’m spellbound, held captive by the shivers running up and down my spine and the pleasure skating along my every nerve.

  But as he whispers my name again, as his hands move to cup my ass, to hold me closer, I know it’s now or never. And while there’s a part of me—a big part—that wants nothing more than to lead Kian to my bed, that wants nothing more than to make him feel good and let him do the same to me—I can’t let it happen. Not yet.

  And so I bring my hands down to rest on his shoulders and then I press forward, pushing him away.

  Chapter 12

  To his credit, Kian stops immediately. He lifts his head from where he’s kissing at the hollow of my throat, takes a step back. And just looks at me.

  It’s disconcerting, how completely he does it—like, in that moment, I am his complete and total focus and priority. It’s not a reaction I’ve ever had to deal with before, and for long seconds I don’t know what to do or what to say. But it’s clear he’s waiting for me to do something, so in the end, I do.

  “Why don’t we have that coffee?” I suggest, after clearing my throat. “I think I still have some cookies, if you’d like.”

  “Not quite the treat I was hoping for,” he says with a wicked grin, “but beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “Like you’ve ever had to beg for anything in your life,” I tell him with a laugh. “I’m pretty sure if your title doesn’t get it for you, then your charm will.”

  I start toward the back of the house.

  “So, you think I’m charming?” he asks as he follows me into the kitchen.

  “You know exactly how charming you are, Your Royal Hotness. You don’t need me to stroke your ego.”

  His eyes go dark and intense at that and, as my breath catches in my throat, I have the feeling we’re both imagining me stroking something that very definitely isn’t his ego.

  He walks over to the hutch I’ve got between the French doors that line the back wall of the kitchen and looks over the array of framed pictures resting between my tiny piles of dishes.

  “If you’re looking for one of me and Garrett, you’ll be disappointed,” I tell him as I get the coffee beans out of the freezer. “Your brother was pretty reclusive when we were a couple, making sure that only a few photographs were taken.”

  He glances over his shoulder at me. “What about the ones I found? From the photo booth?”

  “Those were the very rare exception.” I smile at the memory. “The university had a long weekend, so he took me to a small town just over the French border. He’d rented a small house for us, right on the outskirts of the town. We didn’t go out much—mingling with the masses wasn’t really his thing—but the last night we were there, he took me into town for dinner.

  “It was this little café. I still remember—they made the best chocolate mousse I’d ever tasted. It was so good we fought over it, so they brought us two more—on the house.”

  I’m smiling now. It’s a good memory, and I’m glad to have the chance to pull it out and examine it. Things didn’t end well for us, and for a long time the good memories have been drowned out by the bad. It’s kind of nice to know they don’t hurt anymore, at least not in the same way they used to. Now, there’s a different kind of sadness when I think of Garrett and what might have happened to him. What might be happening to him still.

  Kian clears his throat and the sound brings me back to my pretty little kitchen and the task at hand. I put the kettle on to boil, then carry the beans over to the grinder and pour them in.

  “Where does the photo booth come in?” Kian asks.

  I hold a finger up, telling him without words to hold on since the grinder makes a truly ridiculous amount of noise. When I’m finally done grinding the beans, I pour them into my French press and then continue the story as I wait for the water to boil.

  “We were walking through the town, checking out all the little nooks and crannies of it. We found a traveling carnival set up in an empty field and I begged Garrett to check it out. He didn’t want to, but eventually h
e caved.

  “We rode the Ferris wheel and one of those huge swing things. I won him a stuffed pink unicorn at the balloon toss and as a thank-you, he took me into the photo booth. We must have taken fifty pictures, maybe more.”

  “Do you still have them?” Kian asks, all low and gravelly as he pulls a chair out from the table and sits down.

  The husky sound of him sends a dark little thrill through me, and for a moment—just a moment—I imagine walking over and climbing into his lap. I imagine straddling him and rocking against him and licking my way deep into his mouth just for the thrill of hearing him call my name in that voice of sex and sin.

  But considering I’m in the middle of telling him a romantic story about his twin and me, I’m pretty sure he’d dump my ass on the floor—which is no more than I would deserve.

  “I don’t.” I deliberately turn my back on him and his sexy hair and his bedroom eyes, focusing instead on getting out mugs, sugar and a small carton of cream. “When we broke up, Garrett was very insistent on getting all the photos back. And making sure I deleted anything I might have saved on my phone or my computer. I thought he’d destroyed them.”

  I open up the cookie jar, pull out the last couple snickerdoodles from the batch I made the other day and put them on a small plate for him. I’m so busy concentrating on what I’m doing—and trying to forget how much Garrett’s lack of regard hurt me—that I don’t even know Kian has moved until he’s standing right behind me.

  “It sounds like my brother was a total dick,” he says as he rests his hands on my shoulders and turns me to face him.

  “He was just…careful,” I tell him. “He didn’t want anything to mar the crown prince’s reputation.”

  “Especially not an American girlfriend.”

  “Especially not that.” I smile wryly. “Imagine the scandal.”

  What I don’t tell him is how much it hurt that Garrett was so careful to hide me, how much it bothered me that I didn’t matter enough for him to tell his friends and family about me. I understood—and was grateful for—him keeping the press away from me. But everything else felt like rejection. Felt like I didn’t matter enough no matter what he said.