“When I lose? That’s funny. Because I don’t hear you giving up the dirt.” Mallory picked up the remaining beer and headed to the back of the bar.
Did she put a little extra swish in her hips? You bet. Her ass looked great in the jean shorts. If Christian could torment her with his glancing touches and steamy looks, then she’d damn well make him stare at her ass. Two could play that game.
The bar was long and narrow, with exposed wooden beams and stone walls. The first third held the bar and a single row of tables, the middle held the bulk of the tables, and the back, behind a half-drawn gray velvet curtain that she supposed helped muffle the sound, had the dartboard, the billiard table, and some old-school video games.
Christian twitched the curtain shut behind them. Which made the space feel weirdly intimate, especially since they were the only ones in there. “I was fourteen. On a yacht in the Azores. A very frisky older woman took advantage of me sneaking sangria and had her way.”
“An older woman?” Doubt coated her words.
“She was eighteen.”
Yikes. Mallory pulled the darts out, one by one, and lined them up on a high-top table. “That’s…icky.”
“Indeed, in retrospect. At the time, though, I thought I’d hit the jackpot. I’m not at all sure what she was thinking. Clearly no fourteen-year-old would end up proposing and slapping a tiara on her head.”
“I’m guessing that even in your awkward teen years, you were handsome. Probably looked older than your years.”
“That’s your guess, is it? Nothing to do with my title and my yacht?”
Mallory shrugged one shoulder. “Well, she seduced a minor, so her reasoning skills were clearly compromised.”
“That’s a very diplomatic answer. You’re good at that, I’ve noticed. Avoiding blame, being polite. Even-handed.” Christian handed her the beer. “It won’t help you tonight. Drink up. You lost that bet.”
Reeling from shock that he’d noticed her, studied her, Mallory drained it without protest. “Your turn, Your Highness.”
“No, Christian, remember? Christ, that should always be the rule, anyway. Unless we’re in public, or around my grandmother, drop the title. For good. You’re like a sister.”
It felt necessary to remind him of the obvious. “But I’m not. Actually. There’s no blood ties between Kelsey and me. Only an emotional one.”
Christian took the empty glass from her. Brushed a stray strand of auburn hair from her cheek, and then left his hand there, thumb caressing from the corner of her mouth along her cheekbone to the outer corner of her eye. “A fact for which I find myself very, very grateful at the moment.”
Mallory licked her suddenly dry lips. “Your turn.”
…
“I’ll bet you can’t hit the bull’s-eye—no, not even hit the board—throwing with your left hand.” After an hour, Christian was more than a bit tired of watching Mallory rack up points. The woman had skills. Serious skills. She’d-hustled-him skills. And somehow, the more they drank, the better she got, and the more his game fell to pieces.
That said, it was still the best night he’d spent in months. She’d followed his instructions to the letter. No more “Your Highness.” No more holding back the sass he’d heard her spit at Kelsey. Mallory had zinged him as effectively as she zinged the darts.
She was smart, witty, and deviliciously good-looking. Usually he was content with only hitting two out of those three in a date.
Not that tonight was a date.
It was just two people distracting each other for a few hours.
And holy hell, he was distracted.
“Please. Why would I agree to play with you—to bet you—unless I could throw with both hands?” Mallory barely took the time to sight the shot before letting loose. It didn’t strike the bull’s-eye, but hell if it didn’t hit the next closest ring.
“Aha! You are a hustler.” Christian surged off the stool to point an accusing finger at her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She batted the lashes over her innocently wide green eyes. “Using both of your hands for everyday tasks prevents Alzheimer’s.”
“You’re twenty-eight.”
“It’s never too soon to gird up those neural nets. You’ve no idea all the things I can do with both hands.”
If any other woman outside his family had uttered those words, he’d know them to be a double entendre. A come-on. Flat-out flirting.
A.k.a. suggestive as fuck.
Hard to tell with Mallory, though. Because she both was and wasn’t family. Because they hardly knew each other. This was probably the first time they’d been alone together.
And she’d been off-limits from the get-go.
Even though he’d sure as hell noticed her from the moment she stepped off the royal jet and onto his homeland. At first he’d noticed her stunning combo of sunrise-colored hair and emerald eyes. Followed swiftly by an appreciation of the long legs that made her tower over his sisters. Made it easier for him to talk to her without getting a crick in his neck, too.
Then he’d noticed how Mallory put her nose to the grindstone, learning everything she could to ease Kelsey’s transition from foreigner to princess. He’d come to find out that she could’ve stayed in New York and started her new job, let Kelsey go off to Europe by herself. Except that thought would never have crossed Mallory’s mind. Her loyalty ran bone deep.
Another important trait to the House of Villani—even for those on the fringes of it.
Huh. Why was she off-limits?
They were both single. Friends, he supposed. Or at least on their way to being so.
Maybe she had been flirting.
While he’d been lost in thought, she’d grabbed the last of their samplers and lifted it to his lips, cupped in both hands.
Suggestively.
“Drink up,” she ordered, laughter lifting the corners of her mouth. “You lost the bet, Christian. No reneging.”
“How dare you impugn the honor of a blood prince with such a suggestion?” he blustered, going 110 percent full regal to make her keep laughing. It brought out dimples in both of her cheeks. Little divots. Angel-kisses, his Aunt Mathilde claimed.
Christian wanted to dip his tongue into both of them.
“You’ve got honor to your core in the palace,” yelled a man a few tables back.
“Thanks, Pietro,” he shouted back, miming a tip of his hat. The room had filled in over the last hour—probably because word of their match had spread through the bar. Christian had spied a stein full of money being passed around. And was fairly certain that the men and women pledged to protect his life were betting against him.
Pietro, however, wasn’t done. Which Christian should’ve realized. Shaking a fist, the bodyguard continued. “But in front of a dartboard, you’re the first one to fake us out with extra points when we’re not looking.”
“Are you calling the heir to your throne a cheat?” Mallory asked, mouth rounded into an O of exaggerated shock. She staggered a few steps backward to sit on the edge of the pool table.
“An…opportunist,” was the cautious reply.
Chiara, who cycled duties guarding three of his cousins, thrust out her arm and turned her thumb down. “Yeah—he jumps on every opportunity to take our money in a game.”
While technically true, Christian never kept the proceeds, either tucking it back into their coats or, when all else failed, paying for everyone’s bar tab. He didn’t need a prize at the end of it. He just liked winning.
“Well, I’ll bet he keeps me at it till closing…but he still won’t win.” She leaned over so far that she almost slid off the table. “That’s what we in America call ‘smack talk.’ Get used to it.”
“I believe that counts as taunting. Therefore, you lose a turn at betting.”
“That’s fi
ne. Better for you, because you’d just lose some more.”
This night was almost surreal. It was a lot like hanging out with Elias, in terms of the comfort and camaraderie. He’d dropped his guard, dropped his public facade entirely. But it was different than being with his best friend in one significant measure—Mallory tied his dick into knots.
Of course, he was losing. Hard to bring your A game while simultaneously trying not to stand in profile and hide a semi-erection. The woman distracted him. In the best of all possible ways, but still enough that he was losing.
Christian didn’t like to lose. Not even to a beautiful woman who smelled like…a beach? Coconut, vanilla, maybe jasmine? Giving in to the urge, he pushed the thick mass of her hair over the tied halter strap on her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Mallory asked.
Had she arched into his touch? Was he imagining the slight movement? “Trying to figure out why you smell so intoxicating.”
“It’s probably my alluring foreignness. That All-American mix of democracy, feminism, and stubbornness.”
Christian nuzzled her neck. Yes, he sniffed. But his lips also grazed the smooth line of her throat.
And his cock surged to attention.
He needed this game to end. Fast. Before he did something stupid.
Stepping away—all the way almost to the board—Christian said, “I bet you can’t throw over your shoulder, with your left hand, without looking, and hit anything.”
With a wordless smirk, Mallory grabbed the dart and sashayed to the line. Oh, he knew that hip twitch was intentional…and aimed right at him. She cocked her arm.
Then, on the opposite side of the curtain, a giant crash sounded. Probably a whole tray of mugs, and someone’s paycheck for the week totally obliterated.
Mallory jerked at the noise. At the same moment that she let go of the dart.
It didn’t just go wide of the mark. It went sideways—right into Christian’s forearm.
Blood immediately spilled down from it, dripping onto the floor.
Fuck.
Mallory spun around, the cocky smile falling off her face as she took in the blood. The, ah, impalement.
Christian didn’t wait for anyone else to notice. Past experience told him that even the off-duty guards would hustle him off his feet and straight to the hospital. He covered his arm and hurried to the back. Past the two tiny bathrooms and down the half flight of uneven steps to the office. It had a private bathroom and the door locked. The manager had shown it to him—and his guards—when they started hanging out more here, in case he ever needed to escape a crowd.
He yanked at the roll of paper towels, but that just sent it careening off the cracked porcelain sink to unspool across the entire room. The door opening again stopped its roll. But it wasn’t an overzealous guard.
It was Mallory. Her face was dead-white, and her lips were just as pale where she had them compressed.
“Sit down,” she ordered, pointing at the lumpy couch.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Taking care of you. I caused the problem, so it’s my job to fix it. Now sit down.”
“It’s nothing. Just rip off a wad of towels, would you?” Christian grabbed a rubber band off the desk. Good enough. He rolled it over his wrist to below the wound.
As she crowded in next to him, he pulled out the dart. And hissed in a breath at the sting. Blood pumped out, but Mallory didn’t do anything. Annoyed, he grabbed for the makeshift bandage himself, pressing it to the wound. Then he rolled the rubber band over the thick wad to hold it in place.
“Sorry,” she whispered in a barely there voice. “I’m not good around blood. At all.”
“Then why’d you come in—” Christian broke off when he noticed her white-knuckle grip on the sink. She’d faced her fear to help him. Talk about brave. “I’m fine. Don’t even need a stitch.” Swiftly he added another layer of towels and pressed hard, to be safe.
“I’m so sorry.”
Before she sunk any further into misery, he needed to distract her. Which was fair, since she’d been distracting him since the day she moved into Alcarsa Palace. “I’m not sorry at all. Not since it got us alone.”
That got her gaze to shift from his arm up to his eyes. “You don’t…we can’t…you’re hurt.”
“I’m fine. I’ll prove it.” More for her sake, to reassure her that he’d live from the nothing wound, Christian brushed a kiss over her lips.
Then it didn’t matter why. It only mattered that there’d be more.
Because her arms banded around him with a ferocity that shocked him. There was so much need vibrating through her tight body. Need that was obvious from the way her leg locked around his, her hips rocked back and forth, and she amped up the intensity on the kiss from one to where’s a condom.
A need that almost matched his own.
Eagerly, he nipped at her ripe, full lips. His hand tunneled through her hair to tilt her head back to the perfect angle. Christian was drowning in her scent, her taste. The breathy moans that vibrated out of her and in through his own lips.
He could swallow those all night long.
Splaying his hand under her ass, Christian lifted her and swung around to set her on the high desk. And yeah, the zing of pain on his arm sucked. But it was worth it to be lined up at an even height with her.
Mallory’s hands were all over him, tugging his shirt from his shorts to then slide up underneath it. The skin-to-skin contact only made him want more. So he used his teeth to hold the knot of her halter while his fingers plucked it out. Then the whole thing fell forward, revealing the prettiest breasts he’d ever seen. No bra. Just gorgeous, creamy skin with nipples the same pink as her tongue.
It was hard to decide if he’d rather put his hands or mouth on her. Luckily, there were two, and Christian was good at problem solving. He took the heavy, glorious weight of one in his hand, kneading and squeezing while his mouth fastened on the other.
“Wait.”
Immediately, Christian shot backward, hands up. “What?”
“Condom.”
As Christian snaked his wallet from his pocket, he double-checked. Because this was almost too good to be true. “You want to have sex?”
“Don’t you?”
“Right now? More than literally anything.”
Mallory wriggled her skirt up over her hips, then slid her panties off. “I came here looking for a distraction. You’re it.”
Yeah, she definitely didn’t hold off on zinging him anymore. “Be still my heart.”
“Shut up.” She whipped his shirt over his head. Raked her nails down his chest. “You know you’re drop-dead handsome. The whole world has shouted it from the rooftops since you hit puberty.”
True. But he really wanted to hear Mallory say it.
“You’re stunningly beautiful, Mallory.”
“No need for compliments when I’m naked with my legs spread. Kind of a sure thing at this point. And I’m thinking that it should be a quickie, before your guards come to check on you.”
“There is always time to be honest with each other. And your beauty knocks the breath out of me.”
She probably hated the redhead’s propensity for blushing. But Christian loved the way her cheeks pinked up at his words. “Thank you. Now please get inside me.”
Christian could think of a half-dozen reasons why this was a bad idea.
Why they shouldn’t do it.
Why they were the two people in the entire kingdom who most should not hook up.
But he didn’t want to think.
He wanted. He needed Mallory more than he needed his next breath.
So he covered her mouth with his own as he slowly slid inside her. With every additional inch, her hips bucked to hasten the process, but Christian kept to his steady pace, wan
ting to savor these first moments.
He mimicked the motion of his hips with his tongue. Each stroke brought a moan, a sigh, a cry of pleasure. Christian wasn’t bothering to hold back his own groans, either.
Mallory tightened around him, both with her core and her legs around his waist. Christian liked to take his time with a woman. The journey, the touching and licking and sucking, was all wonderful.
But they were both at a flash point already.
Probably from working so hard to ignore their attraction to each other for so long.
Whatever the reason, Christian was on fire. He pistoned his hips. The desk squeaked under them as it inched across the floor. Mallory’s hands raced up and down his back. He tore his mouth away to fasten it over a breast. Used his teeth on her already hard nipple.
God, she felt amazing. Her obvious enjoyment just drove his own desire hotter. Eyes fastened on Mallory’s expressive face, he saw the moment that her jaw tightened as she hitched in three fast breaths, and then everything relaxed with a long cry.
Hands in the curve of her back, he picked her halfway up to pound into her with all his might. Her heels drummed against his ass as it only took half a dozen strokes before his orgasm barreled through him like a rocket.
Gently, Christian laid her back on the desk. Then he let himself go limp draped halfway across her and tried to catch his breath.
It only lasted a second before he gave in to the need to keep touching her and feathered a line of kisses across her collarbone.
But that propelled Mallory into motion, wriggling out from under him and putting herself back together in record time. “Thank you, Your Highness, for, ah, keeping me company tonight.”
Shorts tangled at his ankles and a line of blood oozing down his arm again, Christian could only watch as she all but ran out the door.
It wasn’t in the official handbook anywhere, but he didn’t call that proper protocol at all.
Chapter Three
Twelve hours later, Christian was just as miserable as when he’d snuck out of the palace the night before. The reasons, however, were vastly different.
Tempting the Prince (Sexy Misadventures of Royals) Page 3
