A Royal Without Rules

by Caitlin Crews

  “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.”

  Pato shook his head impatiently. “I care. There are things you need to understand, things that are bigger than—”

  “Later,” she interrupted.

  He frowned at her. So she reached down and grabbed the hem of her sweater herself, then pulled it up and off. She met his gaze as she tossed it aside, smiling slightly at the instant flash of heat there, and the way his hands tightened on her skin, as if he wasn’t so controlled himself.

  “Pato,” she whispered. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  He looked torn for a split second. Then that mouth of his curved into pure, male wickedness, and she knew the fire won. She felt it burn ever higher inside her, the flames licking all over her skin.

  Pato stepped away from her and then reached back with one arm to tug that tight black T-shirt off his chest, throwing it on the floor near her sweater. This time, she could touch. Taste. This time she could lose herself in the sheer masculine perfection of that lean torso. She couldn’t wait.

  “Keep your eyes on me,” he ordered when she reached for him, his golden gaze amused as it seared into her. “And no touching until I say otherwise.”

  The air inside the cottage seemed too tight, too hot. How could she keep from touching him? And why—? Pato only smiled.

  “Surely,” she managed to say, “the point is to touch. I feel certain that one of your ninety thousand supermodel lovers must have taught you that in all these years of your celebrated promiscuity.”

  “If there were ninety thousand supermodels,” he said, grinning lazily at her, “they couldn’t all be super, could they? I do have standards.”

  He laughed when she rolled her eyes. But when he looked at her, everything got gold and hot and desperate, and that ache in her bloomed into an open flame.

  “The point,” he murmured in that silken voice of his, making that flame reach higher and higher, “is to want this so badly you think you might die from it.”

  “Pato...”

  She didn’t know she’d said his name again until she saw the way his eyes darkened, then tracked over her body, resting on her breasts and the lilac bra she wore. She felt heavy. Desperate for his touch. Any touch at all.

  “I want to know if you match again. I want you to show me.” Slowly, so slowly, he lifted his gaze back to hers, and what she saw there made her pulse heat. “And then I want you naked, and if I do it myself I’ll be inside you before I get those jeans over your hips and then we’ll be done and Adriana?” She stared at him, so wild with heat she thought she might explode. Or die. Or both. His smile was dark and dangerous and she felt it in her toes. “We want this to last a little while.”

  Her throat was dry. Her heart was pounding. The things she wanted whirled inside her, making her skin pull tight as if she might burst out of it.

  “But what if I want to undress you?” she asked. Because she did. Almost more than she could bear. Because if she never had him again, she wanted to have this. As much of him as she could.

  He touched her then, and she shuddered at the sheer joy of it. He ran his hand over her cheek, into her hair, and then held her there. Simply held her, and it made the need inside her turn into a white-hot surge of lightning.

  “I told you this a long time ago,” he said in that same darkly thrilling tone. “But I meant it. I like things my way.”

  He leaned closer then and brushed his mouth over hers, making goose bumps rise all over her body. She whispered a soft curse and Pato laughed against her mouth.

  “And so will you,” he promised.

  She believed him.

  He released her, then raised a dark, imperious brow.

  Adriana hurriedly kicked off her shoes, grinning when he did the same. Then she unbuttoned her jeans and peeled them down her legs, feeling awkward until she saw the way he watched her, as if every millimeter of skin she revealed was a revelation.

  And then she stood there before him, once again in nothing but her bra and panties. In matching lilac-colored lace.

  Pato’s smile had a dangerous edge to it. It worked its way into her pulse, making her shift restlessly from foot to foot. He stripped off his own jeans with a minimum of fuss, leaving him in nothing but another pair of those tight briefs that made him look edible.

  And she wanted to taste him so badly it began to hurt.

  Need made her clumsy. She forgot to be shy. She forgot she was inexperienced. She forgot everything but the man watching her, his gaze getting harder and more intense by the second.

  Adriana unhooked her bra. When she pulled it away from her breasts, her nipples were already taut, and she heard Pato let out a sigh. Then she bent and tugged off her panties, and she heard him mutter something beneath his breath. And when she straightened she was naked, and he was looking at her as if she was something holy.

  She felt beautiful. She felt like the temptress, the wanton she’d always been called, and when he looked at her like that, she was glad. Bold women lived in her blood, she knew that now, and watching the way his eyes moved over her, bathing her in golden fire, she finally felt as bold as they were. As free as he’d made her.

  He took off his briefs, studied her for another long moment, as if committing the sight of her to memory, and then crooked his finger once more, that wicked smile taking over his mouth.

  Adriana walked to him immediately, too desperate to mind his high-handedness. She sighed happily when his hands went to her waist, then smoothed down to her hips—and then he pulled her to him, tumbling them both down on the sofa and arranging her over his lap so she sat astride him.

  “Be still,” he told her when she squirmed against him, and it very nearly hurt her to stop, but she did it. Her heart beat so hard she could feel it in her temples.

  For a moment, he only stared up at her.

  She felt his hard thighs beneath her, and the hardest part of him pressed against her, making her hotter, wilder. Nee
dier by the second. She saw the blazing heat in his eyes, the dark passion, and thought she could drown in that alone. He waited. He watched.

  “Do you feel like you might die?” he asked, his voice a low whisper, teasing at her skin, moving through her body and making her tremble.

  “I think I already did,” she confessed.

  His mouth curved. And then he leaned forward and sucked her nipple into his mouth without the slightest hesitation, all of that wet heat against the tender peak, and she was lost.

  Pato didn’t ask, she discovered quickly. He took.

  He used his mouth and his tongue against the weight of her breasts, used the hint of his teeth, until Adriana writhed against him, the intense sensations somehow arrowing straight to her core.

  She explored that glorious torso of his, sun-kissed and hot beneath her hands, her mouth. And all the while she rocked against his hard, proud length, rubbing all of her heat against him helplessly. Wantonly. And he encouraged it, a big hand against the small of her back to hold her against him, keeping her right where he wanted her.

  The more she moved the closer he held her, driving her higher and higher, keeping them close but not yet joined, making her whimper with need. Making her die, she thought, over and over and over again.

  And then, when she was out of her mind, he kissed her.

  Again and again, taking her mouth and making it his, making her his, with that devastating mastery that made her feel deliciously weak, made her shake and rock into him and forget her own name. And then at last he was lifting her, arranging her, reaching between them to test her heat with his fingers.

  Once. Then again. Then he grinned at her, wicked and knowing, and did something else, a glorious twist of his clever hand—

  Adriana shattered around him, a clenching, rolling burst of fire and light.

  But Pato wasn’t done.

  He laughed, she thought, and then the smooth, hot length of him was pressing against her entrance. He wrapped his hands around her hips, held her fast between them, then thrust deep inside.

  And she shattered again, instantly, the second explosion building from the first and tearing her into a million brilliant pieces. It went on and on. She gasped and she sobbed and then, when she started to breathe again, he flipped them around on the sofa, so she was lying on her back and he was cradled between her thighs.

  “My turn,” he whispered, grinning down at her, his eyes lazy and dark, and focused on her as if nothing else existed but this. Her. The two of them together, finally.

  At last, Adriana thought.

  And then he began to move.

  * * *

  She was exquisite. Perfect. Soft and trembling all around him, clinging to him, wild for him, hot cream and soft silk and his.

  Finally his, and who cared about the consequences.

  Pato set a slow, steady pace, watching her as he took her, watching every shimmer of ecstasy, every hint of joy, that crossed her expressive face. Her hips met his with each thrust, moving in a sinuous rhythm that nearly made him lose his mind. And his control.

  Slowly, carefully, he built up the fire in her all over again, leaning down to worship her perfect breasts, her lush mouth. He pulled her knees up to cradle his hips, tasted the salt and sweet of her elegant neck. And then, when he couldn’t take any more, he reached between them to find the core of her, and pressed there, rocking against her, into her, until she stiffened against him once more.

  Then, at last, he let himself go.

  And this time, when she shot over the edge he followed her, listening to her scream out his name as they fell.

  It’s not enough, he thought then, even as he held her to him, their hearts thundering in concert. It will never be enough.

  And afterward, he let her crawl over him and drive him wild with her sweet kisses, her delighted exploration of his body. He had her again in the shower, losing himself in the heat and the steam and the slick perfection of her skin beneath his hands. He picked her up and pressed her against the glass, her head tipped back and her mouth open in a kind of silent scream as he rode them both straight back into the heart of that shattering fire.

  He wouldn’t let her dry herself. Succumbing to an urge he chose not to examine, he did it himself, drying every millimeter of her lovely skin with a soft towel, kissing those three distracting freckles below her breasts, then squeezing the water from her hair. He combed through it slowly, holding her captive between his legs as he sat on the bed in the adjoining bedroom. He noted the colors that sifted through his fingers, testing the heavy silk in his hands.

  When he was finished he turned her around, and lost himself for a while in the heaven of her lush, hot mouth, its perfect fit against his, that taste of her that flooded into him and made him crazy, and the sheer poetry of her warm, naked curves beneath his hands.

  Pato didn’t know how he was going to do what he had to do. He shouldn’t have indulged himself. He shouldn’t have let her distract him. And yet he didn’t regret a single moment of it.

  Finally, he set her away from him, as hard again as if he’d never had her, and tempted almost past endurance by the soft invitation on her face, the flush he could see everywhere, from her cheeks to the rosy tips of her breasts.

  He had never wanted anything more than this woman. He understood he never would.

  And then he wrapped her in a cashmere throw that matched her beautiful eyes, sat her back on the sofa in the living room, where the bed didn’t tempt him, and broke the only vow he’d ever made.

  “My mother died when I was eighteen,” he told her, because he didn’t know how else to begin.

  Adriana’s blond hair was still damp and hung around her face in dark waves, making her look younger than she was. Innocent, despite all the ways he’d touched her, tasted her. He didn’t know why that pulled at him, why it made his chest feel tight.

  “I know,” she said, sitting with her feet tucked beneath her and the cashmere throw wrapped all around her. She looked delicate. Perfect, he thought again, and he couldn’t have her. Why couldn’t he keep that in mind? “I remember.”

  “Lenz was twenty-five.” Pato shoved his hands in the pockets of the jeans he’d yanked back on when they left the bedroom. He roamed the cottage’s small living space restlessly as he talked. “He had completed his military service and had taken his place at the king’s side. He’d trained his whole life for it, as befits the heir to the throne.” Adriana’s gaze tracked Pato as he moved, and he smiled slightly. “I was the spare, and had far fewer expectations placed on me. I’d just started university. I paid some attention to my studies, but I was more interested in the girls.”

  “Shocking,” Adriana said drily, but she was smiling.

  “I didn’t have to be serious,” Pato said darkly. “That was Lenz’s job. His duty. I always got to be the favorite, the happy disaster, but he was meant to be king.”

  For a moment, Pato only gazed at her. He’d let her walk out of the palace today thinking he’d turned on her like all the others, like the people who had called her names and made her feel dirty. He’d seen the look on her face, the crushed betrayal she’d tried to hide, and he’d done it anyway.

  He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t live with it.

  And there was only one way to apologize: he had to explain. His life. His choices. Why he couldn’t have her no matter how much he wanted her. She’d cried in his arms and he’d meant what he’d said to her, and he didn’t have it in him to let her down. Not Adriana. Not this time. The whole world could think he was waste of space, as pointless as he was promiscuous, but he’d found he couldn’t handle it if she did, too. He simply couldn’t bear it.

  “Pato.” She was frowning again, deeper this time, and she stood then, the throw draping around her like a cape. “You don’t have to tell me anything. You don’t have to do
this, whatever this is.”

  “I do,” he said, surprised to hear how rough his voice was. “I need you to understand.”

  He didn’t tell her why. He wasn’t entirely sure he knew.

  She shook her head, smiling slightly. “I don’t expect anything from you,” she said. “I know who you are and I know who I am. I’m at peace with it.”

  He blinked, then scowled at her. “What?”

  “I love you,” she said, so softly he almost thought he’d imagined it. But she was gazing at him, those melting brown eyes warm and glowing, and he knew she’d said it. That she meant it. “And that has nothing to do with what happens here, or after we leave. You don’t owe me anything.” She held up a hand when he started to talk. “I don’t expect or need you to say it back.”

  Pato stared at her until she grew visibly uncomfortable under the weight of it. Until her sweet expression started to creep back toward a frown.

  “The only thing less attractive than watching you attempt to martyr yourself for my brother in my bed,” he growled, his temper kicking in as he spoke, like a black band tight around his chest, his gut, “is watching you martyr yourself for me so soon after I’ve been inside you, listening to you scream out my name.” She sucked in an appalled breath, but he didn’t stop, couldn’t stop, and he stalked toward her until he stood within arm’s reach. “I have no desire whatsoever to be quietly and distantly loved by some selfless, bloodless saint locked away in her self-imposed nunnery, prostrating herself daily to whatever it is she thinks she can’t have or doesn’t deserve. No hairshirt, no mortification of the flesh. No, thank you.”

  That telltale tide of red swept over her, but this time, he thought, it wasn’t so simple as embarrassment. Her eyes narrowed and she drew herself up, pulling the throw tighter around her as if it could protect her from him.

  “What an ugly thing to say,” she breathed, and he had the impression she was afraid to truly voice the words—as if she thought she might start yelling if she did. He wished she would. “Even for you.”