“This is unfair.” I drag my hands down the planes of his stomach and realize too late I’ve spoken out loud.
“I beg to differ,” he says. “I spend an hour every morning in the gym, so it seems very fair to me.”
“What time do you wake up?” I ask, wondering whether I should start trying to work out before heading to the sofa store.
“Five a.m. on a good day.”
I groan. “That sounds like a bad day. Do you eat breakfast?”
Christian collapses against me and lays his head on my shoulder. “Love, this has been an altogether remarkable evening. Unprecedented, really. You are entertaining at every turn. But I have a great idea for how we could be making better use of our time.”
I feel something stiff pressing against my thigh, and about the same time I realize what it is, I tangle my fingers in his hair and pull his mouth against mine. He is right. No time to waste.
Christian moans against my lips, and he tastes like whiskey and chocolate. I nibble at his lower lip, swipe my tongue into his mouth to get a better taste. Everything about him is a delicacy. The way his skin feels moving against mine, the way his fingers melt to my curves, the way his hair slips between my fingers. I want to savor every single morsel of him.
I’m still leaning against the hallway wall when Christian moves away from my lips, his mouth exploring lower and lower. He kisses his way between my breasts and across my stomach. Then, his fingers are working the button on my jeans, and I shimmy my hips to help him move the tight garment down. He runs his hands down my legs, freeing me from the denim, and goosebumps trail with his touch.
As soon as he throws my jeans over his shoulder, he runs his fingers back up my legs, massaging my calves and the back of my thighs. He kisses over my knee and to the inside of my thigh, and I thank God above I decided to shave that morning.
When his fingers and lips both descend upon my center, his finger trailing a line across the lace panel of my panties, I stop breathing.
This isn’t something I normally do. While Christian is an inch away from my privates feels like a bad time to admit to myself that I’m not a bad girl, but I’m not a bad girl. Everything about this is well outside the small comfort zone I’ve built for myself. But something about him drew me out. I wanted to be the kind of girl who could handle a man like him. For once, I wanted to be bigger than Round Rock. Bigger than Colby Brooker. Bigger and badder than Jimmy’s Honky-tonk.
But now my legs are trembling, and I feel like I might have gone too far. Might have pushed myself beyond my limits.
Christian massages his fingers around my hips and hooks them on the thin strap of my panties. He gives them a single tug, and I’m bared to him. It feels too late to turn back, and as soon as he presses a kiss to the untouched skin between my hip and my center, I don’t want to.
He is lavishing me with attention in places I didn’t know I needed it. He cups my backside, trails his fingers down my thighs, tickles the backs of my knees, and I feel like I’m burning. When he finally presses his lips to the apex of my thighs, swirling his tongue over me, I tip my head back and growl. Actually growl.
The wild in me is coaxed out with every lap of his tongue, every swirl of his thumb and push of his finger, until my legs shake, and my hands are pressed to the back of his head, holding him to me while I fall apart.
The wave crests and crests until it is a tsunami washing out everything in sight. The pleasure rushes toward me and nearly barrels me over. The only reason I stay standing is because Christian has a firm grip on my thighs. I wonder if his fingers will leave bruises in the morning. I hope so.
I’m still panting against the wall when he kisses his way up my body and around my neck. I kiss him lazily, my naked body grazing against his bare chest and his trousers. I slap the wall behind my head, and Christian jumps in surprise.
“I’m going to hang a monument right here. To Christian—” I pause, studying his face, trying to remember if he told me his last name.
“Åström.”
I nod. “To Christian Åström for his remarkable handiwork.”
He smiles. “It was mostly my tongue, actually.”
“Wow. A pun. Everyone has to have a fault, I suppose.”
“If bad puns are my only fault, then I think I’m doing okay.”
I don’t respond and push on his shoulders, shoving him down the hallway.
“Where are we going?”
“Bedroom,” I say, marveling at the feel of his chest beneath my palms. He is solid.
When I push him against my bedroom door, he twists the handle and lets us in. It’s just as messy as the rest of my house, but I made my bed before work this morning, which I think speaks to a certain level of maturity.
“I thought a bad girl like you would want it up against the wall,” he said. “Or maybe in the kitchen.”
I push him back on the bed, and he doesn’t resist, falling back onto my comforter.
I feel vulnerable standing in front of him with nothing on, but after his performance in the hallway, there is no room for nerves. I have to ooze confidence. So, I move toward him slowly and grab the front of his pants, undoing his button.
“It sounds like you’ve experienced a few bad-girl posers,” I say calmly. “Girls who think the location makes them bad. True bad girls know it all comes down to your moves.”
Christian lifts his hips as I slide his black pants down his legs. His thighs are just as muscled as I’ve imagined, like a Greek statue. I resist the urge to lick them like twin popsicles.
His sea-glass eyes sparkle. “You have moves?”
My eyebrows twitch in response as I grab a condom from my bedside table drawer and throw it at his chest. The speed at which he tears it open and puts it on hints at his excitement. No matter what Christian says when this is over, I can know I had him wrapped around my finger.
I crawl over him, my body lithe and limber like a jungle cat, and settle my knees on either side of him. He drags his palms across my body, massaging my breasts and tickling my ribs.
My breath hitches in my chest, but I try to hide the way my body responds to him, the way I react to every stroke and touch. I lean over him, blowing cool air across his neck before I kiss my way to his earlobe. When I bite the soft curve of his ear between my teeth, Christian moans.
I whisper, “Wait and see.”
Chapter 5
Jane-Ann
I had moves, all right. My body bucked and rolled and ground into him in ways I didn’t know it could, and when we were finished, we cleaned up and collapsed into bed, spent and too exhausted to think about what it all meant.
My sleep is dreamless, but when my eyes flicker open a few hours later, I think my time with Christian was the dream. I think the foreign angel at Jimmy’s was a delicious invention of my subconscious. But then I roll over and see him in the bed next to me.
The comforter is pushed down around his waist, and enough light is coming from the streetlight outside my window that I can see every ripple of his body down to the “V” that disappears beneath the blankets. The slope of his nose is remarkably straight, without a single bulge or imperfection, and I wonder if he’s had work done. Part of me hopes he has. Otherwise, God was playing favorites when he made him.
I roll over and stare up at the ceiling, the reality of the last few hours washing over me. Before I can slip into a useless panic, I grab my phone from my nightstand and click it on. I have one missed call and several missed messages from Blakely.
“I was going to apologize for abandoning you, but then I heard you left with a mysterious foreigner. GIRL.”
“It’s been a while, so I hope you’re having a great time. Text me a picture of him.”
“Okay, now it’s been so long I’m a little afraid you’re dead, so please don’t be dead. Text me to let me know you’re alive.”
I smile to myself and text her back a simple, “Alive.”
Blakely takes less than a minute to respond.
“Meet me at the diner at our usual time. I have SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.”
I’m about to respond when I feel the bed move beneath me and realize Christian is waking up. I resist the urge to drop my phone and feign sleep. Mostly because I’m pretty sure he already knows I’m awake. When his hand slides across my stomach, my suspicions are confirmed.
“You have moves,” he says sleepily, pressing a kiss to my arm.
I twist to put my phone on the nightstand and then roll over, pretending it is perfectly normal to have a man in my bed. A man whose last name I learned only seconds before he was inside of me.
“Did you doubt?”
He lifts his shoulders, his wide mouth quirking up to one side. When he sees my narrowed eyes, he smiles and rubs his thumb between my brows, easing away my worry line.
“Every doubt I may have had has been assuaged, I assure you.”
I keep my expression stony. “Every doubt?”
It takes him a second to understand my meaning, but his eyes light up when he does. “Well, not every single doubt. There may be a few still lingering. I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to lay them to rest, though.”
I stretch the short distance to him and press a kiss to his jaw and then his lips. In a breath, Christian is hauling himself over me, rolling me onto my back and pressing my thighs apart with his knees.
It’s only been a couple of hours since we were last together, but I already feel parched for more. My body arches toward him, begging him to come closer, to press more of his skin to mine. When he doesn’t immediately respond, instead teasing me with licks and kisses across my collarbones, I hook my ankles behind his legs and force him downward.
He nips at my shoulder. “Impatient girl.”
A retort is on my lips, but it is tossed aside and forgotten when he pushes inside of me.
I’ve been with plenty of men over the years. More than my mother would approve of, but not as many as Blakely, which feels like a good number. Still, it’s never felt like this. Especially not the first time. Though, technically, this is my second time with Christian. Being with him feels easy, natural. Our rhythm smooths out my insecurities, helps me come out of myself and enjoy the sensations, the pleasure that our bodies bring.
His arms are strong pillars surrounding me, and I run my hand down his bicep and over his elbow, pressing into the tight muscles of his forearm. I roll my hips up to meet him, pressing back into the pillow, arching into the sensation building in my lower body. As I near the edge, my eyes flutter closed, and I hear someone moaning, but it couldn’t possibly be me. The sound is too primal, too raw.
Christian is warm and heavy on top of me, and I am nearing the fall, panting as my body climbs higher and higher.
Then, he’s gone.
My eyes snap open, and I’m about to complain when I feel a strong hand on my side rolling me over to my stomach. Then, he is grabbing my hips and lifting me up, up, up.
When he pushes inside of me again, I cry out and bury my face in the mattress, hoping it dulls the sound. The last thing I need is my neighbor calling the police to report a violent crime.
Christian grips the soft skin of my hips, his hands spread wide to hold more of me, to claim more of my skin for himself, and I surrender every inch willingly.
When his fingers circumnavigate to my front, circling across my sensitive bundle of nerves, I come crashing on a new wave. Wave after wave washes over me, and I feel Christian falling apart, too. When we are done, I collapse forward and laugh. It’s a soft sound, buried in the mattress where I’ve fallen forward.
“That’s a new reaction,” Christian muses, laying back on the pillows, one arm curled behind his head.
I look at him over my shoulder. “You’ve never had a woman laugh at you?”
“Laughter isn’t usually the reaction I receive, no.”
I roll onto my back and pull the sheet up over my chest. Christian seems content to lay around naked, but as the warm glow of what we’ve just done fades away, a tangle of nerves knots in my stomach.
“Well, this isn’t something I usually do.”
“Laugh at the men in your bed?”
He turns onto his side, his head propped up on his open palm. He looks like an extraordinarily attractive live model. I feel the urge to grab a pen and paper to start sketching the image.
I bite my lower lip. “Have men in my bed.”
A dark chuckle rumbles through him. “But you’re such a bad girl, Jane-Ann.”
I reach out and fling the back of my hand at his chest. He shields himself, laughing the entire time, and then catches my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles.
“If you think I’m going to judge you, don’t worry. You may not do this often, but I do.”
Something dark swirls in the back of my mind at the idea of how many women he has been with before me, but I let it float away. I sit up against the headboard, wondering what to do next. But before I can decide what to say or do, Christian slips out of bed and begins grabbing his clothes from the floor.
“You don’t have to go.”
I hate that I sound desperate, but I want to prop the door open for something else. Something more. Even though I’ve only known this guy a few hours, I like him. With him, I found the spark that had always been missing with Colby. I’m not ready to let it walk away without making an effort.
He pulls on his slacks, and I can’t help but watch the way his muscles stretch and flex as he gets dressed.
“I’m sure you are ready to have your bed back,” he says. “I’m a notorious blanket stealer.”
I loosen my grip on the blankets, as if trying to subliminally tell him I don’t need them. “I don’t mind.”
“You’ve been a wonderful host for me on my first day in America,” he says, buttoning his shirt with expert fingers. “But jet lag has hit me like a cast iron to the face, and I worry when I fall asleep that I may stay that way for a full twenty-four hours. I’d hate to inconvenience you.”
Excuses. He’s making excuses, yet I’m still trying to convince him. Trying to get him to stay when it is obvious he doesn’t want to.
Doesn’t he get that it makes me feel disposable? Sleeping with someone—twice—and then leaving immediately is shady. It’s sleazy. He must know that, which is why he is trying to frame it to seem like he is doing me a favor by leaving.
“No inconvenience,” I say. “I have the entire weekend off. No plans.”
Christian doesn’t give any pause to my words as he slips into his shoes and grabs his phone from my bedside table. “You’ve been lovely, Jane-Ann. A pleasure from beginning to end. But this would never work.”
I stare at him, wondering if he means what I think he means. When he gestures from his chest to me and back again, an anchor of disappointment and embarrassment sinks to my stomach, holding me in place.
“This?” I ask.
His mouth turns up in an apologetic smile. “You. Me. You and me. It just wouldn’t work beyond a one-night stand.”
Hearing him say one-night stand makes me feel nauseous. I knew that is what this was, but usually neither party specifically addresses it that way. He is supposed to lie and say, This was fun. Maybe I’ll call you sometime.
“I mean,” he continues with a shrug, “like I said, my parents would never approve. The King and Queen are quite strict about my future, and an American would likely be at the bottom of their list of potential matches.”
King and queen. I narrow my eyes. “You can’t stay the night because you’re royal?”
He holds up a finger. “Exactly.”
God. What a prick.
“Asshole.”
His blond brow furrows. “Excuse me?”
“I can’t believe you are keeping up this stupid story. It was funny at the bar, but now it is a little overplayed, don’t you think?” I wrap the sheet around my body and stand up, too annoyed to stay seated.
He tilts his head to the side, his mussed hair flopping over his forehead. H
e runs a hand back to push it off his face.
“You honestly don’t believe me?”
I want to punch him in his perfect nose. I mean, the sex was incredible, but maybe it would have been better to finally give into Colby’s advances. I’m sure he has learned some new tricks since we first slept together when we were teenagers. It probably would have been fine, and I know he wouldn’t have embarrassed me by making up some ridiculous excuse to avoid seeing me again.
I wave Christian away, padding into the hallway, the blanket trailing behind me like a wedding dress train. “No, I completely believe you. I’m sure there is some state emergency that requires your immediate attention. In fact, you’ll probably be on the next flight back to Kalambria or Seahorsetown or wherever you are from.”
“Sigmaran,” he says, his eyes wide and sparkling.
I hate how much he’s enjoying this exchange. How did I not realize he was such a sadist?
“I am Prince Christian of Sigmaran. Remember that. It will give you quite a shock when you look it up.”
I don’t want to prolong this anymore. He’s ruining what should be a marvelous post-sex high, and I just want to go back to sleep. I march to the door and hold it open, staying behind it so people driving by on the street below won’t catch a glimpse.
“Nice to meet you, Christian.”
He tucks his rumpled shirt into his pants and shakes his head. “Christian is my real name. I swear it.”
“I’m sure it is. And I’m Princess of Morocco.” I gesture for him to keep moving.
He pauses in the threshold and peeks around the door, his blue eyes vibrant even in the moonlight. “I’ve met her on several occasions. Lovely woman.”
I can’t take another second. I push the door closed, slamming it firmly against his back, and Christian stumbles into the hallway.
“Okay. I’m going,” he says. “Sorry this wasn’t as nice as one of your royal romances. I hope you still had on okay time, though.”
Prince Baby Daddy - A Secret Baby Royal Romance Page 5