by Vivian Wood
“Did you get your shirt from a church?” he finally asks.
I look down at myself, because I’ve never gotten a shirt from a church and have no idea what he’s talking about.
With my arms crossed, all that’s visible of this dumb shirt is Good girls go to heaven.
“Definitely not,” I say, and uncross my arms.
I use every ounce of my willpower not to shiver and pucker my nipples.
“Aha,” he says, reading Bad girls go everywhere.
Then he looks at me, and something sparkles in his gray eyes. I think it’s a smile. I think.
“Which are you?” he asks.
“The shirt was a gift,” I say, not really answering the question. “My best friend gave it to me before I went on this trip, as sort of a joke, because I was going to a lot of places and I’d just dropped out of school.”
“Was one of the places heaven?” he asks.
“Does the Vatican count?” I ask.
“Not even close,” he says, and the corners of his eyes crinkle.
“I went to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral,” I say.
“Closer, and beautiful, but not heaven,” he says.
I look away for a moment. My back is to the sea, so we’re looking over the stone work of the castle and the grounds beyond, all dimly lit and silver in the moonlight. I’m just buzzed enough that I can feel the moonlight on my skin, cool and liquid.
“I watched the sun come up on a train in the Alps,” I say.
“Still not heaven,” he says. His voice has gone a little softer and almost growly. Now that we’re alone up here, just the two of us and the night sky, he sounds different. Not quite so harsh.
Fuck it, I think.
Flirt back. He started this.
“Kostya, are you trying to get me to say I’m a bad girl?” I ask.
“I’m just making polite conversation with a palace guest about her shirt,” he says, and I swear there’s just a hint of a smile in his voice. “Though it does seem you’ve been many places, and not one of them was heaven.”
I swallow as warmth snakes through me, tightly coiled and writhing.
I’m acutely aware that I should not be doing any of the things that I’m doing right now: I shouldn’t be in this off-limits area, I shouldn’t be smoking pot, and I shouldn’t be flirting with a future monarch.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve been everywhere.”
“You’ve got time to fix that,” he says. “And I think everywhere is much more interesting than heaven.”
A slight breeze drifts over us and I hug myself tighter as I feel my nipples pucker.
Don’t look, I think. I swallow.
Or do look, fuck, I don’t even know.
Being near Kostya lights something stupid and dangerous inside me, something that wants to throw all caution to the wind and tell him I’m a very bad girl. Something that wants to do something ridiculous, like lean against this wall and lick my lips and invite him to sex-glare at me, nipples at full attention while I bite one finger like some kind of sexpot.
I don’t do any of those things.
“Heaven’s never sounded all that appealing,” I admit. “I think I’d rather be on the goat train from Kiev than spend eternity on a cloud with one of those tiny harps.”
“I believe they’re called lyres,” he says.
“Show off,” I say, teasing him.
He opens his mouth, closes it, and frowns very slightly. Then the corners twitch a little.
“Because I know what a tiny harp is called?”
“I’m just kidding,” I say, already wishing I could backtrack.
He kicks at a loose rock and it bounces across the stone blocks that make up the floor of the rampart.
“Did it work?” he finally asks. “Are you impressed?”
“That you knew the word lyre?” I ask, smiling.
“That I know more about heaven than you,” he says.
“You’re not going to convince me you’re an angel,” I say. “You snuck up here just like I did.”
“It’s my palace,” he points out. “I don’t have to sneak anywhere.”
“So the palace guard knows where you are right now?” I ask.
“I just said I don’t have to sneak, not that I didn’t,” he says. “Having your every move tracked can get tedious after a while.”
“You’re taking a pretty big risk being alone with me, then,” I say. “Maybe I’m an assassin.”
The second I say that out loud, I regret it.
“I’m not an assassin,” I say quickly.
“Yes, that was a joke,” he says, his eyes sparkling again. “I’m catching on.”
“I just couldn’t sleep,” I say.
“Me either,” he says.
He looks like he’s about to go on, but doesn’t.
I take a deep breath.
He came and gave you bread when you humiliated yourself, I think.
“You know what helps me sleep sometimes?” I say, reaching into my pocket.
“Is it smoking marijuana?” he asks.
“Shit,” I say, and laugh. “I guess I wasn’t very crafty.”
“It’s not what Americans are known for,” he says.
“I’ve still got half a joint,” I offer. “I smuggled it from Amsterdam by accident.”
I pull out the joint and the lighter and offer them.
I have no idea if he’s ever even smoked before. Everything I’ve read about the prince makes him sound like a serious, straight arrow who toes the line.
I’m starting to realize that there’s more to Kostya than the official reports, though.
“A medical school dropout and a drug smuggler,” he says, taking the joint and the lighter. “Bad girl doesn’t even start to describe you.”
“It got lost in my dirty laundry,” I say. I have no idea whether that makes me more or less of a bad girl. “I didn’t mean to smuggle it here.”
He lights it and takes a deep breath, then holds it in before blowing the smoke up toward the stars. Then he coughs a little.
“It’s been a while,” he says.
The crown prince of Sveloria takes one more hit off of my smuggled joint, then hands it back to me. I crush it out again on the stone wall. He exhales again and clears his throat.
“These stones are hundreds of years old,” he says. I think he’s trying to sound stern again, but I’m not falling for it.
“Then they’ve had worse things happen to them,” I say, and put the stub and the lighter back in my pocket again.
“The ramparts were built so that archers could fire flaming arrows at ships coming ashore,” he admits.
I stick my hands in my pockets, not bothering to cross my arms anymore. My nipples are definitely out, proudly declaring I am cold and/or slightly aroused, and trying to hide them is only making it more obvious.
I hope Kostya thinks I’m just cold.
“What’s keeping you awake?” I ask.
He looks at me for a long moment. His eyes are slightly glassy.
I pray that I didn’t get him too high. Even though he’s over six feet of muscle, if he doesn’t smoke much, two hits can screw a guy up.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he says. “If I tell you why I’m awake, you tell me the long story about why you dropped out of med school.”
“It’s not a good story,” I say.
He shrugs.
“It doesn’t reflect well on me,” I say. “Not that I’ve made a great impression so far.”
Kostya runs one hand over his hair, shakes his head a little, and then looks at me.
“Now, you worry about the impression that you’ve made?” he asks.
“Better late than never?” I say.
He smiles. Maybe it’s the pot, but he actually, legitimately smiles.
“You’re never boring, zloyushka,” he says.
I frown. My very limited Russian doesn’t include that word.
“Zloyushka?” I ask.
He
just gives me a teasing look.
“I can’t sleep because of the dreams,” he says.
“What dreams?”
“From my time in the military,” he says.
“I’m sorry,” I say, softly.
I know he was in the Royal Guard, but beyond that, most of his activities are classified by the Svelorian government. There’s been speculation that he was fighting in the north, but no one knows very much for sure.
“Can you keep a secret?” he says.
“If I can’t, we’re already in trouble,” I say.
Well, mostly me. His kingdom, his palace, et cetera.
“We were fighting the separatists in the north of Sveloria, up in the mountains,” he says, his eyes straight ahead, raking over the moonlit stone. “Guerrilla warfare, which means you’re always fighting. When you’re sitting in a camp, writing letters, you’re fighting. When you’re eating, you’re fighting. When you’re sleeping, when you’re taking a shit, you’re still fighting. All the time.”
My eyes widen, and I stay perfectly quiet. A single shiver runs down my spine.
I don’t know why, but I get the strong feeling that he’s telling me something he’s never told anyone before, and I have no idea why he’s telling me, the awkward, loud, unmannered American girl, of all people.
“Any second, the shooting could start,” he goes on, gazing into the distance. “While we were doing anything. We were shot at while sleeping, while scouting, while getting supplies in town.”
He swallows.
“Once, we stopped at a hut that was far outside of a village. We could hear someone moaning in pain inside, and even though it was dangerous to stop, we did.”
He swallows again. I wish I’d brought water up here.
“Inside there was a young man, not more than eighteen, lying on a bed. Both his legs were missing up to the knee. Infected, bright red, oozing pus. I ordered two more men into the hut, thinking that if we could get him somewhere fast enough, he might live. We thought maybe we could help.”
My eyes are wide. I’ve got one hand over my mouth just imagining the scene. The knot in my chest tightens.
“I was outside, standing guard in the road while the others went in,” he says, and pauses, staring at the stonework on the ground. “And suddenly, the hut exploded. It knocked me forward, onto my hands and knees, my face in the dirt, half my back covered in burns.”
“Oh, my God,” I whisper.
I’ve seen plenty of burns in med school and before that, as a volunteer EMT, and they’re ugly.
“The kid had volunteered himself as bait for a trap,” Kostya says. “We fell for it. I fell for it.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I say.
He takes a deep breath.
“I lost four men,” he says. “And I learned that trying to help people is dangerous. Two hard lessons.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “That’s what you dream about?”
“It’s one of the things,” he says.
“Are the others similar?”
Kostya just nods. He looks so distant and alone, standing there with his arms crossed, his hundred-yard stare raking over the stone castle. I can’t even begin to imagine doing what he did and not being able to even tell anyone.
I take a deep breath and reach one hand for his shoulder, because hugging the crown prince is probably off-limits, and I don’t even know if he wants one.
He looks at me as my fingers hover over his shoulder. I pause and we lock eyes, his face somehow softer, almost vulnerable. I swallow and touch him, his heat radiating through his thin t-shirt, and stoke small circles on the hard muscles of his shoulder.
“What helps?” I ask. We’re still looking at each other.
“Reminding myself where I am,” he says, softly. “Coming up here when it’s dark and the moon is out and I can be alone.”
“I can leave,” I offer.
“Talking to bad American girls helps too,” he says.
I sigh, still rubbing slowly widening circles on his back, trying to ignore the way his body feels beneath my fingers and the effect it’s having on me.
“I’m burning this shirt,” I mutter.
He raises both eyebrows.
“Now?”
I stop rubbing for a moment, open my mouth to say no, blush, shut my mouth, keep rubbing, and swallow.
“Only if I can have yours instead,” I say instead.
What the fuck is wrong with you? I think.
Slowly, Kostya smiles, and a teasing, challenging look comes into his gray eyes.
“I don’t think you’ll go through with it,” he says.
“Is that a dare?” I ask, my fingertips tracing a circle around his shoulder.
“It’s a challenge,” he says. “I’ll give you my shirt, but you have to burn yours. Right here, right now.”
Laugh, say no, and leave, I think. Just for once, try not to make a situation worse.
I take my hand from his shoulder, take the lighter from my pocket, and set it on the stone wall. Then I look back at Kostya just in time to see his gaze flick up from my way-too-perky nipples.
Heat floods downward through my body, even though it’s cool out. I’m pretty uncertain about a lot of things right now, but I know one thing for an absolute fact.
Prince Kostya wants to see me topless. He turns to face me, still smiling.
“No cowardice,” he says, and I laugh.
“You mean, don’t chicken out?” I say.
“Sure,” he says. “No chickens.”
“No chickens,” I say.
My heart is hammering in my chest, and as certain as I was that I shouldn’t have been smoking up on the ramparts, I am super ultra really fucking certain that I shouldn’t be getting half-naked with the prince up here. I’m equally certain that telling anyone who catches us that it was his idea will be useless.
I hold out one hand anyway, the other on my hip, my bravest stance.
“Your shirt,” I say.
He dared me, after all.
Chapter Ten
Kostya
When the hottest girl you’ve ever seen is standing in front of you, wearing short pajama shorts and demanding your shirt, there’s only one option.
You give the girl your shirt.
“No chickens,” Hazel says. “Your shirt.”
I think she’s laughing at me, but I reach behind my head and tug my undershirt off anyway, then deposit it in her outstretched hand, the soft white cotton crumpling. Her hand makes a fist around it.
Then she looks at me, her eyes traveling up from the waistband of my jeans. It takes a split second, but I can practically feel the burning trails that her gaze leaves behind.
It’s been a long time since a woman saw me shirtless, and I cross my arms over my chest, hoping the half-dark hides some of the scars.
“Well, zloyushka?” I ask. “Feeling some chickens now?”
I know that’s not quite the English phrase, but I’m too fucking distracted to remember idioms.
“It’s chickening out,” she says, the teasing look back in her eyes. “And I’m not.”
She tosses my shirt on the stone wall, next to the lighter, and then turns her back to me.
I’m not surprised, but I’m disappointed. My cock twitches anyway, half-hard no matter how much I try to keep it down.
Hazel whips her shirt off, and suddenly she’s half-naked on the palace roof, her black hair swishing over her shoulder blades. She’s got those perfect dimples in her lower back, right above her shorts, and despite myself I go rock hard just looking at them.
I clench my fingers into my arms. I swear, it looks like those indents were put there so I could grab her by the hips and sink my thumbs into them, and it’s all I can think about.
My hands on her skin, pulling her toward me. The gasp she’d make, the way the curve of her ass would rub against me.
I grind my teeth together, but I can’t stop staring.
She tosses her
shirt onto the stone wall, and as she does, I can just barely see the outer curve of one breast, and I clench my teeth even harder. As she grabs my shirt, she glances over her shoulder at me for one instant, as if to say I told you I’d do it.
Then she slides my shirt over her head, and I exhale. She sweeps her hair and and turns around, a triumphant look in her eyes, and I’m just praying she doesn’t look down and see Mount Kostya practically exploding out of my jeans.
“Told you,” she said.
My shirt is swimming on her, the v-neck coming almost down to her sternum, the slight curve of her cleavage visible in the moonlight.
That’s not why I’m staring, though. I’m staring because it’s a thin white shirt and her nipples are very, very prominently staring right back. She catches me, looks down, makes a face, and crosses her arms.
“It’s cold out here,” she says, but she won’t look me in the eye.
“I don’t even have a shirt,” I say.
“Whose fault is that?” she asks, tilting her head to one side.
“Yours,” I say. “You did demand the shirt off my back, zloyushka.”
She grabs the t-shirt and lighter from the stone wall and dangles the shirt in front of her, looking at it one last time.
“Sorry, Courtney,” she says. I assume Courtney is the friend who gave her the shirt.
Hazel flicks the lighter underneath the shirt and holds the flame to the hem. She holds it there for a long time, waiting for it to catch, glancing up at me every couple of seconds.
At last, it does, and she pulls the lighter away. Immediately, the shirt stops burning, the hem barely worse than scorched.
“Shit,” she mutters.
“Remind me not to take you on a wilderness mission,” I say. “We’d starve, then freeze to death.”
She snorts.
“Were you thinking of doing that?” she says, flicking the lighter again.
In the tower behind me, I hear a thump as a heavy door shuts. Hazel freezes, her eyes going wide.
“Oh fuck,” she says, not moving.
I point at the spot where there’s a corner in the opposite wall. Behind it’s a notch, black with shadows. She looks at it and then back at me.