My belly twisted.
“Didn’t feel like a failure to me,” I murmured in a low voice.
I was trying to seduce him, and I didn’t have the first clue what I was doing.
Being reckless, that was what.
He shocked me by dragging me to the very edge of the counter, wedging his delicious body between my thighs, his hot hands cupping me by the bottom. “If I passed, then you got an A+.”
A giggle slipped free, shyness breaking way. “You think so?”
“Told me not to tell you lies, didn’t you?” It was a grunt, those fierce eyes aglow. “You just rocked my fucking world.”
My heart expanded. I wanted to do it over and over again. “I’m glad.” I studied him, voice sincere. “And you made me feel alive in a way I haven’t in a long, long time.”
Royce sighed and dropped his forehead to my chest. “You’re killing me, Emily. Fucking killing me. I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be touching you at all, and I’m not sure I know how to stop.”
“Then don’t.”
My stomach took that very inopportune time to growl.
Awesome.
Royce looked up at me with a grin. “Hungry?”
“Starving.”
Starving for him and this feeling and this insatiable need, but I guessed I could eat, too.
He went right into protective mode. Demanding and brash.
“Let me feed you.”
It wasn’t a request.
Still, I agreed, whispering, “I’d like that,” as I swiped my tongue over my bottom lip, wishing it was his doing the honors.
He groaned again. “Little mind-wrecker.”
I frowned at the unintelligible ramble that fell from his mouth, but he ignored that he’d said anything at all and helped me down. He gestured for me to use his things that were set out on the counter.
“I’ll order us something.”
“Thank you.”
He started out the door, his bare back so delicious and on display, wearing tight ripped-up jeans, something I’d never seen him in before that made me wonder about the persona he fronted. But then I realized it didn’t matter what he was wearing. There wasn’t a thing that was fake about him.
The man raw.
Real.
A little bit terrifying.
Pausing at the doorway, he shifted his attention back to me, expression written in stone. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“You keep sayin’ that.”
“It keeps being the truth.”
Then he turned back around and pulled the door shut behind him.
I rinsed my mouth with his mouthwash, scrubbed my face under a cold spray from the faucet, and retied my hair up on my head considering it was looking like a rat or two had taken up residence in the locks.
AKA Royce’s desperate hands.
Sucking down a shiver, I stepped back out.
He was at the hotel room door, the man so obscenely hot as he let in room service.
The server rolled in the cart, and Royce dug out his wallet and gave him a tip, the man thanking him profusely.
Following him back to the door, Royce shut it, then slowly turned around and eased out into the middle of the room.
Everything trembled.
God, I didn’t think I was ever gonna get used to the sight of him.
“Come here,” he commanded, and I shuffled forward on bare feet, fiddling with the hem of my nightgown, all of a sudden feeling unsure.
He pulled the lid off the tray to reveal a board of cheeses and meats. Crackers and jams. Berries and fruit.
Grabbing the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket, he expertly freed the cork. It popped, and my nerves leapt, my legs shaking as I stood there with the weight of those dark eyes watching me as he tipped the bottle over to fill a flute.
He handed me the first one and then filled another.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing to his unmade, rumpled bed.
God, he could be bossy, but I was all too happy to oblige.
I climbed up on the edge near the end and tucked one leg under my body. He moved forward, lingering an inch over my face, noses close to touching.
He tipped his glass to mine, his voice a rasp. “To sleepless nights.”
Our glasses clinked, and my heart shivered.
I took a sip, letting the cool, bubbling sweetness glide down my throat, not knowing exactly what to do with myself as he climbed onto the bed in front of me.
My attention moved to the expanse of his bed where he’d clearly been tossing, just like I had been.
I had to wonder if I hadn’t heard him in some sense. That feeling like I understood him on a different level. In some unfound way that should be impossible but somehow felt like the only thing that made any sense right then.
“You couldn’t sleep?” I asked carefully.
He took a sip of his champagne, those hawk’s wings flitting in distress as he swallowed heavily. “Me and the night aren’t the best of friends.”
“And why’s that?”
He grinned, though it was bleak. “Don’t you know that’s when the demons come out to play?”