My knees are still shaking, my fingers still twisting in the silk of his dress shirt, when he finally pulls away several seconds—minutes?—later.
“Thank you,” he says again, rubbing his thumb over my mouth in one of the most sensual caresses I’ve ever experienced.
Suddenly, I want to invite him in, want to climb him like a tree and wrap myself around him. Wrap myself up in him. It’s a weird feeling—an uncomfortable feeling—and it has me jerking back when I want nothing more than to press forward.
“I should…I should go in.” My voice is several octaves lower—and hoarser—than it usually is, but at least it’s not shaking the way my knees are. It’s a small victory, but at this point I’ll take it. Especially when every instinct I have is screaming for me to say to hell with work, to hell with all my well-thought-out reasons as to why we can’t be together, and just invite him in so I can ride him all night.
But Garrett obviously takes a girl at her word—and obviously has a hell of a lot more self-control than I do—because he backs away, slowly, slowly, slowly. He even goes so far as to bend down and pick up the battered, but still closed, pastry box and hand it to me with a rueful grin.
“Pretty sure the éclairs survived the fall,” he says. “But I’m not so sure about the napoleons.”
It doesn’t matter. Nothing does but the feel of his mouth moving over mine. The feel of his body pressed against mine.
Because the thought scares me as much as it arouses me, I take a step back. Smile at him. Even let him put the pastry box in my hands.
I can’t want this man. Can’t want this tortured prince who is torn between who he once was and who he is now.
But I do want him—in my body and in my arms. And while I’m more than okay with having a one-night stand with Garrett to work him out of my system, something tells me that fucking him will have the opposite effect. And I am totally, completely, 120 percent not okay with that.
Which is why I stumble back a few more steps and reach for my keys. It’s why I fumble them into the lock and why I push the door open and nearly fall inside without so much as glancing Garrett’s way.
And it’s why I murmur a strangled, “I hope everything works out for you,” even as I push the door closed, all but slamming it in his face.
Right before the door closes I see a look of utter astonishment on Garrett’s face. It’s enough to snap me
out of the sexual trance he put me into with just one kiss, enough to have me grinning at the fact that Garrett isn’t a guy who has very many doors slammed in his face.
For a second, just a second, I think about opening the door back up and saying good night like a sane person. But in the end, I can’t bring myself to do it. I might not be in a sexual trance anymore, but my knees are still shaking and my heart is still beating way too fast.
Garrett brings out the wild in me that’s never very far from the surface, and while that might be a good thing in bed, I’m smart enough to know that right now it’s the last thing either one of us needs. No matter how amazing it feels.
Which is why I keep the door firmly closed, my hand and forehead pressed up against it, as I wait for the telltale sounds of Garrett walking away.
It takes longer than it should.
Chapter 11
Garrett
“Well, someone’s been busy.”
Instinct—and years of ingrained training—had me answering the phone before I was even awake, but now that my brother’s amused voice is in my ear, I think seriously of hanging it back up.
It’s—I glance blearily at the alarm clock on the hotel’s nightstand—only seven A.M., and it took four very large whiskeys before I could fall asleep last night. Or, more accurately, this morning, as it was close to four A.M. before I drifted off. And even after I fell asleep, I was still dreaming about that strange, disturbing, and hot-as-fuck kiss I shared with Lola last night on her porch. Right before she shut the door in my face.
Fuck.
Again, I think about hanging up on Kian, but I just don’t have it in me. Not when he could be calling about sanctions or our father or one of the million other issues that are important to Wildemar’s well-being. But just because I won’t hang up on him doesn’t mean I have to be gracious about talking to him. God knows, he never was when he was the spare and I had the nerve to wake him up before three o’clock in the afternoon.
“What do you want?” I demand, rolling over and burying my head—phone and all—under the nearest pillow. It drowns out the light but not the headache, and for a moment I want to beg for mercy. But I don’t beg, not even when being tortured, and I’ll be damned if a simple hangover brings me to my knees today. No matter how much it hurts.
“I think the issue this morning is more about what you want,” comes his cryptic, yet amused, reply.
“Dude, I’m hungover and—” I cut myself off before I say “horny as fuck.” Some things even a twin doesn’t need to know. “Either get to the point or call me back at a civilized hour.”
“Yeah, well, civilized is in the eye of the beholder. I’ll have you know I’ve been up and working for two hours already this morning.”
“Do you want a fucking parade for that?” It’s about time he learned that governing doesn’t come with a convenient nine-to-five schedule.