The spark he’d been convinced didn’t exist began to sizzle.
The crowd parted and her gaze—bold and direct, and nowhere near as demure as he remembered it—locked on his. Instead of greeting the other, less senior guests first—which was the protocol—she walked past them and headed through the crowd straight towards him.
The sizzle became hot and fluid, sinking deep into his abdomen. The buzz of anticipation in his blood almost as loud as the buzz of conversation building around the room.
Was he actually getting turned on?
Her gaze roamed over him, both daring and amused, and he suddenly had the feeling she was assessing him like one of his own prize stallions. Why had he never noticed that mischievous sparkle before either? It turned the refined jade of her irises to a vibrant emerald.
‘Good evening, Leo,’ she said, her voice a smoky purr.
The spike of adrenaline was as unsettling as the prickle of surprise.
Every other encounter he’d had with the Queen, she had been exceptionally well versed in etiquette and protocol. She had never even called him by his given name and no one used that nickname...
No one except...
‘Kiss me, Leo, you know you want to.’
The shocking memory of bright emerald eyes naked with longing, a voice full of childish demand and adult yearning, and soft fingertips trailing across his nape and detonating in his groin, sent a shaft of déjà vu through his system so uncomfortable he stiffened. The prickle of shame not far behind it.
Not the same girl, damn it.
That had been Jade’s twin sister. Princess Juno. King Andreas’s younger daughter, the disobedient teenager who had developed a ludicrous crush on him eight summers ago. Ludicrous, that was, until she’d tried to kiss him and—for one split second—he’d been tempted.
He’d been twenty-two and she’d been sixteen. A child and a really annoying one at that. Until that moment in the moonlight, when his libido had played tricks on him—and what he’d seen was the woman, instead of the girl.
He shook off the unsettling memory. The lack of sustenance was obviously messing with his head.
This was the Queen of Monrova. The woman he planned to marry. Not her extremely annoying—and utterly undisciplined—twin. Thank God.
A whisper rolled through the crowd. No doubt the use of the nickname was going to be all over the media tomorrow.
Leo forced a confident smile. ‘Good evening, Your Majesty.’
‘I hope you haven’t been waiting too long,’ she added, even though the mocking tone suggested she didn’t care in the slightest.
What the hell?
Her breasts rose and fell, the plump flesh straining against the low-cut gown. But then a flush spread deliciously across her collarbone.
Something hot and volatile stirred, to go with the sizzle that hadn’t died. And the forced smile on his lips became genuine. She felt it too, the electric chemistry that had hit him like a lightning bolt.
He gave her a mocking bow and let his gaze rake over her in return.
Whatever game she was playing, he had the urge to play it too.
‘Your Majesty, believe me, you were more than worth the exceptionally long wait.’ He grasped her fingers and pressed his lips to her knuckles. She shivered—and the sizzle became a spark.
‘Shall we?’ he said.
‘Of course,’ she replied, although she sounded less sure.
Touché, Your Majesty.
He folded her arm under his, tugging her against his side to lead her into the banqueting hall.
Even in her heeled slippers, her head barely reached his collarbone, which made her shorter than the women he usually dated. At six foot four, and with a muscular physique, he generally preferred women who didn’t make him feel like a giant. But while the size disparity had concerned him before, now he found it a turn-on too.