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I sat at the desk. After plugging my laptop into the charging port, I quipped, “Pretty much from the moment I got here.”
He barely moved. Even his eyebrows stayed where they were. “A good dream or a bad dream?”
I shrugged. “Little of both, if you want the truth.”
His answer came faster than I expected. “Truth is not something I ‘want’, Miss Fava.” His shoulders squared. “It is something I require.”
“Then why are we talking about dreams at all?”
Again with the barely moving thing. “Dreams cannot be truth, as well?”
I was glad to be sitting. Gave me a perfect excuse to glance down, fiddling with the laptop’s cord, so he wouldn’t see the smart-ass “truth” tempting the corners of my lips. “Depends on who you ask,” I murmured. And that was the truth. This was his taco stand. If the prince wanted all the salsa jars filled with “truth”, I was happy to oblige for the next twelve or so hours. After that, I was done with Señor Cimarron’s hot sauce forever.
He shifted, pushing away from the couch. I swallowed, battling not to notice. Not as easy as it sounded, especially as the air glued itself to him like groupies on a rock star, and he inhabited that outfit better than most million-dollar models. His stride, sure and elegant, would’ve silenced a whole room at Fashion Week—another nearly impossible feat. I knew. I’d been to Fashion Week.
And now, wished I was there again.
And not for the bling-and-beyond goodie bags or the free shoes.
For the crowd.
An extra hundred people in the room suddenly seemed like a damn good idea, if only for the sake of veering his course a little. Maybe a lot. He continued to remind me of a muscled musician—on his way to smash a guitar to pieces.
I wetted my lips. Wondered if my lungs would pulverize my ribs. Fought to keep my heart from climbing into my throat—but more than that, to keep that incessant throb from resonating in the folds between my legs.
I failed on every account.
Especially as he rounded the desk, pulled out the chair then swiveled it around, pointing me directly toward him. Locked me further into place by gripping the furniture’s arms with both hands. Tighter still, as he leaned in…filling every molecule of air around me.
“Hey.” It sounded pissed but that was because of my fear—and arousal. Like I was going to break all that out for him. “What the hell are you—”
“Truth.” He growled it this time, grinding on it twice as hard as before. “I require it, Lucina.”
I concealed a shiver. Barely. “I understand. Now back off.”
He didn’t move. Let his nostrils flare as his gaze went heavy, studying me from forehead to chin. “Do you want me to…back off?”
Shit, shit, shit.
There he went again, slathering my California slang in his exotic accent, until I could barely remember the point I’d been trying to make. But dammit, I sure as hell remembered his.
The truth.
He’d demanded it.
And, whack-a-doodle as it sounded, would probably know if I futzed even the tiniest detail on the “getting it” part. I didn’t know how I recognized that. I simply did.
It’d be kind of hot—maybe more than “kind of”—in a man I stood half a chance of being pursued by. But this was a damn prince of a whole kingdom, a whole separate world, determined to become that country’s new hero by proposing to another woman.
And there was fate’s little favor for the day.
“Yes,” I pushed out, even meeting him eye-to-eye about it. “I mean it. You need to back the hell off. Now.”
