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“Hardly,” Orion growled. “I just want you, damn you.”
And then he slammed his mouth to hers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ORIONSHOULDN’THAVElet her goad him. He should have been better than that.
More controlled. More in command of himself—and her.
But as Calista’s taste exploded in his mouth—far better than he remembered, far darker and wilder and more addictive—he found he didn’t much care.
He wasn’t the fool she thought he was.
Orion knew that she was acting out. That despite her performance that first day, she was in many ways a victim of her father the same as he was.
He knew all that. He simply couldn’t care about it the way he ought to have. Not just then.
Because she tasted like all the dreams he’d been having, one hotter than the last. Intense and demanding and astonishingly perfect.
She was every fire he’d ever known and denied himself, burning hot within him. Making him think she was something he could not possibly survive intact—
But immolation sounded good to him just then. And tasted better.
He knew that they had a schedule to keep. He knew that their car was waiting to take them to the ball, and more important, all the people who had bought tickets would be waiting for them, too. He knew that this particular holiday tradition, with or without a royal engagement in the mix, was beloved by his people. They looked forward to it all year, and it was part of their national character to note, with pride, that Idylla boasted a season for commoners and kings to dance and make merry together.
His father had started blowing off the holiday balls years ago, to no one’s great surprise. But Orion never had. In fact, as crown prince, he’d never missed one.
Orion was always where he said he would be. He was always on time and prepared. If his schedule decreed that he would set foot on a certain flagstone at 6:37 p.m., that was precisely when his foot struck the earth.
“It’s easy to be a monk when you rid your life of any temptation,”Griffin had told him, years ago.
Orion had ignored him back then. He’d assumed that was no more than Griffin being provocative, as ever.
But tonight, Calista was in his arms, her mouth was open beneath his as she kissed him back, and Orion understood at last that he had never been tested before.
He had never come close to a test.
That should have appalled him, but it didn’t. It couldn’t. Because he was kissing her, and that was all he could manage to care about.
He kissed her like a dying man. He kissed her as if she alone could quench the great thirst he hadn’t known he had. He kissed her and he kissed her, moving closer and pulling her even tighter in against him. He angled his head, kissing her hungrily. Hotly.
He wanted to sink his hands into her hair. He wanted to throw her down on the nearest flat surface and truly indulge himself at last.
Hewanted.
And that meant he was as weak as his father had ever been.
It was that thought that penetrated, dousing him like sheets of ice.
He thrust her away from him, taking in the fact that she looked as wrecked he was. That her eyes were glassy, her mouth soft.
But he couldn’t process any of that.
All he could think was that after all this, after everything he’d done, after the years and years of keeping himself separate from the things that tempted other men because he wanted to be something better, something more, something worthy of the crown he now wore—in the end, it all came down to this.
Petty sins of the flesh.
A lifetime of control and commitment and all it took was one woman to ruin him. He almost laughed, though nothing was funny.
