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That was an unfortunate side effect.
One that should have embarrassed him, as it highlighted that despite the trappings of his overtly civilized life, at heart he was nothing but a beast. Nothing but greed straight through, a slave to his own passions, like the father he despised.
She had been trying to see him, not seduce him. He should have been disgusted at his own response.
No more,Griffin vowed to himself. Again.
And made himself go and take his seat once more because he, by God, would be the master of his own flesh.
Melody inclined her head, demurely enough to make him question ever seeing anything but that in the way she held herself. “And I admire you.”
He laughed, lounging back because this felt like familiar ground. “What is there to admire? I’m afraid I’m concocted of silver spoons, hereditary fortunes, and an entire lifestyle I did nothing to earn.”
“Yes, but who would truly wish to be a royal?” Her smile was so gentle there was no reason he should feel the sharp edge of it rake over him. “It might be a pretty prison cell, or so I hear. But it’s still a prison cell, isn’t it?”
“It is an honor to represent Idylla and support my brother in all his works,” Griffin said by rote.
It wasn’t that he didn’t mean it. He did.
But that didn’t mean there weren’t...textures to the words that formed the boundaries of his life. The simplest words, he’d found, always had the greatest complications lurking right there in plain sight.
“Of course you do,” Melody said. Still with that smile. “I was lucky to avoid the bulk of my father’s attention, if Calista’s experiences are anything to go by. Being his favorite came with its own price tag, there’s no denying it. It’s not hard to imagine what being Crown Prince to King Max must have entailed.”
“Heavy lies the crown,” Griffin replied, lightly enough. “Which is one reason I have always preferred to keep my own marvelous princely brow smooth and unencumbered.”
Next to him, Melody shifted. And leaned in.
And Griffin was a connoisseur of women. They flocked about him and he had long taken pride in the fact that while he frequently and enthusiastically indulged, he truly enjoyed those indulgences. He didn’t have a type. He didn’t have hierarchies. He wasn’t attempting to put notches on his bedpost or prove anything to anyone. He simply loved women and loved being with them, whatever that looked like.
Yet here, now, as Melody swayed closer to him as if she planned to kiss him at last, Griffin felt like an untried innocent. A chaste virgin without a shred of control.
He wanted his hands on her.
Hewantedand he didn’t have the slightest idea what todowith it.
Inside him, storms and fires swept this way and that. It was cataclysmic. It wastoo much—
Griffin was somehow out of his depth when he would have said that was impossible. And all Melody did was sway ever closer...
Her scent, her warmth, wrapped around him like a fist.
He could remember, too intensely, the perfunctory kiss he’d delivered at the altar. It had been little more than a brush of lips and yet itburned in him—
God help him, but he wanted a proper taste.
But when she was so close that not kissing her seemed like an offense, what Melody did instead of put him out of his misery was...lift her hand.
Then, unerringly, find his forehead.
She traced her way down his to the furrow between his brows.
“Not so smooth and unencumbered, I think,” she murmured.
It took some thousand years or so for her words to penetrate the wild drumming of his heart, the matching beat in his sex. The wildfire inside him, wicked and raging.
Melody’s smile was cool. Almost as if she knew. “Maybe all lives have their hardships, Griffin. Maybe crowns aren’t required.”
CHAPTER FIVE
