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When I push open the door to let out the steam from the shower, Kala enters the bathroom. I don’t argue. This is what husbands and wives do, after all. Nothing romantic about sharing a bathroom.
But something is wrong. The steam dissipates, and Kala freezes when she gets a good look at me. Her wide eyes travel downward to the front of the towel I’ve wrapped around my lower half. Her knuckles are white as she grips a tub of moisturizer.
“Problem?” I ask, picking up the toothpaste.
“No. No problem,” Kala says dryly, her throat bobbing.
I watch her out of the corner of my eyes as we finish our nightly routines. Gods, she even applies her moisturizer with grace. Gone are her makeup and false eyelashes. She looks…comfortable. Naturally glowing and younger, somehow.
Glowing, like the time I saw her at the brewery in that low-cut baby blue sweater that will live forever in my spank bank.
“What?”
She’s caught me looking, and I don’t know what to say.
I finish quickly and exit the bathroom, giving her space.
“What are you doing?” Kala asks moments later when she sees me, now in my pajama pants, unfolding the foldaway bed in the sofa.
She stands halfway in the bathroom doorway, cinching a satin robe around her waist.
“Making up my bed,” I say, looking away from the valley between her breasts. “I don’t expect a princess to sleep on the sofa.”
Perhaps I said “princess” slightly too harshly even if I didn’t mean it derisively.
“Of course not. But… there’s no need for you to sleep over there.”
I turn to her. “Where else shall I go? The hot tub? Look, I’ve passed out from drinking in many strange places—the night before our wedding included in the top five weirdest. But I don’t enjoy waking up with kinks in my neck, so if it’s all the same to you—”
She smiles wide and blinks her lashes at me. “Obviously, your royal back has never experienced a sofa bed. Trust me, it’s worse than waking up wrapped around a crow’s nest.”
I’m rooted to the spot.
I watch Kala for a long moment and feel something stir in my chest. I do not like this feeling. I like her…but not this feeling. The outline of her form is stunning in that robe, and her nipples are visible through the fabric. The curves and bumps and freckles and that smooth, feminine voice—all of her just makes my cock ache.
“How do you know you can trust me?”
She lifts one shoulder and pulls the blankets back, running her hands over the sheets, then scoffs. “I know self-defense. And you’re not that irresistible, my prince.” She winks.
A satisfactory answer that cuts me deep.
I climb into bed, and though she’s meters away, I can still feel the movement of her sliding under the sheets. I can feel her warmth. Feel her shift around to get comfortable.
This marriage is nonsense; I’m sorry she got bamboozled into it.
I don’t know how to be the proper prince she needs me to be.
Father should have simply handed over the crown directly to her.
Father.
My chest aches at what he said to me after Torben abdicated.
Some people manage others by giving them the confidence to rise to the occasion. My father? He uses threats and intimidation.
I lie there and stare into the black, letting my sober, racing thoughts whirl through my head.
Eventually, the sounds of the waves, and Kala’s even breathing, lull me to sleep.
