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He grabbed my face, tilting it up to his, then he ran his thumb across my lip, pulling it down so he could see the small lump on the inside of my bottom lip. He ran his thumb across it, looking into my eyes. I don’t know why I let him. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t look away.
He was so close I could smell him. He smelled like leather and trees and a slight musk that might have been intoxicating if it was anyone but him. He moved his thumb back to the outside of my mouth, pushing my bottom lip back in place like it was a button he could press.
“A scar?” he asked.
I had been holding my breath. I exhaled, running the flat of my tongue over where his thumb had been, and nodded.
“You know, you really should have told me about Jay,” he said.
“And why should I have done that? Do I have to tell you about every man I have ever slept with?” I objected.
The Prince raised his eyebrows.
“Given your track record, yeah, I think you do,” he said.
I glared at him.
“Well, now, you pretty much know them all, anyway,” I admitted. “There is one more, a guy from back home, but I don’t think you’re interested in anything I did before the High Court,” I said.
“Then you’d be wrong. There’s nothing I don’t want to know about you. But, for now, Jay—”
I knew he was asking about the specific circumstances under which Jay’s power had appeared again.
“In the back of a carriage on the way to the Azure Court,” I said.
I didn’t feel the need to explain that we had been having sex. After the other stories, the Prince understood the context. The next part in my story with Jay felt too intimate to share. But the Prince continued to pierce me with his dark green eyes, expecting more.
“It was the first time he told me he loved me,” I admitted quietly.And the first time I had ever told any man I loved him.
Normally so reserved, this got a reaction from the annoyingly handsome Prince. He raised his eyebrows as if impressed. But then his surprise was gone, replaced by his usual devilish glint of mirth.
“You know, princess, I’m beginning to think that the future of the entire Kingdom rests right between your…” He allowed his gaze to grow sultry and heavy as he purposefully directed his gaze between my legs, his tongue rolling over the inside of his bottom lip.
Pinned under those penetrating green eyes, I felt an involuntary flush of excitement.
“Shoulders,” he finished, drawing his eyes to my face.
I squared my jaw at him, crossing my arms over my chest, which did not help my cause because my arms squeezed my breasts together and up toward the V neck of my dress. The Prince pretended not to notice; his gaze locked onto mine.
“I see that you are not dressed for trainingagain,” he said.
It was Monday, and he had said in his note to me that we would resume training on Monday. But I still wore the white sundress I had traveled in from Harborview. It was far more casual than anything I would ever wear at the High Court, but its neckline was plunging, and its fabric was clingy.
“You can’t be serious,” I replied. The glint in his eyes told me he was. “I haven’t had a chance to change since I left Harborview. You still want to train today after the day we’ve had?” I asked in disbelief.
He patted himself down theatrically. “I just fought in a battle, and I’m ready to go. And you don’t look like you have so much as a wrinkle in your little dress,” he noted. “So, yes, we are going to train today. And lucky for you, princess, I was prepared for you to show up unprepared. Follow me,” he ordered.
He didn’t travel us to our next location. Apparently, he was capable of walking. He led me to a wall made entirely of tinted glass. The wall split in half, invisible doors sliding back and making room for us to walk through. I had heard that houses responded to the magic of their masters. But that was one of the magical abilities that had been lost over the years. Not even Jay had commanded House Vitruvian, at least not when I had lived there.
We walked through a training facility that appeared to encompass the entire floor. Weights and weapons were interspersed throughout, and there were more doors, behind which there were probably more and different weights and weapons. The Prince passed down a flight of stairs quickly. I was wearing wedges and had to slow down so as to not twist my ankle.
At the bottom of the staircase, I was surprised to find a bedroom. There was another wall of tinted glass to my right. I could hear the waves of the beach crashing behind it. There wasn’t much in the room despite its size. The centerpiece of the bedroom was a large fourposter bed. It was black with a thick wooden charcoal-gray headboard. Pieces of wood connected the four posts together like a cube…or a cage.
The Prince approached me where I stood, feet from the bed. He got close to me, so close that our feet were touching.
“See something you like?” he teased.
He wrapped his hand around one of the posts and jerked it like he was trying to shake the bed. Despite his strength, the bed didn’t move. It had clearly been built to withstand his forces.
