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Chapter Four
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Direct is best.
It was a favorite credo for Ez and me. In our business, subtleties and subtext often became exaggerations, especially if a bridezilla was on the loose. No stalking lizard here, but I assumed a “numbers guy” like the prince would appreciate the mode.
I was so wrong.
I had time to glimpse the tension of his jaw and the fire in his eyes before he stalked across the room. Three seconds later, he halted at the window behind his desk.
Clack.
I jolted as he parted the shutters, slamming them to the window frame, then keeping his arms extended. His delts were lines of sculpted perfection beneath his white shirt. At the open end of his sleeves, his forearms were equally muscled—and dusted by dark hair worth fixating on. A lot. As in, the blowjob-on-the-rug scene was right there again, making me imagine what those hairs would feel like against my cheek, as he guided my mouth to the tip of his cock…
Dear freaking God.
Pull. Your. Shit. Together.
And what shit was that, besides the normal? This is your norm, Luce. Remember?
Right. Only my unique brand of naughty was usually for a guy returning my bedroom thoughts with bedroom eyes from across a crowded bar, not a client in perfectly-fitted Prada, making me this horny just from gazing at his forearms.
“You proposed on a double wedding, Miss Fava.”
And apparently, one able to instantly dunk his velvet voice into a gallon of stiff starch too.
Perhaps a cue well worth taking.
“So that’s all we’re discussing?” I returned—though instantly slapped myself for it. Sheez and crackers, why did I care whether the man had a ring in his pocket for Ambyr Stratiss? They were completely wrong for each other—even after thirty seconds with her and ten minutes with him, I could see that much—but the requirements of his station didn’t have a thing to do with what I thought or felt.
“Yes.” Barely a beat went by before his retort. “No,” he muttered a second later, followed by something in guttural Arcadian as he pushed from the window with a fluid motion. But the supreme control of his body couldn’t mask the tension in his energy. If this was an old-school sci-fi flick and he had a perceptible aura, it’d be smoky red from all his frustration. “I—I do not know.” He tapped both sets of long fingers atop his desk.
I wrestled for how to answer that. Part of me longed to lob a pillow from the couch at him. Time was money, and I’d crossed a major ocean and seven time zones getting my ass here. “I do not know” wasn’t an acceptable answer at this point.
But there was another part of me here.
The part that felt his conflict, right along with him.
Because nobody, not even a royal prince with wicked business acumen, wanted to marry a person they had no feelings for.
But maybe jetlag had really fucked with my radar on this one. Maybe he was into her. Maybe he’d been relieved by Ambyr’s departure so he could focus on work instead of bonking her on the cool, curvy desk. Good explanation for her smug exit and his tousled hair.
On just like that, I went inner voyeur on his ass. Envisioned the two of them going at it, on top of his neat file stacks, next to his gleaming pens…
No.
Just no, no, and no.
“Gah,” I pushed through clenched teeth. Had to openly confront my envy, likely shared by half the women on this island, when thinking of that woman with Shiraz’s mane in her fingers, name on her lips, and body between her legs…
“Gah?”
“Just an expression,” I managed, throwing up a dismissive hand. The move was as much for my benefit as his. It was time to face several simple but shitty truths.
One: something—all right, many things—about Shiraz Cimarron flipped my damn switches.
Two: it was up to me to slam them back off.
