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A Royal Without Rules
Caitlin Crews
Pato didn’t know he meant to move. He shouldn’t have. But one moment he was on the couch and the next he was looming over her, swivelling her chair around and leaning over her, into her, planting his hands on the armrests and caging her between his arms. Risking everything, and he didn’t care.
“I never said I didn’t want you,” he growled down at her.
Pato felt unhinged and unpredictable, capable of anything. Especially a mistake of this magnitude—but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Adriana still smelled of jasmine and her eyes were that rich, deep brown, and he didn’t have it in him to fight off this madness any longer.
“I told you I wouldn’t forget,” he said, intent and hungry, “and I haven’t. I remember the noises you made in the back of your throat when I kissed you, when you rubbed against me like silk, hot and—”
“Please!” Her voice was low. Uncertain. “Stop.”
“What do you want, Adriana? That’s tonight’s question.”
He leaned in closer, so he could hear the tiny hitch in her breath, and so he could find the pulse in her neck that was drumming madly, giving her away, and tease it with his tongue.
She whispered something that came out more a moan, and he smiled against the delicate column of her throat. Her skin smelled of his favorite flowers and her hair smelled of holidays in the sun, and he wanted to be deep inside her more than he wanted his next breath.
“And when I talk about want, I don’t mean something tame,” he said, a growl against the side of her neck, directly into her satiny skin, so he could feel her tremble against his lips. “I mean hunger. Undeniable, unquenchable hunger. Not because you’re drunk. Not because you want to martyr yourself to your great unrequited love. Hunger, Adriana. What do you want? What are you hungry for?”
“Please…” she whispered, desperation thick in her voice. She was right there on the edge, right where he wanted her.
He could feel it. He felt it flood through him, dark and thrilling and scorchingly hot.
“I don’t think you love him, Adriana,” he told her then, and she let out a small sound of distress. “Not really. I know you’re not hungry for him. Not like this.”
She trembled. She shook. But she didn’t argue.
“I asked you a question,” he urged her, his mouth at her jaw. “If it helps, I already know the answer. All you have to do is admit it.”
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