“Because?”
“I’ll try to drown you.”
He tilted his head. “Is that so?”
“Definitely.”
Kelevra nodded once. “Are you that angry with me?”
“I’m furious with you,” he corrected.
“Because I set you up? Let everyone spread those awful rumors about how you can’t please me and I’m already sick of you?”
“Sure,” he shrugged, “that was shitty.”
Kel’s gaze sharpened, clearly catching something either in Rin’s tone or from his body. “That’s not the reason you may try to drown me.”
“Not try,” he corrected, “I don’t do anything in half measures. If I go to drown you, Imperial Prince, I will. But no. It was shitty, but as my annoying asshole of a brother has pointed out already, it was also clever. Clever is sexy.”
“Is it?” Kelevra obviously hadn’t anticipated that response, but he seemed pleased.
For some inexplicable reason, that pissed Rin off even more.
Before the other guy could react, Rin shoved him, hard enough to send him stumbling back. Kelevra knocked into the banister, but Rin followed, grabbing onto his hips to roughly drag him back, grinding against him at the same moment as he sealed their mouths together.
Rin moaned at the first taste of Kelevra’s tongue, rich, with a hint of alcohol. His hands left his waist to dive into his curly hair, all those silky strands making him crazy with want. There was something so impossibly sexy about the Imperial’s contrasting hard edges and soft accents. His hair, the velvet of his outfit, his ass…
Kelevra’s teeth nipped into him then, hard enough to draw blood and Rin gasped and pulled away.
He brought a finger to his bottom lip, drawing it away with a spot of red. “Ouch.”
Kel laughed. “Did you really just say that?Ouch?”
“It stung!”
“Oh, sweetheart, that’s the least painful thing I’ve done to you yet, andnowyou’re complaining?”
Rin frowned. “Haven’t I been this whole time?”
Kelevra sighed. “This won’t do. You’re way too drunk. It’ll be no fun if you can’t remember it in the morning.”
“Remember what?”
“All the things I’m going to do to you.” Kel’s expression altered, but Rin couldn’t place it in his current state. “Up for one last game tonight?”
“I’m not taking any pills,” he stated firmly. With his luck, he’d end up choosing wrong and spilling all their secrets. Then his brother would make good on all those threats and Rin would lose—
What would he lose? Had he really been about to think about losing Kelevra?
“Another drink then,” Kel conceded easily enough, but when Rin nodded and went to take the stairs up to the other level, he stopped him. “No, this way.”
He took Rin’s hand, and even though he thought he should pull away, Rin let him, eyes locked on their linked fingers as if in a trance as they walked beneath an archway leading into the living room. From the outside, the wall of windows in here had been blacked out as well, but inside he could see the patio and the pool crystal clear.
Kelevra left him standing in the middle of the beige carpet, staring out at the city skyline, and went to a small bar caddy set behind one of the three large couches. The sound of clanking ice and liquid being poured came, and then he was back, offering a glass to Rin.
Rin glanced at the identical glass Kel lifted to his own lips. As soon as the Imperial Prince sipped and gave him a challenging smirk, he rolled his eyes. He downed his drink in one go, coughing at the slight burn.
“What the—” He abruptly stopped talking, the room seemingly spinning even more than it had been a moment ago. When his legs started to lose sensation, he realized what was going on. A whole slew of insults came to mind, but he couldn’t get his tongue to work, and he ended up falling before he was able to get a single one past his lips.
