Unable to stop myself, I grip his waist and tug him toward me, gasping into his mouth when I feel the ridge of his thick cock against my hip. It’s bold, but I grab his hand and press his palm to my own erection, needing him to feel how much I want this. How much I wanthim.
He traces the outline of my cock, from my throbbing head to my tightening balls, squeezing me through my trousers until I exhale a sob of pleasure. With our mouths still connected, I flip him over, using the weight of my body to press him into the cushions. He spreads his legs to welcome me and whimpers when I rub my cock against his. I swear to the gods, that whimper is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
I grip his hands and drag them over his head, deepening our kiss. When I pull back a little, he catches my mouth with his, keeping me from getting too far.
“Colden,” he whispers, arching his hips toward mine, pressing his hardness against me once again. “Please,” he says, grinding. “I’m begging you.”
Please.Gods, that one word undoes me.
Everything changes again, and for the final time, because as we kiss, I feel myself being absorbed, feel my mind and body becoming lost to the wonder and mystery of this man. There’s a neediness inside me that wants to crawl inside the prince and never come out. Because he justfeelsright. Liketheseare the lips I’m meant to kiss. Likethisis the body I’m meant to hold. Likehisis the heart I’m meant to know better than any other. It’s overwhelming and soul-rattling to feel all this for someone whose name I don’t even know.
Finally, I free his hands and draw away, groaning as he sucks my lower lip, only letting go when I’m hovered above him.
“Tell me your name.” My voice is ragged. Breathy. “Tell me what I can call you. I’ll speak it only to you. Only tonight if that’s what you wish.” I lean down and kiss him again, threading my fingers with his. “I want your name on my tongue.”
He stares up at me with those beautiful hazel eyes, but I swear they darken, that a shadow of sudden horror passes over them. He starts to speak but says nothing, as though he can’t. He seems confused, gaze darting, like he heard something that shook him, enough that the heat between us grows exquisitely cold.
And just like that, I feel shut out, as though he’s emptied his mind of me.
Like a startled animal, he pushes me away and scurries out from beneath me. I watch him half-stumble to the balustrade, catching himself with his hands pressed to the stone railing. His back expands and falls several times with deep breaths, and he rakes those long fingers through that raven hair over and over.
When he finally faces me, his lips are still wet and swollen, his clothes rumpled, his hair tousled, and I just want him to come back to me, to let me take him the way I know he desires. I open my mouth to call to him, but I’m quickly reminded that I still don’t have his name.
“This went too far.” He scrubs his fingers over his mouth, as if to scrub away our kiss. “I’m sorry, Colden. I shouldn’t have?—”
“Yes, you fucking wellshouldhave.” I crawl off the lounger and stand on weak legs, my heart still pounding, my cock still hard. “Youknowyou should have.” He stiffens when I come toward him, so I stop, hating that this is the turn things have taken. “I don’t understand. That was nothing short of amazing. What was to come would surely have been even better. Yet you act like I tossed a cold bucket of water in your face, all by simply asking for your name. Is it so terrible, your name? So awful that sharing it with me will make me want you less? Because I can assure you that wouldn’t be the case.”
He takes another deep breath. Lets it out. “It wasn’t that. I simply realized that you are the king of the North, and I am the prince of the East, and the last thing we need to do is…is…”
“Fuck?” I supply, taking a step closer. “Or make love?” I ask in a softer tone.
Because that’s where things were headed. I know because I’m quite comfortable with mindless, heartless, passionlessfucking. And what we were about to do was not that. It was something more. Something special. Something wonderful. I can’t believe I can even entertain that idea, that I could make love to a man I hardly know, but it’s true.
He holds up a hand. “Stop. Stop everything. I lost my head tonight, that’s all. I’m very sorry, but it’s best if we just pretend this never happened.”
I rest my hands on my hips, incapable of doing anything but staring at him, openly affronted. “It didn’t have to end this way. No matter what our titles read. However, if you can walk away from that—” I gesture to the lounger “—so easily, then perhaps it really is for the best that we go our separate ways. Because I deserve better than to be with someone who makes me feel forgettable.”
“Colden!” he calls as I turn to go.
But I don’t turn around. I keep walking until I’m in the stairwell on my floor.
Then alone in my bedchambers. Only once I’m in seclusion do I let out my frustration, punching the helpless new mattress until my arm muscles burn from the effort.
Finally, I fall back on the bed, despising the way I feel. Rejected. Unwanted. Unloved. It’s stupid, really, that a man who hides his identity from the world could make me feel this way afteronekiss. That he could make me feel anything at all.
I strip off my clothes, scrub the scent of him from my skin and his taste from my mouth, and then I climb into bed and stare at the canopy, one word repeating in my head.
Temporary. This is onlytemporary.
The want. The ache. The hurt.
All of it.
Temporary.
5
COLDEN
