Miles made no complaint, just held out his hand to her. “It was lovely to meet you, and I’m sorry, again, for you having to see Mat’s ass.”
“Hey!”
“Thank you,” Katie said, ignoring me to take his proffered hand like she was desperately in need of the emotional support. “It was a trying moment, but I think with a great deal of therapy, I will, perhaps, survive.”
I folded my arms. “Well fuck you very much, both of you. My arse and I will just stay here, shall we?”
“Oh, no you don’t. Out!”
Laughing, she slammed the door behind us, and as I stepped out into the corridor, Miles swept me up in one arm. “Looks like you’re coming with me, Princess.”
“Princess?”
He smothered my protest with his mouth, pressing me gently back against the wall with the softest of kisses. The sort that mademy heart race and my knees weak. “What’s wrong with Princess?” he murmured between them. “Seems like you’ve been thrown out and are in need of rescuing.”
The way his extra height forced me to look up was thoroughly unfair. As unfair as his smile and his soft cologne and his damn beautiful hands. They cupped my face, and by god did I want to drown in him.
“Yeah,” I said, lifting my chin for more. “I guess I am.”
Eleven
I WOKE TO the vague wrongness of being somewhere new, a sense compounded by the smell of flowers. Blinking tired eyes, I turned to find Miles asleep beside me, a hand raised over his head exposing the soft skin beneath his arm and a sprout of hair much darker than what lay on the pillow. In the half-light, he was all softness and shadows but for the sharp line of his jaw and the faintest of frowns, like his dreams had presented him with a problem.
But I was the one with the problem. He hadn’t invited me to stay. We hadn’t talked about it at all, hadn’t planned; planning something that required thinking about what we were doing.
Not thinking was far easier.
We’d barely made it inside the door the previous night before Miles had dropped to his knees. There had been nothing playful in how he’d sucked me off this time. He’d worked hard and fast like the whole evening had been foreplay and he needed thisnow, and I’d threaded my fingers into his hair and watched him like I’d stepped into a dream. I had pushed him onto the bed to return the favour, but slowly, taking my time finding out what made him gaspand grip the bedcovers, what made him moan and swear and curse my name.
In the aftermath, we’d lain together sated and exhausted, and my plan to creep back to my own bed had slipped away as my eyelids drooped. Now, I had to escape before he woke and found me where I had no business to be.
Hopefully, he was a heavy sleeper.
I shifted onto one elbow. Miles didn’t stir. With the warmth of the night, he had pushed the covers down as he slept, low enough that not only was the full expanse of his chest on display, but also the jut of one hipbone. The urge to dance my fingers over his soft, sensitive skin was almost too much, and I crushed my hands into fists and looked away. Away from skin I wanted to kiss. Away from his long legs stretching in elegant lines beneath the sheets.
“Jesus fuck,” I hissed beneath my breath. I needed to get out of there before I embarrassed myself.
Entirely naked, I shuffled down the bed and slid both feet onto the floor. I couldn’t remember where I’d left my clothes.
“Are you running away?” he murmured as I crept toward the bedroom door.
I froze and looked back, the sight of him blinking sleepily at me too painfully adorable. “Tip-toeing hardly counts as running,” I pointed out. “But yes, I was trying not to wake you. I meant to leave last night, but I fell asleep. Sorry.”
“Idiot,” he said, and lunged out to grab my wrist, pulling me back against the bed. As my legs hit the edge, I overbalanced onto him, a thoroughly undignified act even without being completely naked. “That’s better, Princess,” he added, catching me in a flutter of white cotton sheets.
“Quit calling me that!”
“No, I don’t think I will.” He hunched over to kiss me, the loose ends of his hair tickling my cheek. “I like it. Suits you.”
“Fuck you!” I laughed and tried to struggle free, but I was like a beetle on my back and before I could get any purchase, he manhandled me onto the bed. Holding himself over me with a hand either side of my shoulders, he bent to kiss me – a series of light pecks that pulled at my lips only to deepen into long, slow kisses as he brushed hair back from my brow. There was no heat, he just pressed me into the pillow and slid his tongue along mine like he could keep doing it all day. Part of me wanted him to. The same part that wanted to throw my arms around his neck and hold him there. The part that wanted him to keep calling me Princess. A dangerous, stupid part I couldn’t let him see because I was just his convenient fuck.
“You should stay,” he said, pulling away enough to murmur those words against my lips. “We don’t need to go anywhere today.”
“You don’t, but I already put Danny off, remember?”
“Forget about Danny,” Miles groaned and planted another kiss on my lips, his hair hanging around his face like a gold-threaded halo. “Just be mine today.”
His gaze was so appealing, his voice so soft, his words a simple plea that made my heart thud in my throat. It was all because he was still half asleep, I knew, but I’d drawn a sharp little breath before I could stop myself.
