Page 18 of Royally Ruined

Of course, he’s got to be cold in just his towel!Standing up so fast it left me disoriented, I said, “I’m sorry! I keep forgetting we’re in the same boat with no clean clothes. Here, take this back, you need it more than I do.” I started to tug the jacket zipper down.

Like an unexpected flood ready to drown and destroy, he was on me. He swept up my wrists in hands that were still warm from the shower. “It’s fine,” he said, his voice oddly rattled. “Keep it on. I don’t need it.”

Too many fuzzy emotions were ruling my body. Costello made my senses explode ... my brain melt. Everything in me was screaming to justget awayfrom him before I did something stupid.

“Really,” I said, fighting him—trying to rip the jacket off. “You should have it!”

“Slow down.” His strong hands gripped me tighter. “You have nothing else to wear!”

“I’ll wrap myself in a sheet!” I grunted, struggling to pull down the zipper while he kept tugging it up my neck. “Just—let me—ah!” I’d pulled us off balance. Together we landed on the mattress, his weight solid on top of me.

His muscles flexed, but he didn’t budge. I was probably shaking the whole motel with my anxiety. Could he feel my pulse? I was positive he could. But what finally got through my cotton-strangled brain ...

Was how I could feelhispulse.

It moved through his arms to where his palms were cupping my shoulders. His breath was short and sharp where it was drying my damp hair. The blue in Costello’s eyes had become the color of vodka in a frosted glass. Chilly on the surface ... scorching in the center. “I’m telling you,” he said thickly, “I don’t need it. I’m plenty warm.”

I came close to spilling one of my many secrets:I am, too.

He glanced down at where the zipper had split apart. The tops of my breasts heaved in plain sight, nearly touching his naked chest. “How funny,” he said, quieter than before. “Earlier tonight I was trying to strip you. Now you’re desperate to get yourself naked in front of me.”

He didn’t need to reference earlier ... I was already reliving it. I’d witnessed this hunger in his stare when I’d dared him with my brazen ass-to-dick grind attack. At that time Thorne had intervened. Who would stop us now?

The Costello I’d seen from a distance had always been so serious. A buttoned-up man who never lingered, never gave me a second look. The oldest son of the Badds had been a man with nothing but business in his heart.

And I’d gone and undone all of that.

- CHAPTER SIX -

COSTELLO

There was nothing between this rarity of a woman and me but a towel and some thin fabric. How I was acting with Scotch was entirely foreign to me.

I was aching to fuck her.

And I wanted to do anythingbut.

Shivering, I studied how the shadow I cast on her played over the freckles on her nose. Scotch was beautiful ... clearly not easy to forget, considering several people remembered her from the club tonight. I knew almost nothing about her, but I did know one very important fact: I’d told her everything would be okay.

Sleeping with her would be the opposite of okay. Creating any more of a connection between Scotch and myself would put her in even worse danger.

But fuck it ... I almost don’t care.Her collarbones rose when she sucked in air; I saw the slightly uneven row of her bottom teeth, the indent in her bottom lip. Would she be a rough kisser or a soft one?

“Costello,” she whispered, and my name from her tempting mouth was as good as her palm stroking my painfully hard cock. She was more of a turn-on wearing my jacket than if she’d been straight-up naked. It reminded me that she could be mine. I could take her here, now, making her scream for me through the drywall so every person in the motel would hear.

My hands slid down her arms, the leather that should have been familiar to me feeling like it belonged in another world. “I need you to listen to me very closely,” I began.

Scotch swallowed air; it made her neck dip, her breasts rise, and my stomach knot. “Yeah?”

I sat up. “Keep the jacket.”

“What?” I moved into the bathroom and clicked off the light. The room was doused in navy black.If I can’t see her, I can hold back.But my senses were strong—I could smell her as I got close to the bed again, my ears ringing with her quick breaths. “We’ll get new clothes before we leave for Vermont,” I said.

The bedsprings squeaked. “Oh.”

Oh oh oh.It was too easy to picture her moaning that in a loop. Intentionally hard—in the hope the pain would knock sense into me—I dropped onto the floor between the bed and the door. “Toss me a pillow.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

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